Bogota

Hmmm, letting the blog get away on us is becoming a pretty regular occurrence. We are in Cartagena, having arrived in Colombia about three weeks ago and the heat is making us feel spectacularly lazy however, as one friend kindly reminded me, complaints about being busy are likely to fall on deaf ears.

So, Bogota ...

After a ridiculously early start in Buenos Aires and a four hour stop over in Sao Paolo, but a cheap-ish flight, we arrived in Bogota in the early evening on a Saturday. Our initial nerves about arriving in Colombia were almost immediately quelled by a very organised pre-paid taxi process at the airport and a short drive through what was obviously a city on the up as we made our way from the airport to the hostel. We were staying in La Candelaria, the old town of Bogota, and really did not explore the greater city outside the old town that much however what we did see was immensely impressive.

Whilst run down and poor in parts, Bogota has a brilliant and efficient public transport system - the TransMileno -clean streets and, most notably, a very clear police presence which made us feel very safe. The only violence we saw was one stranger being forced into the back of a blacked out van - fortunately we saw television cameras filming it at the same time and then heard the director call cut ... not a kidnap in the making after all.

The old town itself was probably the most authentic feeling colonial old town which we had come across to date. The architecture is consistently Spanish colonial, with most of the housing no more than two stories high, terracotta tiled rooves and wooden balconies. All very pretty. Many of the streets are still cobbled and a few of the churches were quite breathtaking.

An added bonus, particularly welcome after steak-centric Argentina and deep fried Chilean cuisine, was that there was an enormously varied array of food in Bogota. We made the most of a rare bit of flavour and variety by indulging in shawarma, curries, Mongolian barbeques and quinoa salads. Whilst our first impressions of Colombian coffee had not been amazing, we soon found a good cafe just around the corner from our hostel that actually knew what to do with the quality coffee beans on offer and make a top notch cortado (half way between a flat white and an espresso) and we were feeling very at home.

Although we were underwhelmed by the highly rated Museo de Oro - which houses many of the gold relics of the Muisca and Tayrona tribes - the Museo Botero was an absolute gem. Botero, the most famous Colombian artist, is also easily the most distinctive artist by style of painting that we have ever come across with his truly unique habit of painting and sculpting everyone and everything fatter than life. From a morbidly obese horse to a gargantuan Mona Lisa, the Museo Botero has all angles covered.

One quite unique idea which has been introduced in Bogota which we were surprised to see in action is that on Sundays the majority of the central city (and about 120 km of roads throughout the rest of Bogota) close to cars and are solely for the use of pedestrians and cyclists. It makes for a carnaval type atmosphere and was particularly good for us to wander randomly and familiarise ourselves with our surroundings without having to worry about getting run down by over zealous taxi drivers.

Although we didn't experience much of the Bogotan nightlife, as we were in pieces by the time we arrived on Saturday evening, courtesy of a power cut in our hostel we did have one of our more unique hostel bar experiences as everyone squeezed around a half dozen torches, drank and mingled, culminating in group salsa lessons by a Korean quiz show host and a Cuban-American PhD student.

On our last full day in Bogota, we decided to make our way north to Zipaquira. About a four hour round trip, it was a bit of a mission however we had heard that the underground salt cathedral was well worth a visit. Although not quite as intricate as we had hoped, the cathedral was absolutely enormous with kilometres of underground passage ways including adaptations of each of the signs of the cross (which required a decent amount of imagination to align them to the actual signs of the cross) and a massive central cathedral. Although not exactly a must not miss destination, it was certainly an interesting side trip.

Easily the front runner amongst the cities we have visited as far as potential destinations to put down roots for a while, Colombia was off to a very good start.