Bogota
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Bogota, January 15-18
Took us some time to figure out the bus system, and on the first day we found our way from airport to hotel Ambra, which is located in the old historical part of Bogota, La Candelaria. This city is huge, with the old downtown situated close to the mountains, and barrios around in the vales. Mass transportation is very convenient and cheap, the busses go everywhere and some of them are express busses which use a separate lane on the main roads. First we visited the museum del oro. Very impressive gold, silver, copper and platinum jewelry and toys were made by indigenous people starting 4000 years ago! Emeralds collection was impressive too. Next day, Friday, we spent all day on practical things like, getting more empty pages for Kevin's passport at the U.S. Embassy (which was impressively quick) and trying to find a water pressure valve for our not yet functioning watermaker (no luck here, but got to learn a lot of new Spanish words). On the same day we went up to the Monserrat mountain - right in the city - on funicular. It's 3200 meters high and it's chilly on the top. The view from the mountain top on Bogota is spectacular, even in the rainy day. For dinner we decided to splurge and visited higher end barrio in Zone G - the gastronomical center of Bogota. Funny, but we ate at the French restaurant La Table Michel because we could not find any authentic Colombian cousin around there. We enjoined our food and good vine for just $70. Not bad...Third day of our trip we spent in Zipaquira, a little pretty town in the salt mines about hour from Bogota. Here we visited Catedral del Sal - a church built right in the salt mine, this place under the ground is huge, having multiple smaller caves with crosses and one main big space with a very tall cross. It's definitely different from any other cathedrals we saw before.
Next morning before our flight to Leticia we explored historical downtown of Bogota. It was Sunday and the crazy busy streets of the city were empty and quiet, all the governmental buildings on the Plaza de Bolovar and beyond were secured by presidential guards in full military equipment with guns - feels very safe. We noticed presence of some type of security, either private or national police and military in full armory everywhere in the capital city, I guess, it's the way to keep everybody safe...
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Bogota, January 15-18
Took us some time to figure out the bus system, and on the first day we found our way from airport to hotel Ambra, which is located in the old historical part of Bogota, La Candelaria. This city is huge, with the old downtown situated close to the mountains, and barrios around in the vales. Mass transportation is very convenient and cheap, the busses go everywhere and some of them are express busses which use a separate lane on the main roads. First we visited the museum del oro. Very impressive gold, silver, copper and platinum jewelry and toys were made by indigenous people starting 4000 years ago! Emeralds collection was impressive too. Next day, Friday, we spent all day on practical things like, getting more empty pages for Kevin's passport at the U.S. Embassy (which was impressively quick) and trying to find a water pressure valve for our not yet functioning watermaker (no luck here, but got to learn a lot of new Spanish words). On the same day we went up to the Monserrat mountain - right in the city - on funicular. It's 3200 meters high and it's chilly on the top. The view from the mountain top on Bogota is spectacular, even in the rainy day. For dinner we decided to splurge and visited higher end barrio in Zone G - the gastronomical center of Bogota. Funny, but we ate at the French restaurant La Table Michel because we could not find any authentic Colombian cousin around there. We enjoined our food and good vine for just $70. Not bad...Third day of our trip we spent in Zipaquira, a little pretty town in the salt mines about hour from Bogota. Here we visited Catedral del Sal - a church built right in the salt mine, this place under the ground is huge, having multiple smaller caves with crosses and one main big space with a very tall cross. It's definitely different from any other cathedrals we saw before.
Next morning before our flight to Leticia we explored historical downtown of Bogota. It was Sunday and the crazy busy streets of the city were empty and quiet, all the governmental buildings on the Plaza de Bolovar and beyond were secured by presidential guards in full military equipment with guns - feels very safe. We noticed presence of some type of security, either private or national police and military in full armory everywhere in the capital city, I guess, it's the way to keep everybody safe...
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