Bogota - 20-21 Feb 2014

---

Thursday 20^th February (Odyssey Day 104)







Since the drive today was long, we left camp at 0700. So we got to see the dawn this morning, even if the sunrise itself was out of sight behind the clouds. I had the front seat today, which means I fell asleep along the front bench as soon as we got out of town. I hadn’t even realised I was tired!







We stopped and started quite a lot as there seemed to be a lot of areas of roadwork along the way. But at least the road is a properly paved one. Looking out the windows you can quite often see a military presence just off the road but we were not stopped at all.







We arrived into Bogota after dark this evening. From what we could see driving in, it is a very large city and didn’t seem particularly aesthetic. I guess we will just have to wait until tomorrow to see what it looks like in the light of day.







When we parked to unload the truck, we had curious locals stopping to ask questions and watch us. Friendly or not, we all kept extra vigilant about our luggage here. We might give people the benefit of the doubt, but we aren’t stupid. Bogota is a big city with a bad reputation and it would be foolish to take any chances with either our belongings or ourselves.







The hotel was decent enough and the rooms were huge. When I first walked into the room I would share with Joanna, in the dark I thought there was a huge mirror on the far wall. Once we found the light switch though (which was oddly on the opposite side of the wall to where the door was) I discovered that the room was twice the size expected and had nice large beds. It wasn’t quite warm enough here to relish the cold shower I got though.















Friday 21^st February (Odyssey Day 105)







Going downstairs today, I stopped at the desk and the first thing they said to me was ‘ducha fria?’ I must have looked cold this morning. As it turned out, there was a trick to getting hot water from the shower which they hadn’t mentioned last night, something I will make use of next time.







My free day in Bogota was spent mainly seeing the city from a taxi. There hadn’t been anything in particular that I wanted to see, so I went with Joanna to the bus station to organise her ticket to Santa Marta. She is heading off tonight to board an 18-hour bus to Santa Marta and then do a ‘lost city’ trek, meeting back up with the group in Barranquilla.







We took a taxi through the city to the bus station and I can tell you the city is certainly big - as is the bus station. We did eventually find the right place to get Joanna’s ticket though and then stopped for some divine donuts and coffee. Those donuts by themselves made the hassles of making our way around the bus station well worth it!







Getting a taxi back was a bit more interesting as it turned out to be one of those taxi ranks were you organise the ticket inside, get a slip of paper and a price, then go out to the first taxi in the rank and give them a copy of your slip before getting in and heading out. It’s much more work than just flagging one down, but also a lot safer as then the taxis are all regulated and your journey is recorded on their system.







We then spent some time in the afternoon walking around the area of the city near our hotel and carefully not getting run over by the cars and huge 3-carriage buses.







I will remember Bogota as the ‘taxi place’ because seriously – once it was getting dark, every place you stopped offered to call a taxi for you to get home. ‘Don’t walk after dark’, ‘it’s not safe here at night’, ‘get a taxi even if you’re not going far’. These were the comments we got and so we dutifully stayed on the main roads near the hotel, had dinner around the corner and never got too far from the areas where there was a decent police presence. I don’t know if it really was a more dangerous city to visit or if the locals were just overly cautious of their tourists, but truthfully I felt perfectly safe there and nothing bad happened at all. Some of that is likely because we received so many warnings that we were extra careful anyway, even if we didn’t consciously realise it.

---

Photos

Travel Day
Catching up on some sleep

Bogota
Driving through the outskirts of the city

Bogota
A change of scenery

Bogota Hotel
Lots of room in this hotel

Bogota
Some really long buses

Bogota
A good meal - food is cheaper in Colombia, but no one seems to know what 'vegetables' are