Bogota, Colombia

Night life in Zona Rosa.

In Bogota I was sitting in the common area writing one of my blogs. A group of other backpackers come into the room and sit down with a handful of limes and a bottle of vodka. I could here some different accents; British and maybe Australian. After they asked me to take a picture, one thing led to another, and the next thing I knew Stephanie and I joined them in a night out on the town. One of the guys reminded me of my friend Charlie. He would always have his hands in his pockets, smoking a cigarette, and stumbling around. At one point he tripped on a curb and smashed into the side of wall, body slumped into the wall like a sack of potatoes. He rebounds and pretends nothing happened stumbling back into the darkness of the night. We drink a few Colombian beers at another hostel and then split up to check out other parts of the town. Stephanie, myself, and our new found Scottish friend Harry decide to check out the night life in Zona Rosa.

View of Bogota from Mount Monserrate.

The next morning we eat some food and walk up to the bottom of Mount Monserrate. We took this giant gondola up to the top. We hiked to the back side of the area where these two young police men offered to show us around. We watched the rain clouds come and go raining on parts of Bogota. The clouds would open up here and there allowing some sun in on occasion. On the way down we tried some Coca tea. I read in the guide book that it helps with calming altitude sickness. The lady at the stand poured each of us a cup. Steph's reaction; "It's really good!" My reaction; "what? it can't be th... oh my god it's hella tasty." Supposedly the mixture was with sugar cane, honey, and Coca tea.

Stephanie standing in the doorway of the church ontop of Monserrate.

We sat on the steps of the church sipping the Coca tea looking out into the city of Bogota. When we walked into the church and i looked back it almost looked like something out of a movie where Steph was an angel, standing in a glowing doorway. But nope, it was just Steph, nothing special. haha j/k.

Bogota, Colombia

Sorry for the late post; we're alive and well. We just finished our four day trek to Machu Picchu. Great pictures to come for that post later.

Hanging out in Plaza De Bolivar. [Photo cred: Steph]

So being the frugal travels we were trying to be, we booked a bus ticket from Cartagena to Bogota. The twenty hour over night bus turned out to be a twenty seven hour bus ride. Whoops. A regret we learned to live with. One of the things that you take for granted while traveling is toilet paper, something desired on bus rides like this. Since then we've stored some in our day bag. Anyway, we made it to Bogota and found it to be much larger and city like than we expected. Walking the busy streets during the day it reminded Steph a little bit of New York. Almost everything we wanted to see was pretty much walking distance. We walked through Plaza De Bolivar, dedicated to Simon Bolivar, the man who helped free Colombia from the Spanish. This square was spread out with four different types of architecture for every side. This one I'm standing in front of is the Mayor's office which is a French style Alcaldia.

Steph in the middle of the plaza.

I caught steph staring at the statue in the middle of the square while it started to drizzle on us. It was riddled with graffiti. Actually everywhere we walked you would see stenciled graffiti or tagging of some sort. I don't think it was real banksy graffiti but someone was borrowing his icon of the rioter throwing a grenade of flowers. FYI, Banksy is a is English graffiti street artist with a flare for politics. In fact, here's an example of some street art we saw on our way to the plaza.

Street art on Av Jimenez, artist unknown;

This painting is actually just a small snippet of an entire wall. But for some reason i liked the black and white punk rocker. It's kinda interesting to see street art taking up an entire building wall. I mean like three stories tall and it's untouched by other artists. You'll see people's walls tagged with random pieces of art, some even overlapping old art. But this one was thought out and had organization to it, and seemed somewhat accepted.

Looking at Picaso

Street art was not the only art we appreciated that day. We stopped by the Donacion Botero where they displayed probably ten rooms of Fernando Botero's art. Only a few other rooms were dedicated to other artists like this Picaso. You can see the pictures of his work later when i post all my pictures or you can just google him. You'll recognize his work since all the people he depicts are quite large or "fat" as he says.

Dipping bread in to hot chocolate at the Puerta Falsa

We were walking from Plaza de Bolivar to the Botero museum and of course I spot out of the corner of my eye some delectable sweets. Curious I was, I looked at the name and realized it was the place that Stephanie had already chosen for dinner. La Pureta Falsa. There were two things here we came here to try; first was the hot chocolate, second was the tamales. It was a small cute little shop with only stool bars lining the right side of the wall and an upstairs that completed the cafe atmosphere. The window display was filled with these banana leave wrapped goods and other confectionery desserts. After drinking half of the hot chocolate we realized the guy next to us and others were dropping their cheese inside the hot coco. I tried it, not sure if I was a huge fan. But damn was the tamale delicious and amazingly cheap! we ordered a second one.

