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It was so nice to have a sleep in this morning. My bed was like sleeping on a slab of concrete, and the pillow felt like I was resting my head on a boulder, however I still managed to get a fantastic nights sleep!!
As I woke this morning, my feelings of homesickness were no longer... Which is a great feeling!! I'm ready to enjoy the rest of my holiday now!!
Up and ready to attack my day, I headed to the dining room for breakfast. Everything a girl could want for breakfast was laid in front of me.... a slice of cantaloupe, a couple of eggs, a couple of pieces of toast, coffee and juice. Perfect.
I sat down at a table and started talking to a guy and a girl finishing off their breakfast. They were from Seattle, and just travelling on their own around Colombia. There was another lady on a separate table, who later came to join us. It soon became apparent that this lady and I were going to be on the same tour, and in fact roomies. So that is how Donna and I met!!
We all just chatted for a while... We talked about where we had travelled to, and where we were still to travel to.
Bruce had organised a tour for this morning, so I really didn't have any plans on doing too much!! However, Donna had mentioned that she was interested in catching the funicular up to a church that was nestled high on top of a mountain that towered over Bogota. I thought why not.
So we all finished breakfast, and said goodbye to our Seattle friends. We grabbed all of our stuff ready for the day ahead and then made tracks. We really didn't have any idea on how to get there, so the lovely guy at the front desk came out on to the street and showed us where to walk.
As we walked up the road, it soon became very apparent that we were now at a higher altitude, in fact we were at 2640m above sea level. As we walked up the street, you could feel with every breath that your body had to work that little bit harder to oxygenate it.
Again we were greeted by a cloudy, cool day. No rain, however it did look threatening enough for me to make sure that I had packed my rain jacket this morning. But it was refreshing!!!
As we walked along the street, we chatted about life, occasionally pointing out interesting things we may have found. The people here are so friendly as well. They are more than willing to flash you a smile, or bid you a good morning. So we spent half of our time walking, and saying hello to people along the way.
Somehow, we managed to find our way to the funicular tracks, that lead steeply up the side of Mount Monserrate. We were reassured, when we both spotted a large colonial style building selling tickets. So we jumped on the queue to buy our tickets. Even with our limited Spanish, we were able to communicate that we wanted a return ticket on the funicular, and before we knew it we were lined up on the queue to actually get on it!!
The queue moved fairly quickly, and we made our way to the front of the line. We watched as the next funicular arrived at the bottom of the tracks and let all of its passengers off.
It's hard to describe what a funicular is, but think of a train/tram that sits on a 45 degree angle on railway tracks. It then slides up along the tracks... Ever so steeply until it reaches the top. It reminds me of a cable car, except that it sits on the ground, not high up in the sky. Well, at least you don't have as far to fall if it malfunctions.
As the doors opened, everyone walked in and found a standing position. The sides and roof of the carriages were all made out of clear glass, allowing all of us passengers to see the view of Bogota as it climbed the mountain.
We ascended up the mountain slowly, and we took in the views as we climbed up. We passed through quite a long tunnel, and by the time we came out the other end we were at our final destination.
We disembarked the funicular, and made our way out into the garden. Again, the gardens have been so well designed and cared for, that it just looks so beautiful and welcoming.
The main attraction at the top of this beautiful mountain was a church called Santuario de Monserrate. It can be seen from the streets of Bogota, as if it is keeping a watchful eye on all of its citizens. It was actually the building that was in yesterday's cover photo.
We decided to walk along the pathway, up to this church. Scattered along the way, was a number of statutes, all depicting the stations of the cross. The backdrop to these statues, amazing mountain ranges covered in thick green forests, partly covered by low lying dark cloud cover. Very spectacular!!
We snaked around the steep pathway, observing all of the statues as we passed them, until finally we had arrived at the church. It was not as opulent as is the case for many South American churches, however the location of it trumped every single other church that I had frequented on this holiday.
The views from this church, nothing less than spectacular. Panoramic views of Bogota!!! Again I was amazed to see just how big this city was! It seemed to go on for as far as the eye could see!!
We walked up along side the church, where we found a small little market, that sold everything from arts and crafts to food. We did a little bit of window shopping, and then headed back down to the funicular.
We descended down the mountain, just as slowly as we had gone up. Again the views just brilliant.
As we walked back to the city, I was thrilled to say hola to a Cachaco. These men are traditional Bogotano's, who always wear dark suits, a dark hat and carry an umbrella. Essentially they are the gentlemen of Bogota, and are considered to be very cultured, conservative and elegant. I was even more thrilled, when he bid me good morning back, and bowed to me..... just like a true gentleman!! It was such a beautiful encounter!!!
We continued on our way, and devised a plan to keep walking around the city. One notable place of interest that both Donna and I wanted to visit was the Plaza de Bolivar. So we made that our next mission.
We walked block after block, avoiding the obstacles that only Bogota know how to throw at you. It actually reminds me of a computer game, where you need to jump and duck under obstacles. If only we were collecting gold coins along the way!!
