Goodbye, Colombia! - Bogotá

26/02 - 28/02

The journey to Bogotá took longer than we would have liked: From Salento we had to take a small connecting bus to Armenia and there we had to switch to a large bus with the destination 'Bogotá' at the bus station. We were then somewhat surprised that this trip was scheduled for seven hours. The reason for this was again the winding and hilly landscape that had to be crossed. I kept myself busy reading and watching Netflix during this time, so the bus ride passed relatively quickly for me. Emi had some difficulties and struggled with acute boredom for the seven hours. She cannot read or watch a movie during a bus ride, especially if the route is very curvy, as she always feels sick. Therefore, she stared out the window most of the time and tried to doze off a bit. This was made more difficult by the fact that the bus driver played one Hollywood film after another with poor Spanish synchronization at full volume on the bus TV throughout the entire journey. Emi's irritability reached its peak upon arrival in the capital, so we quickly organized a taxi to the hostel.

On the way there, we became aware of the extent of this city for the first time: Bogotá is huge and it takes much longer to cover distances than you would expect based on the city map. Unfortunately, our hostel was a bit far from the city's highlights, which meant that the taxi rides usually took between 30 and 45 minutes depending on the traffic. And we really needed many of them...

The next morning, we had ourselves driven to the foot of 'Cerro Monserate' and took the cable car all the way up to 3,100 meters. From there, we had a smoggy but still very sunny panorama over the entire city. Although Bogotá is close to the mountains, the city itself is very flat. We didn't stay up there for too long, there wasn't really much to see or do. Besides, Emi needed her daily dose of coffee, so we had to go to Starbucks next. From the base station of the cable car, we walked to the adjacent neighborhood of 'La Candelaria' on foot. This area is also relatively generously interspersed with parks and other green areas here in Bogotá.

After a coffee break and a vegan lunch, we strolled aimlessly through the city center for the rest of the afternoon and visited some sights such as the 'Cathedral de Colombia', the town hall, and the justice palace at 'Plaza Bolivar'.

In the adjacent pedestrian zone, numerous street performers provided more or less entertainment. My favorite was an old lady dressed like a fortune teller with a colorful skirt. She had turned up her stereo and marched in tiny steps in time with the music in a circle. She had a completely indifferent expression on her face and didn't change her expression at all. She held her skirt up a little with her hands so as not to step on it. I eagerly awaited the actual show, but that was all there was. I somehow continued on feeling reassured. The old woman gave me the feeling that no matter how hopeless a life situation may seem, with a little creativity you can always find a way to make some money to survive.

After our daily program was already completed in the early afternoon, we sat down in a restaurant and took advantage of the cocktail happy hour. We watched the hustle and bustle on the square opposite, where a small arts and crafts market was taking place, and enjoyed our mojitos. After two drinks each, we were both already nicely tipsy and got hungry again. So we quickly went around the corner to eat sushi at a Japanese restaurant. Since we didn't want to waste our little buzz, we went to an Irish pub afterwards. There was a table tennis table where we played a long game with a pitcher of beer. The level of play wasn't particularly high from the start, but it got worse with every sip. After initially leading 4-0, my concentration shifted from sports to drinking beer, so I ended up losing 4-6 to Emi. She also won the subsequent game of cornhole, no amount of aim water could help me anymore!

On the ride back to our hostel, we had a really talkative Uber driver this time. Thanks to our alcohol level, we miraculously knew the Spanish language. Our driver even praised us and we actually managed to have almost fluent small talk in Spanish for the entire journey. Just stupid that it was the last evening in a Spanish-speaking country for us...

The next morning, we packed our backpacks with hangovers and headed back to the city center. Our flight to Brazil was only at night, so we had to somehow kill time until then. Our main focus was on enduring the heat combined with our physical discomfort. Lunch gave us new energy for a short time, but Emi wished for a bed and fought against her fatigue. In the afternoon, out of boredom more than interest, we decided to take a guided graffiti tour. We have already done several of these tours in various cities, so our enthusiasm was limited. Besides a few nice historical anecdotes, the guide mainly told facts about the individual street artists. Basically interesting, but compared to the tour in Medellin, this one couldn't keep up at all. When the tour finally ended after two and a half hours, we went out to dinner in Colombia one last time and then made our way through the city to the airport.

Conclusion:

Bogotá is a typical big city. We wisely booked only two nights there. There is not really much interesting to see or do in this capital, but Bogotá is an important hub for international flights. We can confidently advise travelers with a shorter travel time in Colombia to skip Bogotá and spend more time in far more exciting areas.

Bogotá was our last spot and now - after 35 days in Colombia - it's time to say goodbye. We can't really believe that we spent a whole 5 weeks in this wonderful country. Time has passed so quickly that it felt more like only 3 weeks. We had already heard a lot of positive things about Colombia from friends and other travelers, so our expectations were accordingly high. Maybe even too high...

Nevertheless, I have to say that Colombia is now one of our absolute favorite countries. Why? It's simply the diversity of this country and the breathtaking nature combined with the extremely nice people. We spent more than half of the time on the Caribbean coast, but I was especially impressed by the flora in the interior and on the Pacific coast. Even on the Caribbean coast, where one first expects turquoise blue sea and white sandy beaches, which unfortunately was not really the case, I liked the Sierra Nevada better than the beach area.

As varied as nature is, the cuisine in Colombia is simple. Frying is done with passion, which can be a bit heavy on the stomach. The real highlight is fish, especially in the coastal regions, I can only recommend to everyone to simply eat fresh fish with rice and plantains every day - there is nothing more delicious!

Those who have previously perceived Colombia as dangerous and unsafe are advised to quickly throw their prejudices overboard. Like in any other South American country, there are of course problematic areas, but as a tourist, you are largely shielded from them in Colombia. The country is currently experiencing a tourism boom, and those who want to experience the beautiful landscape without mass tourism should not waste any time and quickly pack their bags. We will definitely come back, there is more than enough that we definitely still have to see! ;)

See you soon!

E&L

>>> Next stop: Brazil <<