Bogotá

The next morning, we didn’t have to rush to get up, which was such a nice change. We were planning on taking the noon bus back to Pereira, where we would be catching a short flight to Bogotá. Before heading to the bus terminal, we walked around town one last time. At this point, it seemed as though most of the tourists had taken the Jeeps to the Cocora Valley or to the coffee farms that were just outside town. The streets were emptier than we’d seen them, and we looked for a place to have a cup of coffee. Dana introduces me to a macchiato, and it’s so cute! Like a mini cappuccino! Hehe. Dana said it’s a great travel day drink since it’s smaller and better for having fewer pee stops readily available, lol. 

After our coffee stop, we begin to explore some of the souvenir shops, hoping to find some last-minute goodies to bring with us. Happy with our purchases, we head back to the hotel and get our things together. We’re early, but we might as well go wait by the bus station instead of our dark, damp, and humid hotel room. 

We get to the bus station, ready to purchase our tickets for the 12:00 bus, and we’re told that there is a taxi protest going on in Pereira, causing all kinds of traffic issues, so there were less busses available than normal. They usually leave every hour from Salento, but today, the next one is at noon. That feels like it’s cutting it close for our 3:45 flight, as we’re expecting the ride back to Pereira to take longer than an hour, especially knowing that the protests are going on. While we’re discussing other options, like grabbing an Uber, another guy over hears us and offers to take us on an 11:40 bus, that is meant to go direct to Medellín, but they will make a stop in Pereira for a handful of us who were trying to get there. Sweet! 

We get on the bus and end up in the last row, but we’re happy to have a few extra minutes on our hands. The ride starts off with no problems, but as we approach the city of Pereira, the bus needs to take a variety of side streets to get around the blocked streets. The taxi drivers have parked their cars across the road, prohibiting anyone from getting by. So, just like in our typical tradition, the alleged length of our bus ride is extended, and poor Dana has to pee horribly. I guess that macchiato was larger than normal. 🤪 

We finally make it to the bus station in Pereira, and Dana runs to the bathroom hehe. When she comes back, we arrange for an Uber to take us to the airport. Our Uber driver explains to us that the city is nearly empty due to the protests, and we’d make it to the airport shortly. 

And we arrived at the new airport, redone within the last couple of years. We have plenty of time before our flight, so we head to the lounge, naturally. The only self-serve in this lounge was a coffee machine and the rest we had to ask someone for. We stock up on snacks and do a little bit of work, patiently awaiting our flight to Bogotá.

Before we know it, it’s time to head to the gate. We get there only to find that the plane hasn’t even arrived yet. Ugh.. it’l be a while still, hehe. We think we have a ton of time, but as soon as the pane is connected to the jet bridge, they actually begin boarding. What? There is no way they have deplaned everyone and cleaned and catered. I call a bluff! Haha. Turns out, they start boarding and funnel people into the hallway of ramps headed towards the plane, while the inbound passengers deplane and head in a different direction, presumably to immigration and customs. Wow, this is efficient! I think I like this setup!

This time, all three of us are in the same row, and our flight should only be about 30 minutes or so, And of course, I have a window seat and am hoping that I can enjoy the views from 30,000 feet, but alas, it was cloudy the whole way. Womp Womp. 

We got to Bogotá and ordered an Uber, which took us a while to find, but the driver waited for us, and away we went! I enjoyed the ride from the airport, observing the city and its infrastructure. There are separate lanes for the city busses, and I’d later realize that at least some of the busses are run on natural gas. Sweet! The city feels more developed than any other city I’ve been to in Latin America, and I’m naturally curious as to how and why. I love traveling, as it satiates and fuels my curiosity for the world. I just love seeing different places and how they do things, especially within Latin America, as there are strong similarities between the countries, but also huge differences. 

Our apartment in Bogotá is on the top floor of a really nice building. We’re all super excited to get inside and see what it looks like. We check in with the security guard at the front desk, and we’re given two keys in a leather pouch. Oh, this is gonna be good, hehe. We take the keys out of the pouch, and they look like some sort of steampunk key, defitneily not your average key. This builds our excitement even more, and we hurry up the elevator and find our apartment. 

We put the key in, turn the handle, and what we see before us is a glorious view from the huge windows in the living room of the apartment. Wow! This apartment is super modern, complete with a touch sensitive faucet in the kitchen sink, an oven/microwave combination, and they even put in a projector! We were hoping to have a big ‘ole movie night later! Hehe 

Once we all take a nice long walking tour of our new home, we unpack and head out to the grocery store. We need to grab some dinner and snacks for our last couple of days in Colombia. It’s hard to believe the end of this chapter is near. 

We head out of the apartment, and I immediately love my surroundings; there are street artists and street vendors along a wide pedestrian only road that leads right to the neighborhood town square. Almost inexplicably, I get the best vibes from this place! I can’t wait to explore more tomorrow!

Once we’re back at the apartment, we attempt to figure out the washing/drying machine, but it appears that the drying feature doesn’t work, or is so slow that it’ll never work for us haha. Oh well, hang dry it is! At least we have the washer! :). I also attempt to figure out the projector situation, but realize we need to hook it up to one of our devices with an HDMI cable. Another strike! Lol. None of our devices have that port, so I guess we’l’ be watching the old-fashioned smart TV, haha. I go over to figure that one out and again greeted with issues. Gah! There are two remotes, and I try using both of them, but only one will turn the TV on, and after that, nothing. Interesting. So I troubleshoot with the cables, turning it on and off, etc. Nothing. Hmm…Then we wonder if it could be the batteries. Thankfully, the other remote took AAA batteries, and I had extras that I had bought as backups for my headlamp for our volcano hike back in Guatemala. I popped those babies in, and the remote worked! Hooray! So we put on some Netflix and watched The Office, essentially our show for the entire trip, lol. We didn’t get too much work done, but we certainly enjoyed the binging party, hehe. 

