Bogotá, Colombia

We flew into Bogotá yesterday evening, August 3rd, from Orlando. Which means we went from Denver, to Orlando, to Bogotá, and the “we” in this case is Meredith and myself. Someone from/connected to our Hostel met us at the airport and dropped us off at Botanico Hostel. This hostel is in the Candelaria district. The traffic is similar to South East Asia. Motorcycles can go wherever they want. The busses however have their own lanes, which makes me super jealous. Public transportation goals! We landed around 18:00, and by the time we got to our hostel it was fully dark. So the sun is gone by arouund 19:30 ish. The entrance to our hostel is stunning, even if I fell earlier today on the stairs. I’m sitting on the roof at the moment, but not like you’d think. The kitchen is upstairs and they have some indoor and outdoor tables and chairs surrounded by lovely foliage with a great view of the city top! The mountains off in the distance reminding me of Denver 🙂

Last night when we were shown our room two girls said we could join them and their friend for dinner. Chris and Tristian (I may not have gotten his name right) from Germany, and Katy from California. We walked a few blocks away for a lovely Peruvian meal. The restaurant was called Pacha. We all shared Yucas la Huancaína. I then ordered something Katy recommended, Lomo Saltado. The yuca was like a think cut fry. The lomo was beef with pisco sauce, tomato, onions, potato, and cilantro. Yes parents, cilantro! Delicious food. Afterward, we walked back to the hostel, had some beers at the bar, and chatted with them a little more before calling it a night.

The beds here are SO comfortable. I got the top bunk and it’s like my own little world. I love it! Slept like a baby. Now that I am typing that phrase out, is that even a good thing to say? Don’t babies rarely sleep through the night? Yare Yare.

This morning I got toast, eggs with tomato and onion, pineapple, some sort of fruit juice, and butter & jam. Was about $3.50. This was one of the options for breakfast at the hostel. We were given wristbands so we just tell them our room number and we pay for drinks and food when we checkout. Today, we walked about 25 minutes to the Monserrate. We did NOT walk up and we are happy with our decision. Instead, we opted to take the Funicular, which is the English translation of the word, so we learned a new word. It’s like the front of a large bullet train with different levels of people. They pile us in and then we take off.

As we rose and the city shrank, I was glad we didn’t walk up. Even just walking around at the top was tiring, but when we walked down everyone we passed was huffing and puffing and sweating. This city is HUGE (yes I realize it’s the capital). I believe the population is over 11 million. The view from the top (HQ <3) is amazing and vast. Oh yeah, I forgot my gafas de sol at the hostel so I bought a random pair while waiting in line for tickets for about $8.00. They are pretty cute, but they were literally the first pair I grabbed. The weather is lovely when the sun isn’t out and I am comfortable in my pants and fleece. When the sun says hello, no fleece because it is too hot. I’d say the range is about 55 – 70 degrees fahrenheit, or 13 – 21 degrees celsius. That’s how it feels to me at least lol.

On the walk back we stopped at a little unassuming restaurant called Calle Luna. Barely saw the sign out front. No menus, the staff just tells you what they have. We got some sort of soup. We just asked them what they liked 😉 When it arrived, we realized it was Ajiaco, which is something Natty and Steph told us about. Very tasty! Comes with rice, GIANT capers, crema, and avocado all on the side. The soup itself is the same consistency as a tortilla soup, kind of. Has chicken, peas, some sort of green, and a piece of corn cob. Large kernals. A whole days worth of food it really filled us up! Also, they give everyone tiny portions of a dessert, similar to a tres leches but no leche? Idk I’m guessing. In total it was about 45,000 pesos for both of us, so arouund $11.00. We then walked back to the hostel.

I think we are in a cute part of town. Lots of young people, museums, hostels, etc. Seems we may be near a university. The stroll was lovely. Today we have walked 11,000+ steps so far. Later that evening we went to a nice dinner that was delicious! We walked from our hostel yet again. They has a wild meat cooking contraption in the middle of the restaurant. It was also a hotel. Although, the meat chef let us take a look around the corner and showed us the courtyard/atrium that was surrounded by the three rooms they have in the entire hotel. Must be a swanky place to only have 3 rooms. We then went back to the hostel and drank/partied with the guests and workers. At both dinner and the hostel we tried some local liquors that were horrible. In my opinion all liquors are horrible so don’t take my word for it, other people were enjoying. One I remember was called desquite. We had a blast!

That wraps up our time in Bogotá, we left the next morning.

¡Hasta luego!