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Published: November 5th 2012
We arrived in Bogota, Colombia, at the almost new International Airport, on 31st October 2012. It had been a long day of travel from Manchester Airport in the UK to Frankfurt in Germany and then an 11 hour flight to Bogota on Lufthansa.
Val and myself were a little breathless initially because of the high altitude. Bogota is 2,600m above sea level.
We are staying at the beautiful spacious home of Hernando, Betty and their son David.
It is in a rural area near Cajica about 20km North of Bogota City. I worked with Hernando in the Seychelles and we became friends.
In the first few days we explored Bogota city and the surrounding area.
Betty showed us the tomato farm she manages and we had an opportunity to taste the product at an Italian restaurant she supplies - very tasty!
Bogota is a large sprawling city with transportation issues. There is so much traffic it is difficult to get from A to B. There are special bus lanes to help and cars are restricted on the days they can use the roads based on number plate details.
There are numerous pot holes that
salt cathedral
inside the cathedral, the giant crossneed to be carefully negotiated! I plan to run for election with a promise to fix all the potholes. I am sure I would win a large percentage of the votes!
The highlights of Bogota City were the Gold Museum and the cable car up the mountain.
The gold museum was one of the best I have visited - it was really amazing to hear the story of gold in South America and to see all the incredible artefacts on display. The cable car trip gave the opportunity to see marvellous views of the surrounding mountains and the city.
Our next trip was to the Cathedral of Salt at Zipaquira. This was a unique place where an enormous cathedral had been made out of part of the salt mine caverns. The salt had been formed around 135 million years ago when the area was under the sea. When the mountains were formed a large area of salt was trapped.
The cathedral was very atmospheric and it was an awesome experience.
Afterwards we travelled up into the Andes to a huge lake. We found a nice restaurant with panoramic views of the lake and surrounding mountains
Andes
typical panoramic view where we could eat outside and enjoy the hot sunshine.
Hernando enjoys driving and especially the mountain roads so we had another day out in the Andes. This time we visited Boyaca where there is a famous bridge. At this site the Colombians defeated the Spanish and this battle led to independance for Colombia.
At a nearby fossil museum we saw the fossilised remains of a giant marine mammal a Cronosaurus that was 105 million years old.
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Michelle Cavanagh
non-member comment
Re-visiting Bogota!
Well, it's a bit of a re-visit for me so it's great to see that you are now both in Bogota and enjoying it, warts and all! I wait with bated breath to see where you are off to next. Enjoy! M xx