Monday 17th to Friday 21st July 2006: COLOMBIA: Bogota

Having arrived in Bogota on the evening of the 17th, we were surprised by the sudden drop in temperature. We learnt that Bogota stands at 2,600 meters above sea level, so we therefore spent the next few days feeling quite cold and looking forward to more tropical climes!

Having booked our internal flight to Leiticia (for the start of our Amazon tour) for the Friday, we spent most of our time in our hotel due to the cold and also because of the reports we had heard and read about the undesirability of Bogota, especially at night. These reports seemed justified to us as there was a constant police presence throughout the day and at 9pm the streets surrounding our hotel were deserted, even the police had disappeared! We later learnt (from Bogotans we met in Leiticia) that we had been staying in the worst part of Bogota i.e. downtown and had we stayed in the suburban north we would have experienced a very different Bogota!

However, in spite of our nervousness of the city we still managed to have a good time and we very much enjoyed visiting one of the best museums in South America, Museo Del Oro (The Gold Museum) which was full of amazingly intricate and fascinating gold artifacts centuries of years old.

We were also fortunate enough to witness Colombia's Independence Day procession on Thursday 20th - a national holiday. The procession lasted ours and included what looked like every different military group of Colombia, from the military college, injured war vets, marching bands, provincial fighters and the calvary and they even had a fly-by but the weren't as good as The Red Arrows! The streets were packed with locals, young and old, who cheered and clapped as each different group marched by. Evidently this was a very special day for al Colombians and we were glad to have experienced it even though after hours of standing we were freezing!

Colombian Independence Day March in Bogota