Bogotá, DONE!

Well, I must say that arriving in Bogota having spent a very chilled out few days in NYC was a huge culture shock, with the words culture shock being a major understatement there! Thankfully, Kev's friend Mike was there at the airport to guide us through the see of yellow taxis (which have seen better days) and take us into the "old historical" area of Bogota, La Candelaria to our hostel The Cranky Croc.....and by old and historica of course i mean filthy and full of homeless folk eating out of bins. That said though, there are some lovely old buildings to which we flocked to take the obligatory tourist photos. Our hostel was great, clean, which in my opinion is all that matters!

The first day was spent ambling around the centre and we headed up to Cerro de Monserrate, which is basically a church, some cool old buildings and a market perched up the top of a hill at 3200m above sea level. One flight of steps and I had to sit down for a half hour and drink some Coca Tea (sugary deliciousness that is meant to help with altitude sickness...). We wined and dined in the nicer part of the city, up north, thanks to Mike's chaperoning again. The newer, posher part of the city is a world away from where we were staying. Day 2, we flocked to Zipaquira, to see the Catedral de Sal, as you might guess is a Cathedral sculpted into a salt mine 150m below the surface of a mountain. Pretty cool it has to be said and it was nice to get out of the pollution of the city for a brief day trip.

Navigating the city's bus transportation was an experience in itself. I dunno if anyone is familiar with the YouTube videos of guards in the Japanese subway literally squeezing people into the subway trains? Well, yeah, it's basically the same thing. Rush hour or not, they're always packed and there are so many buses and different routes that, again, without Mike's advice, we probably would have gotten lost several times. People here are so so nice though. Similar to NYC, if you look remotely lost or confused, they'll offer their help straight away. In perfect English too I might add. Makes one feel very inadequate and lazy when it comes to learning languages.

But I think the icing on the cake for Kev and me was the night out in a local salsa-type night club. Boy, do Colombians know how to party! Dirt cheap beer and some ridiculous Sambuca-tasting shot and we were left with a very patchy memory of the night. Mike again, in his great hosting skills cooked up a Mexican feast for us and his friends. A very multinational night, thank God people had good English!

view of Bogota from Cerro de Monserrate

la Catedral de Sal

So now, we're just hanging around the hostel like a bad smell while we wait to get our night bus to Medellin, where the fun will continue hopefully! Till next time amigos....

• Where we stayed: The Cranky Croc Hostel http://www.crankycroc.com/
• How much?: €25 per night for a double room with shared bathroom