Welcome, to the first of my entries, only just over 24 hours from landing and already so much to tell!

Firstly I hope everyone´s well.

My journey was LONG, anyone familiar with geography will know that flying Sydney (12.5 hours), Los Angeles, (12.5) Santiago (Chile) (5.5) then Bogota makes no sense whatsoever and add in check in times, 8 hours in LA, 5 hours in Santiago, added up to around 48 hours and for me delirium as I tried to cope with 3 time changes and 1 date change, which might explain why I have been under the impression that it´s 2 hours later than it really is for the last 24 hours in Bogota!!

Flights were actually great, saw lots of movies and the bland (i.e no chilli) meals went down a treat. I had some interesting travelling companions on the Sydney, LA flight. They didn´t know each other on embarking but 12 hours of slurpy kisses and I hope not too many dodgy things happening under blankets they were well acquainted. He even knew lots of about her husband!!!

LA airport, I met up with my cousin Cashelle, who I haven´t seen for about 15 years! I was worried dodging the crazy drivers in huge hummers, and other massive and ostentatious vehicles in the drop off area of the airport whether she´d recognise me, but she had no trouble and looking the same as she did 15 years ago but a bit blonder (v.LA) she took me down to Manhattan beach for a coffee, and lets just say I looked distinctly unglamorous in my travelling attire, no makeup and bags under my eyes compared with the beautiful people around, in fact most of their dogs were looking in better shape than me. We ordered (ordering coffee is about doubly as complicated as even Sydney, I trusted Cashelle with my order). The beach was fantastic, and she took me on a tour to Venice beach and Santa Monica, it was just like the tele!!!! As I´d passed the date line it was STILL Halloween and everyone was dressed up even through it was only midday. Cashelle said the ¨freaks¨ down at Venice beach dress like that anyway though.

I boarded my second flight and around 24 hours later I was finally arriving in Bogota, slightly apprehensive, after all I´ve heard of the Colombian capital, but prepared with my money, valuables, divided into about 6 places around my person. In my last immigration queue of the journey I actually found myself nodding off standing up and resorted to pinching myself but by the time I got to the Colombian official my normal manner of being cheery and friendly and obviously not a ¨person of suspicion¨ had been replaced by a hang dog face and grunting. Worked just as effectively though, actually better come to think of it ummm.

Taxi took me to my hostel a beautiful colonial house made of Adobe, bamboo and wood surrounding gardens in courtyards and very rustic. I only had about enough time to take in the bizarreness of my room before collapsing onto my bed at last. I awoke a few hours later and thanked myself very much I had splashed out on a private room for this part of my stay. The room, was clean and comfortable and had it´s own hayloft like ceiling! The bathroom was more bizarre with everything possible made of rocks and stone, shower ¨tray¨etc... and adobe hollows making the shelves. I had woken up in Fred Flinstones house! The women working there, almost seemed to be buddist nuns and around the place in little alcoves and under the front door were offerings, like half an orange. They really couldn´t have been more welcoming, offering me tea, ponchos and introducing me to all the other guests, whilst they tended to the wood stove.

I got up just long enough to venture out to get a couple of arepas de huevo (egg, corn pancakey things) see what an amazing neighbourhood I´m in and smell the wood fires all around me and then slink back to bed.

I´m staying in La Candeleria which is the colonial heart of the city and seems to be the centre of arts and culture too. The streets are steep sweeping up to the bordering hills and the houses are painted those beautiful bright colours which I´d always dreamed of. It´s sums up the Colombian magic realism that I loved in Gabriel Garcia´s Lorcas work. The wood fire smoke drifting over the rooftops, and the city´s eastern border reaching sharply into the heavens. I hadn´t realised before landing that Bogota is is 2640 metres above sea level, so it´s a bit nippy and it´s been raining on and off, but it just adds to the charm and the äguaceros¨literally means water from nothing that suddenly arrive are also accompanied by the arrival of tons of umbrella sellers who wade through the streets that have become torrents of water to take advantage of anyone unlucky enough to have forgotten theirs today. Even more prevalent however is people on every street corner selling calls on their mobiles for 250 pesos a minute. EVERYWHERE!!! I started my walk this morning to people absolutely everywhere, all in yellow jackets saying ïndividual protection of the city¨ There seems to be some kind of movement to claim the city for the people and they did things like be lollipop ladies-men and just generally help people out and then stumbled onto a kids festival in the central square which was so joyous, and to be honest everyone I´ve seen so far seems to be in such good humour, and enjoying life, I hope that is not isolated to here. I found the postcard size information office and was given their last map, and found that there aren´t many European or Aussie travellers here, it´s generally South Americans. I´ve got to say that I´ve enjoyed today not being in throngs of tourists, people reacting well to my camera and not being bothered at all by the hoards of touts that you generally find. I found a restaurant full of locals for a lunch of Ajiaco, which is a tasty soup of chicken and potatoes, served with avocado and rice, it was yummy and only $2. Then to an art gallery of Ribero, a Colombian artist who paints lots of fat people, or fruit. Actually really liked it and it was full of humour. Then back to the hostel for my afternoon nap

They´re still playing the same Latin pop music I got into 10 years ago, so no need to update myself on that. Although my aversion to Latin techno seems to have got even worse. I haven´t spoken any English for about 36 hours and it´s great.
On my last morning in Bogota I decided to set my alarm for 5am and climb up to the Santa Maria Church instead of getting the funicular, my fear of being robbed on the path, meant I decided to go the funicular, but even the walk up to the base station got me puffed. At Bogota´s altitude it´s really easy to suffer from altitude sickness. Anyway, imagine my embarassment when I got to the top and found people had run all the way up, hey, ho. The beautiful morning I had awoken to of course by the time I got up there had been enveloped in cloud, and my panoramic pictures are well...cloudy!

Anyway off to Cartagena and the beach and the sun and relaxation, but Bogota has been a wonderful start to my adventure and comes highly recommended to anyone