BREATHLESS IN BOGOTA
After the heat and sun of Cartagena, the cold and rain of Bogota was a bit of a shock to the system. This wasn't what we signed up to! Other than a few days looking at glaciers in the south of Chile, we were expecting eight months of long hot summer weather on our trip, not wintery drizzle more like London (cue smirks and cheers from previously jealous friends and family back home!). Apart from the cold, the other thing that hit us on arrival was the feeling that someone was standing on our chests the whole time. As we shuffled around the city puffing and wheezing like an old couple having to stop every five minutes for a sit down and a nice cup of coffee, we realised that flying straight from sea level to 2650m probably wasn't one of our smartest ideas. Just wait until we get to Cuzco and Machu Pichu, we thought (and coughed)…
Despite all of that, we really like Bogota and have been chilling out in a great hostel and generally exploring the city. Bogota is a pretty modern, sophisticated city with really charming people (as Londoners we're a bit taken aback by how friendly people are as we're from a city where you expect people to scowl rather than smile at you in shops and bars, and where the idea of customer service often seems to be a thing of the past - but not here).
We spent five days in Bogota (often with our new Bogota buddy Alex, a fellow traveller from England) so had plenty of time to explore the city (to be honest we needed it given our lack of breath for the first few days). We wandered around the streets of the old town including Plaza Bolivar (popular chap with statues everywhere you go in Colombia), the Museo Nacional, dodging the Robocop-style riot police who one day moved into the city looking for some action, lots of impressive churches full of people celebrating mass even at 11.30am on a Tuesday and an ultimately fruitless search to find the Gold Museum. This was listed in the guide book as one of the 'must-sees' (one of the 'can't sees', as it turned out) with an impressive display of ancient gold recovered from the whole of Colombia. We knew that the museum itself was being renovated but everyone we spoke to said that the gold was being exhibited temporarily in various different museums and libraries. So we amused ourselves by going on a treasure hunt lasting several days (where's Anneka Rice when you need her?) until we were finally told that the new museum would be opening in November so the gold was not on view anywhere boo…
The treasure hunt did mean that we got to see the Botero museum, a gallery full of paintings of fat people, fat dogs, fat horses and fat fruit and vegetables - oh, and some fat statues too. Those of you in London who are interested in Fernando Botero can see one of his naked fatties in Exchange Square. We actually quite liked his paintings in a weird way, particularly the fat Mona Lisa (no, really!).
Another thing we read in the guide book was that you see groups of blokes standing on street corners selling emeralds. Yeah right, we thought, typical guide books trying to make a place sound more exotic than it really it is (like seeing City-types in London wearing bowler hats and pin-stripe suits). Well, it's true, Bogota is the place to come for emeralds. Sadly our tight travel budget meant that Emma left town without that attractive emerald necklace which they were trying to flog us.
One day we took a day trip out to Zapaquira where an incredible salt cathedral has been built deep inside a salt mine (we didn't even know that salt was mined, let alone that they built cathedrals inside them, but anyway). We had a guided tour to see the stations of the cross, nave and altar which was all very dark but really stunning. A quick word of thanks to Seb for putting us in touch with his mate Nick whose parents live in Bogota and who gave us our first cup of Colombian coffee and lots of tips on where to go and what to eat. Nick's Dad, Anthony, kindly offered to drive us to the salt cathedral and helped make our stay in Bogota even more enjoyable.
One thing Nick's Mum recommended was the local speciality of 'chocolate con queso' which, as the name suggests, is chocolate with cheese. We went to a cosy café, which also served delicious chicken, veg and potato steamed in banana leaves, and tucked in warily to our chocolate into which we sprinkled a block of cheese…and, expecting to discover some kind of chocolatey/cheesy fondue taste sensation, found that it tasted…erm...just like lumps of cheese at the bottom of a hot chocolate. Anthony was right to refuse to ever try it.
As if the altitude wasn't enough in the city, we thought it would be a good idea to go up even higher to see the views from the top of Montserrate, the mountain which dominates Bogota. So, one day, when the clouds cleared and the sun came out, we took a cable car up and the views of the sprawling city, spreading as far as the eye could see, were incredible. That, along with a night out a Cuban club with a live salsa band, was definitely one of the highlights of this part of the trip.
Next stop Lima, followed by Cuzco and the Inca Trail…
Oh, and the beard is coming along pretty well too… Thanks very much to everyone for your emails and messages - keep sending them, we love to hear from you even if we're slow to respond. Also big apologies if you keep receiving spam emails from Emma's hotmail. Some nasty bug has invaded her hotmail and deleted all her contacts and keeps sending out random emails, which is a real pain, so sorry for the annoyance.