05.06.-10.06. - Bogotá, Colombia

On 04.06. we took the bus from Medellin to Bogotá in the morning. The bus ride was supposed to take 8 hours, but it actually took about 11 hours. At least the seats on the bus were somewhat comfortable... It was still tiring though. Once we arrived in Bogotá, we went to our accommodation, quickly grabbed something to eat in the city, and went to bed. Hans was supposed to land in Bogotá at 03:00 in the morning the next day. He arrived at our shared accommodation around 05:00 in the morning, we let him in and had some beer first! Afterwards, we went back to bed for about 2 hours before having breakfast in the city and exploring it together.

On June 6th, we visited the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) together and got to learn about Colombia's gold craftsmanship of the past 4000 years. After that, we went on a bike tour around the city (guided). We visited places like Plaza de Mercado de Paloquemao, including the local market. We got to try a lot of fruits that we had never heard of before (Tomate de Arbol, Lullo, etc.). Then we went to a coffee roastery, where we were shown how the good Colombian coffee is roasted. We also got to chew coca leaves, which are supposed to be good against the altitude but don't have the effect of cocaine. After a few more stops at important places and sights, the bike tour ended after about 5 hours. We thought it was really cool and can definitely recommend it.

On June 7th, we hiked up the Cerro de Monserrate, the mountain that overlooks Bogotá. The mountain has a height of - depending on the source - 3150 to 3250 m, making it about 600 meters higher than the city of Bogotá. There is a hiking trail with about 1500 steps that leads up the mountain - a great leg workout. Once we reached the top, we took a relatively long break and had some food before making our way back down the same trail. It would have been possible to take the cable car up and down, but we didn't think that was necessary. This surprised some Americans we met the day before during the bike tour. They were so exhausted after the bike tour that walking was out of the question for them. When we told them that we would also walk back down, their jaws dropped.

Since we had trained our legs well on June 8th, we booked a climbing tour in Suesca for June 9th. Suesca is about 2 hours by car from Bogotá (including one hour through the city). With our guide Freddy, we were able to climb many different routes, which was quite exhausting for us. In Suesca, many routes are crack climbing routes, which we were not used to at all. We took an Uber there, but no one wanted to take us back. Luckily, there were also buses. The bus ride back home cost a total of about 13,000 pesos (about 3 €). We paid 8 € per person for the Uber ride there.