The night bus to Bogota was uneventful, it actually arrived on time which was not good as that meant we arrived at 5:30! However by the time we got through traffic in Bogota in the coach and in the taxi it was already 9am before we got to the hostel.

We tried checking in but Dan had mistakenly booked beds for exactly one month in front of what we wanted! The manager was so nice and let us pay for a ten bed dorm but put us in a 6 bed dorm because the 10 bed was full. She also let us have breakfast for free even though we weren't supposed to have it.

At 10:30 we went on a free tour run by the tourist office and it was actually free not just free but you give tips. It was only an hour so we didn't walk very far, but the guy did tell us about how each note in the currency has a story and how you can bend them to make other shapes hidden in the notes. One story was of a famous Colombian poet that was in love with his sister! Gross, we couldn't figure out why you would put someone incestuous on your notes!

After this we went to the gold museum that was also famous in Bogota. First it had about the science of gold and other metals and where they are found in Colombia. Next was all the lovely gold pieces that the native people made before they were colonised. There were loads of jewelry and piercings that chiefs wore. There was also loads of ornamental prices mostly of animals that people prayed to. They were very intricately carved in the gold, and the process they used has now been lost which is crazy!

We were absolutely knackered and just wandered around the old city before going back and figuring out what we were going to do with the rest of our time in Colombia, as we needed to get to Cartagena quickly to get a boat across to Panama.

We decided to get a night bus to Salento the next day so this gave us another day in the capital. We used it by going to visit a salt cathedral. A cathedral that was made in an underground salt mine. It took quite a while to get there as it was out of town and hard to find! Once we were there we had to pay over £7 to get in which was outrageous and completely not worth it. The man told us there was an English guide in 8 minutes so we waited but then after 8 minutes he said that there wasn't one for another 2 hours?! So we had to wander round without a guide that was actually included in our ticket price. The cathedral started out with the stations of the cross and each one just had a picture of a plain cross carved out of salt. Really not imaginative in anyway. Then we came to the big main part of the cathedral which was massive! We the went to go see a 3d show that was surprisingly good. It started from how the salt mountain started out from the time of the dinosaurs, then it showed the different ways it has been mined up to modern times which is still going on today. We can't remember how much salt they actually got out of the mountain so far but it was at least millions of tons worth!

We then went to go see the sound and light show which was just bizarre! It started out with rave music and lights on the ceiling with different colours and making out lots of different shapes, like flowers and people. It had nothing to do with salt or the cathedral and we left the place feeling thoroughly disappointed and annoyed we had spent so much money on something so rubbish!

We went back to Bogota and got our stuff to get a night bus to Armenia to go onwards to the coffee region.