We touched down in Bogota, Colombia on 5th August 2009. The first stop on our South American adventure.
Bogota is a sprawling city, with a kind of organised chaos, as cars, motorbikes, buses and people move around everywhere (in all directions). On every street corner there is someone trying to sell you some crap, from knock off handbags, to tuperwear, cheap sunglasses, right down to individual cigarettes. It's not a beautiful city but it has a certain charm. We stayed in an area called 'La Candalaria', with cobbled streets and more of an old world feel.
Touring the city you see huge contrast with the nicer areas having all the latest shops (Prada, Gucci, Zara) and BMW's and Audi's rolling the streets, right down to shanty towns built from concrete and rusted steel (with most places looking half finished).
We checked out Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) and Museo Historico Policia (National Police Museum) which included a (very large) section on the tracking and killing of Pablo Escobar.
So, day 1 in Sud America, and our first obvious hurdle was Spanish, with the old "habla ingles" getting a pretty good work out. Definately more work required in this area!
We´re off to Northern Colombia, on the Carribean coast, in the next few days!
The city from the streets of 'La Candalaria'
Bogota has everything.....
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