We had the best night's sleep ever last night, the beds were soo comfy! The hostel is really nice, probably one of the best we've been in so we booked two more nights for the rest of our time in Bogotá. It's in the old town La Candelaria, we spent the morning walking around here and were pleasantly surprised! Most people we had spoken to had preferred Medellin to Bogotá but it was definitely the opposite for us even from first impressions. Around the hostel are lots of small colourful cobblestone streets and old buildings, we found a lovely small bakery and bought a variety of delicious bread and croissants for breakfast. We walked to the main square Plaza Bolívar, which was bustling with people and there was a stage set up for music later on - they were celebrating 475 years of Bogotá! Some of the random things we saw in the square included a man pulling two dogs along in a cart, a boy holding a pigeon and a girl with one on her head, ponies and llamas and all sorts of fancy dress. The city definitely has a lot of character!
We had a quick look around the Museo Casa Quinta de Bolívar, a colonial house and gardens where Simón Bolívar lived, before taking a train to a el Cerro de Monserrate, a church on the hillside which gave stunning views of the whole city. We opted out of walking down and took the cable car instead. There were several cafés and restaurants near the bottom of the hill, we chose one which looked popular and had a delicious lunch. We spent the afternoon going around the gold museum and then the Botero museum (the famous paintings of fat people) we didn't spend long in either but it gave us something to do. As we were walking back to the hostel it started raining heavily - we were lucky that we had clear skies earlier for the view - so we hurried back to the hostel stopping to get arroz con leche on the way (rice pudding with caramel sauce and raisins, for the equivalent of 34p. I had it all the time last year in Trujillo so couldn't resist when we saw it!).
The rain gave us an excuse to relax on the comfy sofas in the hostel for a while before heading out for dinner. We asked for recommendations at the hostel of where to go for the night, they said they have a coach going to a place called Andrés Carne de Res at 9.30pm, they described it as a restaurant bar and club! It cost 55,000 though so we thought we'd just stay locally. We had a cheap dinner in a cafe-restaurant near the hostel which wasn't the best but we got what we paid for. There were a lot of dark looking grungy bars around which we didn't fancy so at 9.20pm we decided to hurry back to the hostel and try and get on the coach, we just made it before it left. The journey was about an hour as the place is in Chia just North of Bogotá, it was a fun journey accompanied by a very talented bar maid who kept our drinks topped up on the bumpy ride without spilling a drop. We started talking to a couple of lads from London who we then stayed with for most of the night. When we arrived at Andrés Carne de Res it was heaving with people, luckily we skipped the queue and went straight in. On first impressions it was a very bizarre, crazy place which we've never seen anything like before - it was a meat restaurant but with loud club music and people were dancing on tables next to others that were eating! It was too busy to find a table at first but we didn't have to wait long and got one outside. The outside area at the back of the restaurant turned into more of a club later on, playing mostly salsa and local music. We got picked up by the same coach at 3am to take us back to the hostel. It was a fun night and we were glad we went, apparently it's one of THE nights you have to experience in Bogotá!