With the constant bouts of sickness that Anne and I had encountered over the past few weeks, to say it had taken its toll on us would be an understatement. We'd realised that our bodies were simply getting battered by all the rigours that come with overland travel and despite us wanting to achieve a similar feat to our 'Manchester to Singapore' leg, sometimes you just have to call it quits.

Therefore, it was decided with heavy hearts that after we complete the Inca Trail, we'll fly to Colombia to see both Bogota and Cartagena, and then perhaps have a bit of downtime in Caribbean before heading back to Europe.

There were a few other deciding factors that helped us reach this conclusion: I am attempting to set up a company and naively thought I could juggle it with travelling when I evidently can't; also, Anne and I have sort-of got to the point in our life where our nesting instincts are kicking in a bit. We had left in our mid-late 20s and were young, free spirits; but now in our late 20s / early 30s, something just changed in us and we didn't want to delay starting a home together any more.

So, for the first time since arriving in Santiago de Chile over two months before, we embarked on a flight from Cusco to Lima, and then switched onto Bogota.

Funnily enough, I thought there would be some feeling of regret that we had broken our overland vows, but if I'm being truthful, we were simply just happy to get where we were going in the most efficient way, and not have to endure days of navigating through potholed roads.

The flights were textbook, and aside from waiting for a longer-than-usual amount of time for our bags, we arrived in Bogota without any hitches.

Our hostel had offered a pick-up service and so we met Raul, the Cuban taxi-driver, just outside of the terminal and he took us through a number of affluent suburbs and then meandered around some rough ghetto-style neighbourhoods - such disparities in what was just a few blocks apart.

Our hostel was a bit s***, to put it bluntly. The French Canadian lady that ran the place was pleasant enough and gave us the low-down on the safe and unsafe areas to walk through, and the other usual information on scams and muggers et al. However, it was evident that she was completely short-staffed and didn't seem to have much nous on running a hostel, so things were definitely lacking.

One other thing that completely makes a hostel is the atmosphere. It's partly down to the hostel to generate this themselves - like the free wine hour that we wrote about in Mendoza for example - but it does also need the right type of guests too.

In this hostel though, there were only unsociable dickheads or the stereotypical 'douchebags' that we tried so hard to avoid. We did try to have beers in the reception area one night to see if we could strike up a conversation with anyone, but it just wasn't to be.

Thus, most of our time in Bogota was spent away from the hostel and its abhorrent clientèle, or simply just in our own private room.

Whilst out and about, the majority of our to-do list involved sampling the local cuisine that I had salivated over since doing a bit of research when we were back in England. The two dishes that were definitely going to be sampled were Bandeja Paisa - a Colombian equivalent of the full-cooked breakfast, complete with sausage, beans, egg, avocado, pork rind, rice and plantain - and Ajiaco - a creamy chicken and vegetable stew that is served with a corn-on-the-cob nestled in it.

Over the next few days, we tried both and were very impressed. Anne slightly favoured the Ajiaco, whereas I leant more towards the Paisa - even if it was a grotesque amount of food on one plate and I didn't manage to finish it all.

It was the perfect introduction to Colombian food and it made us hungry for more investigating and experimenting.

In-between stuffing our faces, we did manage to fit a few walks around the old-town to the square that is where Bogota was founded, and also onto the Fernando Botero museum - the artist/sculptor that is famous for focusing his work on overly plump females.

Other than that, I can't say we did too much more. We were still feeling the effects of the aforementioned illness and over-exertion of the Inca Trail, so I think we just had one eye on moving up towards Cartagena and enjoying some of the Caribbean sun and vibes.

Our stay in Bogota ended as it began, with Raul the taxi-man escorting us through the contrasting suburbs. As we made our way to the airport, we agreed that we would like to return to Bogota to really explore, as it does seem to offer more than what we took in the first time round. We then discussed heading back one day and perhaps visiting Medellin (Colombia's second city) too.

It seemed as though now we were experiencing the first regrets of our decision to cut things short. I'm sure it's nothing that a bit of Caribbean sun won't cure though.