Last we left off, we had just come back to Cartagena from the beautiful Playa Blanca. We didn't have much time there though before our journey continued. First we watched the Notre Dame game online and were sadly disappointed when we lost to Michigan. Then we tried to visit any remaining tourist attractions we could before we left Cartagena for good. Finally, the day of our flight arrived and we flew into the capital of Colombia, Bogota.
It was good to get away from Cartagena and get into a real city that doesn't depend on tourism for its existence. And how could it? Bogota has a reputation for kidnappings and crime that make every website we've visited about this country assure us that everything is much better now. Luckily the websites were not lying. The city itself is much like any other capital city we've visited in South America and just as safe or unsafe depending on what you did. Luckily we had a friend in Bogota who welcomed us into her apartment and let us stay with her. Suzanne has a whole blog post on Amanda Lyons in her head so I won't spoil it, but I can say that we absolutely loved staying with Amanda for a couple of days. She took us to some of the nicest places in town and gave us her bed to sleep in. We told her of our plans and she gave suggestions and advice. It was real hospitality.
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Dad's visit
We didn't have long in Bogota till the main event occurred. My Dad, who had been unable to make the journey down when my brother Thomas came to visit was able to reschedule his flight for a long weekend in Bogota with us! We booked a place in the old colonial part of town (named the “Candelaria”) and picked Dad up from the airport. We were amazed at how quickly he seemed at home in Bogota. On the cab ride to the hotel he chatted with the driver the entire time about Colombia, his time growing up in Cuba, and the current state of Latin American politics. His Spanish skills hadn't diminished at all since he had stopped traveling internationally over 35 years ago. In fact, Dad seemed more at ease in Bogota than he often appears in the states! He would often strike up conversations with random Colombians wherever we found them and just chat with them for 10-15 minutes. I usually don't see that in the states. As you may know, my dad spent the first 15 years of his life in Cuba before Castro came into power. His dad was a businessman who had to flee before Fidel nationalized all businesses.
Since we only had a weekend we tried to fill it with the major sites. We started out at the Gold Museum. Wow. In a previous post I talked about never seeing so much gold before in my life. This museum beat it by far. It was 3 full floors of gold artifacts from the native peoples in Columbia. The crazy thing is that this is all the gold the Spanish missed! There were frequent quotes from the old explorers about how everyone in a village would have a gold nose-ring or earings. (Gold was admired but not used as a currency). In the end you got tired of all the gold in the room and just went past it. This is in great contrast to some of the museums in the southern countries where the gold breastplate was the prized asset of the museum! Not only was the content amazing but the presentation was excellent. All signs had English sections and the material was excellent. We learned about all the methods used to make these beautiful artifacts, methods which are still used today. In fact, there are no new methods other than the ones these people used, how crazy is that?! Unfortunately, I assumed that there would be no picture taking in the museum so I didn't take my camera, so no pictures. :( You'll just have to go yourself!
Dad and Suzanne looking over Bogota city:
Me and Dad in the botanical gardens
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| From Bogota |
Me and Dad in the botanical gardens
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| From Bogota |
The other big site we visited was the Salt Cathedral. There is a big salt mine just outside of Bogota and the miners constructed a church out of the huge chambers they created. Then the church became unstable and they had an international contest to design a new mine. This is the one we got to visit. It was pretty cool. It holds 10,000 people and is just huge. The way in begins with the stations of the cross which are made out of salt (everything is made out of salt). Then it opens into the huge nave with some absolutely massive columns. Overall, pretty cool. :)
We had a great time with Dad and the only regret was that it was so short. However, this was mitigated by the fact that in about a month we will be coming home! Yes, you read correctly. We are going to be done with our adventure in South America in just about a month! Why? Well, its a mix of factors. First, we're going to be out of money in a month. We really should have planned on spending $150 a day instead of just $100, second, we are starting to become tired of traveling. Things that shouldn't bother us (like that massage lady in the last post) really start to become nerve rattling and things that should delight us are just not that interesting anymore. We miss our families and our country and just want to come home! But not yet. :)
We had always wanted to spend time in Buenos Aires, longer than the 3 days we spent there at the very beginning of our trip. Our dream was to spend 6 weeks there originally but we took a look at our money left and decided that one month would work too. We have some friends who live there, plus it's arguably one of the best cities in South America.
The big loser country in our decision to come home early is Brazil. It's not that we didn't want to go, but the combination of the factors above (out of money and getting tired of traveling) plus the facts that it is one of the most expensive countries, speaks a different language, requires you to get an expensive visa, and is absolutely huge all caused us to look at the country and say “we'll try to get back to you”. So sorry Brazil.
We arrived in BA last Thursday and have been living in a furnished apartment since Thursday. We love it! BA is such an amazing city. It's like visiting a European city but without the expensiveness! We are really lucky to have our friends Ximena and Andres here. They are excellent guides, showing us things we never would have seen just using our guidebooks.
Next post will be more about BA and our new life there. :)
~Mike
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