We liked Bogota so much that we almost forgot we survived a twenty seven hour bus ride to it.

Convento De La Popa, Colombia

Kitten milking on the red tiles

Funny thing is, the reason why I chose this place to visit was not for the historical aspect or the religious value, but for the view of Cartagena. The view sucked. Haha, I'm slightly joking. You basically would have to have a lens that costs over a few thousand dollars to see Old Town. Don't get me wrong, getting a view of any city from a vantage point is enlightening. You just get the bad with the good. Enough of what I'm not showing you.

We hired a taxi to take us up here as there was no other public transport. We had to agree on a set price before hand because he had to stick around to drive us back down. I think we got ripped off. Somehow prices were agreed upon, and then changed.

The first exciting thing we saw was five little kittens curled up on themselves sleeping. As we take a few pictures of them, the mom comes up meowing waking them up while carrying two green lizards in her mouth. It was kinda gross but felt so natural. Two of the kittens play with the lizards like a ball of yarn. The others roll around, and this one just buried his little face in his mom's belly. Hungry little kitten.

Where our Taxi driver got married.

After viewing all the religious artifacts we noticed our taxi driver was wandering around the courtyard. As we talked to him he told us he got married in this part of the church.

Steph staring out into the atrium.

Probably my favorite thing about the Convento De La Popa was the atrium. A little well in the middle. Arches lined the brick courtyard. Vines growing on the columns. And a Stephanie looking into the sky.

Old Town Cartagena, Colombia

Looking out of our hostel.

It's the same day but now we're away from the crowded mud volcano and back in Cartagena. Strolling the streets of Old Town Cartagena. we reverse the order of the walking tour of Old Town soaking up the Colonial style architecture. As we walked aruond, one of the things that we agreed on was that other countries have local fruits and juice stands at every other corner. So We picked up these little fruits (The name escapes me) but they're green, on little branches, and they remind me of lychee. You crack the brittle skin with your teeth to expose the meat and suck it out and spit out the seed that unfortunately takes up most of the space.

Steph standing in a typical Colonial alley way

The colors stand out so well, I couldn't but help make Steph stand still. We followed the path but didn't really go into any of the museums or churches. Towards the end we gave up following the path because our stomaches dictated we search for food. I don't remember what logic decided this but we ended up just eating cheese bread and Arepas. A ritual we soon stopped. Even if we were't happy with the food, the drinks were quite satisfying. Before we left to visit the Volcano we walked down the alley way where we saw maybe twenty people preparing their juice carts. One guy slicing up fruits and pouring them into a this giant fish tank of juice, one guy squeezing limes so fast it looked like someone using a switch blade, and another guy chipping away at ice blocks the size of shoe boxes.

Sitting on the wall built by the Spaniards.


As you do the walking tour you see parts of the Las Murallas which is this thick wall built around the port of Cartagena to protect it from pirates and the like. Spaniards would store the riches they would steal from the indigenous people at this port. But after the wall came up it became a cornerstone for the Spaniards allowing them to influence Colombia.

Just another alley way [Photo credit: Steph]

Enjoying the colors of Cartagena

Volcan Lodo El Totumo, Colombia

Tourists sitting in mud volcano

So when heard of a volcano where you can take a mud bath we assumed it was a giant volcano with a mud spring like the hot springs in Volcano Arenal in Costa Rica. We were completely wrong, it was a mound of mud in the shape of a volcano with a pit of muddy clay that was probably 20 feet tall at most. It's said that there is organic matter below that cause the gasses to rise and create the mud. We got in our bathing suits and jumped in. Supposedly we were allwoed to stay in there for 45 minutes, but it was too crowded to enjoy. It was weird, you would jump in, they would give you a massage and then push you in the middle in the orgy of people. It was so bouyant that you could sit and float. It's a weird feeling not being able to feel anything below your feet. Felt like the dead sea, but in mud.

Mud man Sean. [picture credit: Steph]

Seriously, way too crowded. people grabbing you to move around, a random foot between my legs. We fought our way across the crowded pool of mud and climbed out. Scrapped off any excess mud and walked down to the lake below to wash off.

View of the lake from the mud volcano.

The massage ended up costing 1.50$, there were ladies who would try to wash you down in the lake for the same price. I some how got conned into paying some kids the same price for watching my shoes. Mostly because we didn't want them to spit in our food. I later found out the food on the tour was served from somewhere else. Oh wells.