The next morning, we woke up fairly leisurely, and Dana and I had the last of our coffee, made with a French press. Yum! While we were waking up, we attempted to come up with a game plan for the day. We knew we wanted to start with Montserrat, a church overlooking the city on a nearby mountain. The city of Bogotá is surrounded by mountains, much like Medellín, and we couldn’t pass up the panoramic view that awaited us at the top. 

We grab an Uber to the ticket booth, which is where we’d be riding a funicular to the top. The funicular runs in the morning, and in the afternoons, the cable car transports people up and down the mountain. This would be my first time ever on a funicular. So fun! I love first-time adventures! :). When we get there, the line is super long, and when we got in the line, it was shady and quite chilly! I wish I had brought another layer, lol. We get our tickets and move over to the other line, which is the line to get into the funicular. We wait what seems like forever….we didn’t adhere to the number one rule: Always go early! Lol. Lesson learned! Haha

We make it up to the top, and along the way, we pass through a long tunnel, and Dana says she believes this is the longest funicular she’s ever been on. Cool! Not bad for my first time, then! 🙂

At the top, we quickly realize that people must come up here and spend the whole day! There are so many restaurants and cafes, and even an artisan market. We don’t really want to do anything besides enjoy the views, so we head over to the wall that overlooks the city and take our photos. We tried to identify our building, and I was 99% sure I was right, but I was later proven oh so wrong, haha. Whoops! 

Once we had our fill, we headed back down in the funicular and grabbed an Uber to the Plaza del Bolívar, the heart of our neighborhood, La Candelaria. We want to walk around and see some of the colonial architecture and enjoy the area before returning to the apartment. This is our last day, after all! 

On our way to the plaza, we see a little shop that serves filled “buñuelos,” something I had my eye on since the very beginning. We get four of them, two filled with chocolate and two filled with a raspberry-like syrup. Oh man, these are delicious! Basically, it’s a fried donut ball with the goods squeezed into the middle. Yum Yum Yum! We enjoy a little snack before tackling the rest of the neighborhood. 

We come up with a plan as to how to walk around and see all the things but are thwarted by blocked roads. We then notice a caravan of 5 or 6 of the same exact vehicle with a police escort driving down the street. Ahhhh, there must be some politician or someone being brought to one of the government buildings located in this area. Cool! I bet you don’t see that every day!

We finish the walking tour by visiting one of the oldest churches in Bogotá, Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria.  It was really cool! The roof was covered in wooden beams, and the walls were covered with ornate stations of the cross, I believe. There was one section that was gated off but glistened as if they were real gold accents in there. I imagine it’s real gold, and maybe at some point, all of these stations of the cross were adorned with gold. It makes me think of the history of Latin America, and how the Spaniards and other colonial powers came and scoured the earth for precious metals, taking them back to their own countries, or using them for their churches. On the one hand, the building is wildly beautiful, but on the other hand, it’s a representation of colonialism at its worst. I’ve always struggled with that contrast, and I think I always will. 

Once back at the apartment, Dana and Hayden decide to head to a local mall in order to find replacement sneakers. Theirs are pretty trashed at this point, no thanks to the volcano hike and the most recent muddy Salento hike. I, too, left behind a pair of sneakers. I was sad to see them go, but they served me well and saw some amazing things. As far as sneakers go, they had a pretty great life, lol. 

The mall trip was successful, with both Dana and Hayden purchasing a pair of sneakers. Hooray! Now that business is taken care of, back to the apartment we go to find a place for our last meal together. Awwww. 

We look through a couple of menus, but we all unanimously agree on one called El Origen. With a group decision made, we head out, excited but feeling a bit sad that our time together is coming to a rapid end. I wanted to treat Dana and Hayden since they welcomed me so graciously to their backpacker lifestyle and let me hang out for the better part of a month. But, they beat me to it! Hehe. Great minds think alike, I guess. I’ll get you guys next time! :). During dinner, we reviewed some of our favorite moments from the last several weeks, and dang, do we have some good memories, and boy, did we eat good! Haha. 

Feeling grateful and now sufficiently full, we head out for one last helado (ice-cream) together. We make our selections, and with our cones in our hands, we walked around the little park that is directly in front of our apartment building, taking in the last views of Bogotá and Colombia. Such a bittersweet moment. I’m so grateful to have had this opportunity, but I am sad to leave it behind. I’m going home to fun things, and there will always be a new adventure waiting, but closing a chapter and saying goodbye is always tough. 

We settled back into the apartment for one last night together. We play some music as we pack up and prepare for the next grand adventure. I’m off to Boston, where my handbell group will be starting up again for the spring. I’m so excited to be back ringing handbells, and if you’re in the New England Area, please check out The New England Ringers! 🙂 Dana and Hayden are off to a surprise location, I’ll let them announce that when they’re ready :). 

Once packing is done, we decide to throw on our favorite show, The Office, and try to “work” while watching. Yeah, right, haha. I gave up on the work and just enjoyed watching one of the greatest series of all times. By 9pm, we were ready to call it a night, as we’d be catching a 5:30 Uber to the airport, for our lights the next morning. Until tomorrow! 🙂