I arrived safely in Bogota on Tuesday morning after a rather uncomfortable bus ride, mainly due to the fact that the person next to me couldn't actually fit into her seat and thus spent the journey with a significant portion of her right side crushing my left leg. I got to the hostel just after 6 a.m. and fortunately was able to check in straight away and catch up on some sleep. Alex arrived around midday and after a spot of lunch we spent the afternoon chilling out at the hostel, catching up on what has been happening on both sides of the world and conversing with fellow hostel guests.
During these conversations we happened to meet Ben, a Kiwi travelling the world and writing a book about his experiences. One of these experiences had occurred just the day before when he flew into Bogota from Fort Lauderdale, Miami. Arriving at the check-in desk and upon presenting his passport the lady behind the counter refused to believe that his passport was genuine and rather preferred to think that it was from a country that in fact does not exist. The lady then called over her manager who also had never heard of this obscure country called 'New Zealand' so up the chain of command the passport went to the supervisor who also did not believe that Ben had a genuine passport or country. After a quick call to the Australian Embassy to clarify that New Zealand was in fact a legitimate country Ben made his way safely to South America, although one must fear that if the United States has not heard of New Zealand it may not be the last he hears of it!!
After a good night out on Tuesday we decided that on Wednesday we would try to head up the cable car to get a good overview of the city; however after some procrastination the weather turned for the worse so instead we walked around the city.
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| Bogota's Main Plaza |
Whilst the sightseeing was interesting nothing quite compared to the two Australians that we met later that afternoon. Nick and Jasper had only just arrived in Bogota and both spoke no Spanish between them which resulted in a bit of confusion when they went to get some money out of the ATM. Nick went first and managed to pull out 10, $20,000 peso bills after which Jasper decided he would follow suit. Unfortunately for Jasper his notes came out in 4; 50 mil (thousand) pesos notes. At this stage the lack of Spanish took hold with Jasper rushing back to the hostel believing he had withdrawn 200 million pesos; a quick calculation led him to believe that he had pulled approximately $83,000 out of the ATM. After we managed to tell him that mil in fact meant thousand there was a huge sigh of relief on his face, however one has to wonder firstly how he could believe that he was able to take $83,000 from the ATM and secondly how one note could be worth $21,000...no wonder Australians have a certain stereotype around the world.
On Thursday we finally managed to head up the cable car to get a good overview of the city and then spent the afternoon relaxing in the hostel before we headed off into town for a game of Tejo (Colombia's national "sport"); where the aim of the game is to throw a 3kg metal disc at a square of clay 10m away. The real intricacies of the game lie in the cost of entry (a case of beer) and the small triangles of gunpowder placed in the middle of the clay. Fortunately most of us managed to get the hang of it rather quickly, except for Mary, an American who managed to hit a light in the adjacent lane; after this even the locals ran for cover when she ran up to take a throw!
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| The Target |
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| "Winning" |
Dinner was uneventful, however our walk home was not. Ben and I left the restaurant early so that we could get back and pack for our bus in the morning little did we know of what was to come on the walk home. About 100m from the restaurant a couple of policemen pulled us over for a routine drug search which of course led to nothing. Feeling rather disappointed and no doubt having seen the $300,000 pesos sitting in my wallet they asked to see a copy of our national identification documents which we informed them we did not have. Immediately the officer talking to me pretended to put cuffs on me and informed us that we would be heading off to the Police Station which obviously was far from ideal. After about 5 minutes in which most of the conversation was lost in translation I decided that they most likely wanted a bribe however I was unwilling to simply offer them one and instead went with the line "Is there another option?" The officer seemed to somewhat ignore this statement and continued to tell us that we needed our passports. In the end I think that it got all too hard as we simply did not understand enough of their Spanish to even know whether they wanted a bribe or not; so seeing that the conversation was leading nowhere they eventually gave up and walked away. Whilst the experience was somewhat terrifying it all turned out OK in the end and at least gave me something to write on here, although I think that if I had the choice I would choose to skip the entire incident!
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| A Bird's Eye View |
On Friday we woke up after around 3 hours sleep with the realisation that we were catching a 12 hour day bus to Medellin so that we could make it there for the weekend. Of all the buses I have been on in South America it was probably the worst, maybe in some part due to the hangover, but also due to the lack of leg room and air conditioning. We managed to get to our hostel in Medellin about 9pm, 2 hours later than we had hoped. Upon arrival we bumped into a couple of English guys that I had met earlier on the trip who informed us that 2 nights ago the hostel had been robbed and gunpoint and that numerous backpackers had lost money, cameras, computers and passports; it just goes to prove that whilst Colombia is much safer than it was there is still a long way to go.
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| Moving Forward |
Over the next few days we ventured into other parts of the city on a couple of occasions to see what was on offer. Many people say that the class divide in Colombia is extremely large and from what we saw in Medellin and Bogota this definitely rings true. We considered going on the Pablo Escobar tour however many other travellers had informed us that this was overrated and we would learn more reading about it than going on the tour (I still haven't read anything the subject but hopefully I will at some stage).
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| The National Park |
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| The City |
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| Street Art |
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| Another Fountain |
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| The Fat Controller |
Medellin was a beautiful city however at this stage of the trip I am somewhat over sightseeing statues, at least half of which look exactly the same. I have just arrived in Cartagena (yes another city) from Taganga on the Caribbean Coast; a place which I will post about over the next few days.
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