The Colombian capital

 
Where were we? It's been a while since we uploaded our last post - the Amazon. Since then, we have had many more interesting experiences, both good and bad. But let's start in a chronological order.
 

After our time at the Amazonian edge of civilisation, we very much looked forward to our visit to Bogotá, the Colombian capital. Due to the special combination of an altitude of 2,600 – 2,800m and its location close to the equator, Bogotá features a pleasant, gringo-friendly climate. Most parts of the city are relatively modern. Allegedly, the city only had some 300,000 inhabitants until the 1930s. That number has exploded to a whopping 8-10 million today. In your face, cities of Europe. Malheuresement, the rapid growth of the population has not been matched by its public transport capabilities, resulting in a messy traffic situation. One of the measures introduced to tackle this is that every car in town can only drive on certain days of the week (e.g. your car wouldn't be allowed into town on any Friday & Saturday). Interesting. 


The greatest thing about our stay in Bogotá was that we were able to meet up with our local friends and hence got an inside view of the city. Lene, Judith & I stayed with our Colombian friend Bruno, whom we know from his Frankfurt days. Bruno's family has a lovely apartment in the leafy & safe Northern neighbourhoods of  town. Being in such a nice place after our recent, more basic trips, felt like having a fillet steak after weeks of veggies only. While his sister spoiled us with delicious Colombian home-cooked meals, Bruno excelled at showing us around the different parts of town. Judith's German friend Johanna (they studied together in Freiburg & Salamanca), who now lives & works in Bogotá and apparently speaks like a proper ”cachaca” (that´s what the Bogotá locals are called), also was with us and added to the fun. On the very last day, we met Andrés & Bibi (Andrés & I studied together in London) for a delicious breakfast.  

15 years ago, what would have been the odds of people like Judith & me knowing that many people in Bogotá? Here's to globalisation! Prost!

Looking back, Colombia has come as a hugely pleasant surprise to us. Not only that there are tons of things to do and see in this country, but due to the admittedly bad reputation for violent crime, a lot of the sights have not been spoilt by mass tourism (yet). Also, we found Colombians to be very, very friendly & helpful. If we had known this in advance, we would definitely have allocated more time of our tour to Colombia. Anyway, at least we have a reason to come back...