Again, Colombia proved itself as being an awesome country!

I originally intended to stay a couple of days in Bogota, but eventually stayed more than a week! First day was just some walking around the city and the architecture and getting to know the hostel and other travelers. Second day was museum day! The police museum had a nice collection of things related to Pablo Escobar and his death. Very friendly guide, but he was quite shocked when I told him I visited a cocaine factory around Santa Marta.. After that I went to the Museo del Oro, which is famous for its collection of golden statues and ornaments from pre-Hispanic cultures. It was really worth it! It took me 3hours to get through the whole museum! Afterwards I met a girl in the Juan Valdez café that was studying some financial course. We talked a bit about finance in Colombia and her job. You meet friendly people everywhere!

On Wednesday the night guard from the hostel was supposed to wake me up at 4am so I could catch a bus to Villa de Leyva, which is a very pretty little village about 4hours outside of Bogota. Like all other night guards he was asleep and luckily I woke up at 4.30am so I had to check out, call a cab and get to the bus terminal in 30 minutes! (the cab ride in itself normally takes 45minutes..) We crossed about every red light at full speed, but eventually I got there 2minutes in time! Travelling is very intense sometimes!

All the houses in Villa de Leyvaare white and the streets are roughly paved, which makes it almost car free and very safe and calm to walk around. The paleontological museum was a waste of time, they had about 100 little fossils, so I spent my time walking around town and eating 'postres' (desserts) in La Galleta, which were recommended by my friends in Bogota! The next day in Villa de Leyva I rented a bike to ride in the countryside around town. A lot of hills, but with very nice dry nature!

Back in Bogota I had my first private salsa class! One intense and sweaty hour of dancing! But I had to learn it to be ready for my birthday party.. To celebrate it on Friday the 13^th, I treated myself a visit to the Botero Museum and the girls invited me for a delicious pizza lunch! (Supposed to be typical Colombian pizza! Everything is supposed to be typical in this country..) I also had to buy a shirt to be decent to party, because all my T-shirts start to have sweat stains that remain!

All dressed fancy-pantsy we went to a club Bar:Be where we had a ‘chevere' night on the VIP platform! Which was not so large and people fell off regularly.. Saturday the girls came to pick me up for a trip on Monserrate (Hill that dominates the city) and we stayed there to check out the sunset over Bogota. (Which was amazing!) At night we went eating with some ex colleagues of Lina (one of the four girls) and I could stay in her mansion, because we would leave early on Sunday to Ubate where the parents of Ana-Maria (another of the four) have a countryside mansion. We had a super weekend to recover from the intense week in Bogota. Relaxing and walking on the countryside. We played some Tejo, the Colombian version of petanque. So as you can expect it involves exploding things! It is way more exciting than petanque! Pictures will tell you more. In the evening we went to another little village where an Americo-Indian festival took place and where everyone participated in traditional dances, and so did we!

Against my will I had to leave Bogota last night for Medellin. Lots of good times, but the trip has to continue..

Greetings from Medellin!

G. on the road