We found our way to the beautifully big and impressive Plaza de Bolivar. It didn't matter which direction you faced in this plaza, everywhere you looked you were confronted by yet another timelessly beautiful building. I'm sure some of these buildings date back before captain cook landed in Australia!!
The square was abundant with people feeding pigeons, with the corn kernels they had purchased from the square vendors. There were a handful of people with their alpacas, all dressed up in native costumes, just willing a tourist to come along and take a photo with it. For a fee of course!!!
We continued further down the road, where we continued to be impressed by the amazing architecture. Building after building, we were amazed. We then noticed an area that was blocked off to traffic, and there seemed to be some nice buildings down there, all heavily guarded. So we thought we would try our luck. Apart from a routine backpack inspection by the military, we were happily granted access to this cornered off road. We started to walk down, and then noticed the armed guards marching out of a door. They all stood up tall and straight, as their leader looked over each of them up and down. Without any expression on his face, he finally gave them the all clear on their dress inspection. It was now time to march. On his command, they all turned and started their march... Every now and again, the commander would make a noise and they would all do a little skip instead of a march.
We followed them all the way down the road, and soon realised that they were in fact guarding the house of congress, and the Palacio de Narino.
As we approached the end of the road, we decided to head back to the hotel. Walking the streets, we soon realised that it was lunch time.... so our aim soon changed from returning to the hotel to finding somewhere to eat lunch. We eventually found somewhere that looked pretty good. The menu was in Spanish, so both Donna and I ordered something very conservative as we knew exactly what it was. I'm normally more adventurous with food, however I have since discovered in Colombia they eat a lot of offal, including tripe. So until I know what the Spanish word for tripe is, I'm just sticking with what I know!!
We were a little saddened by the fact that a homeless man came into the restaurant (ok snuck into the restaurant) and had a plastic bag wanting to take our leftovers. We wanted to give it to him, however he manager of the restaurant forced him out and wouldn't let him back in.
Although we were very happy to find him a couple of blocks down with a big bowl of soup which he was hungrily sipping down.
We continued on our journey back to the hotel, and along the way came across a supermarket. Donna needed to get toothpaste, I needed to get deodorant. I have had a problem with my deodorant recently. When I have flown into cities that are at high altitudes, I find that when I go to use my roll on deodorant, that there is so much pressure built up behind the ball that it pops out of the container and flies around the room like a cannonball that had been fired out of a cannon!! It could actually take an eye out!! With the ball however, also comes half of my deodorant contents, so hence a new deodorant is required.
Groceries in hand we made but back to the hotel, where again it is time for relaxation.
I was sitting in the courtyard just outside of my room, when Donna came past... she was heading to the gold museum. This was a museum dedicated to artefacts found in Incan ruins, a lot of which are made out of gold. Considering I have been to about 8 different Incan/Mayan museums, I was more than happy for her to tackle this one in her own!!
Probably about 30mins after Donna left, the clouds finally opened up, and let the rain fall. It had been threatening to rain all day, and this afternoon it bucketed down. It just rained and poured. I was so glad that I was all comfy at the hotel, although I felt so sorry for Donna. I hope she didn't get caught in it!!
For the remainder of the afternoon all I could hear was the heavy rain falling on the roof, with the occasional claps of thunder. Perfect weather to start my new book that I just downloaded!!
Donna, Bruce and I had agreed to meet at 6.30 for dinner. As the time got closer I headed into the reception area to wait for the others. Firstly Donna arrived. I asked how she went with the rain... She said that the gold museum was pretty crap, so she only stayed for 5 mins, and had managed to get back to the hotel 5 mins before the rain started!! Phew!!!
We were there chatting for a while, when I realised that a notice was up on the wall from our tucan tour guide. We went over to read the information about our pre-tour meeting tomorrow night. Soon after another guy came across and started to read the notice with us. So this guy was a pretty big unit.... And it's hard for me to get this right, but please insert your own Russian accent here.... 'Im Dimitri from Moscow, Russia, but you call me dim'. Ok dim it is. We introduced ourselves, then out of no where, he turns on his heels and starts to walk out the front door 'I hungry, I get food'. I said to dim that we were about to head out to get something to eat if he wanted to come, however before I could even finish my sentence I got a 'no, I go now. I not have good experience with Colombia people, taxi driver make me pay $100 (I think US, but even if Colombian pesos the minimum he paid was $50US), I travel 2 days to get here, I go now'. Wow, now I was just put back in my box!! I didn't know whether I needed to solute him or what. The sad thing is, we were just looking down the barrel of Bruce's roommate!!!!
Soon after Bruce arrived, Donna and I paid him his condolences for having just met his room mate!!
We then headed off to dinner. It was a small little place around the corner from the hotel. They served up some nice local food which was good. We had a fairly good time trying to communicate with the waiter... we were all madly trying to use our Spanish.... Sometimes with success, sometimes not!!! After we finished dinner we walked the 100m back to the hotel. Being a Friday night here, the streets were filled with lots of young folk, heading out on their Friday night festivities. For us, just another quiet night back at the hotel!!!
Time to call it a night!! Let's see what tomorrow brings!!!
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