Bogota

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Bogota, Colombia

10 or so hr flight over to Colombia and then a good 2 hrs going through passport control, don´t get many tourists here so was expecting a long wait but got trough really no trouble and got the stamp I was after...

Took a cab from the airport over to our Hotel in North Bogota called Hotel Patio Amarillo, first impression was a bit mixed as excited to finally be there but also saw what people had been going on about as I´d never seen so much police before, they are literally everywhere and all with bi big machine guns, where there are no police there are the military also obviously carrying guns....Arrived at the hotel which was pretty nice and eventually got up to our rooms after using a lot of hand signals and drawing pictures to describe what we wanted....Nobody it would turn out in the country can speak a word of English and the only Spanish I knew at the time was "dos cerveza por favor", this is going to be a struggle.

First night and as we arrived so late decided to just grab a meal and get some kip, it had nothing to do with us being scared to go out at night at all!!

Braved the city during daylight hours and toured the centre, went to museo del oro (gold museum) which was recommended by all the travel guides we had read, supose it was quite impressive held something like 35,000 different pieces of gold found centuries ago....I think that´s what they were on about but the tour was in Spanish so can´t be too sure, all blinged out we decide the best way to explore was to walk the streets of Bogota and get lost...The only way to find stuff in my experience..We were pretty succesful and got really really lost.....Loads of street traders all who swarm around a couple of gringo´s looking a a quick buck, not succesful though as the stuff they were selling was absolute crap, who the hell buys this stuff..Don´t really need a llama made out of old coat hangers thank you very much mate!!

Noticed we were both struggling after a few hrs wandering then realised it was because of the altitude..3000m above sea lea level..That´ll explain it then.

Read about an area called The Zona Rosa, it said in the books it´s where Bogota´s beautiful people drink, still in shock they actually let Gower (my mate) in!!

Zona Rosa was amazing and they where not wrong about the beauties, we both agreed we had never seen anything like it and literally every girl who walked into a pub was an absolute stunner...Still massive police presence and sniffer dogs everywhere also ecurity guards on every door with metal detectors...The locals call this place "Locombia" ...The Mad Country...

Next day we´d seen enough of Bogota really as it´s just like any other major city in the world, people trying to rip you off, bit dirty and loads of smog.

Booked a flight for the next day to Cartagena.

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