The begining of exploring Colombia - it's beautiful!

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Hello from Colombia.



We have made our way up to Colombia, a country in the North of South America. We spent 4 nights in the capital city called Bogota. The city is built 2600 meters above sea level, this means that it can give some people altitude sickness (dizziness, tiredness and feeling sick) because it is so high. For this reason we decided to spend a few days there to get used to the height as we were tired a lot of the time and walking up hills was making us more puffed than usual!!!

Once we felt better again, we decided to walk around La Candelaria, the old town of Bogota which had many beautiful buildings in. We also walked along a main high street which could have been in London! In one road, in the space of walking for 5 minutes we passed 3 McDonalds and 1 Wimpy. We were a bit disappointed that a country so far away had been affected by the Western world. It was not all bad though as there were traditional stalls and restaurants where we could get our food. One of our favourite street foods were called Empanadas, which are chicken or egg, mixed with rice and covered in batter. They don’t sound very nice but they were. They were also very cheap. We had 2 drinks and 2 Empanadas for £1.50.

Whilst we were in Bogota, we visited two tourist attractions, a Museum full of gold dating back thousands of years to the Inca period. The gold was turned into masks, headdresses, earrings, nose rings and lots of other regalia that Chieftains wore many years ago. It was amazing to see how well the gold pieces had survived.

We also went to the top of Cerro de Monserrate, a hill 3200m high. We got a train to the top. At the top there was a large church and an amazing view over Bogota. We were also lucky enough to see a booted racket-tail hummingbird which was a real treat.

From Bogota we caught a bus to San Gil (7 hours north of Bogota). The journey was interesting and the scenery was beautiful. Bogota hadn’t felt like a Colombia town as it felt just like any other big city, but as soon as we left, we saw the real Colombia. Old men carrying firewood on their backs, donkeys carrying bundles of sugar cane, women working in the fields, tree covered mountains stretching into the distance as far as we could see and lots of fruit shacks on the side of the road.

We are now in San Gil which is a little Colombian town. It is perfect. Little cobbled streets, a main square, veg markets, motorbikes zooming around and really friendly people who are always wanting to help us and make us feel very welcome. It is a center for outdoor sports, so we treated ourselves to a day whitewater rafting. It was amazing fun; we laughed and smiled all the way down the grade 4 and 5 rapids, and luckily, didn’t fall out once. We went with 2 local guides which meant the fun we had provided them with a job!! A win win situation.

We also visited a little town 20 minutes from San Gil called Curiti and whilst there found a local swimming spot (a river with a few rapids and some lagoons). It was heaving with families as the children are currently on their half term holiday. That is one thing we have noticed, Colombia is a very family orientated place. We even saw a mum, dad and child all squashed onto a scooter with no helmets on, not very safe at all.

Whilst we have been here, we have found out that lots of people who live in Colombia don’t get paid very much in their jobs; they get about £140.00 a month. This has to pay for everything! A house, food, health insurance (as everyone is meant to buy their own), clothes and everything else you can think of. If you imagine there is a family of 5 living off this wage, you can see how it makes it very difficult to survive. Also, lots of people don’t have jobs, so they sort through the rubbish in bins so that they can collect anything made from recyclable materials. Once they have a full sack, they can then take them and get a little bit of money for them.

There are lots of children working on stalls and helping parents with their jobs. This is because children either go to school from 6am-12am or 12am – 6pm. This way they have a lot of time to help at home. Can you imagine going to school and then going home to work for the rest of the day? I wonder how much time they get to play with their friends and toys.

Anyway, tomorrow we’re heading to Santa Marta. We’ll write soon with the next bit of news.



Take care,

Miss T

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