September 2015

We took the long overnight bus to Bogota and even though our time is limited for 2 nights we ended up fitting a lot in. In the morning in we started off with a bike tour to explore the city and get to know about some famous places of the region.

During that day we had to take detours because a large parade was happening on the main streets, people were dancing and crowds swelled the streets for this parade. When lunchtime rolled around we were starving but luckily for us there was a great place to eat 5 meters from our hotel. Opa serves delicious greek slovaki wraps and we instantly fell in love with the chicken wrap as it contained juicy garlic sauce. Later that night we took the Trans Millenio (Public transport) to watch a Premiera A football game where the local team of Bogota was playing..

As we lined up for tickets we met an Australian and his cousin so we tagged along with them to buy tickets, lucky for us the ticket deal was 2 for price of 1. As a token gesture for helping us out I brought them some beer which to my surprise turned out to be non-alcoholic. The crowds at these games are very passionate standing and singing from start till finish the game is played at a high tempo and latin American footballers are very skilful.
We enjoyed every moment and it highlighted what our own country misses when it comes to supporting its own sports teams. Although both teams are in the bottom half of the top league the fans still turn up and sing their hearts out for the club.

The next day was an early morning to get to the Salt Cathedral. We took the bus north of the city for about 2 hours. We arrived in … that was once the biggest city in Colombia due to its salt mining. These days it’s a university town with plenty of life and friendly people and we even got directed where to go. But because we were feeling lazy we took the taxi and luckily we did as it was hill to walk up that we just couldn’t be bothered with. Once we arrived on the scene we entered the underground mine entrance on a Spanish tour because we couldn’t be bothered waiting an hour for the English one to start. Needless to say we pretty much understood everything I think.. Well it was easy enough to read the signs in English. The entrance to the salt cathedral is dedicated to the life of Jesus showing themes for the life of Christ. All themes emitted colourful lights and carved statues all the way to the cathedral. As we plunged deeper in the mine we arrived at the cathedral itself which also has three sections of the cathedral containing birth, life and resurrection. This looked absolutely stunning and you can see the salt glimmer off the walls. We learned more about the history of the mine by watching the 3D movie provided where it explained that in old times the Indians would use the process of salt water evaporation to produce hard rock salt and how different processes came into effect during Spanish colonial times.

At the end of our tour we took a glance at a water pool in the salt mine which showed a perfect still reflection. We made it back to Bogota by late afternoon so had we enough time to get an amazing view of the city by taking the cable to the top of the hills. As we reached the cable car it started drizzling with a light sun shower but the dramatic weather conditions added something a little different that made the views at the top so spectacular. Although we would have liked to spend more time here in Bogota I feel we definitely used the most of our time to see some great things the city and are has to offer even though we are a little more exhausted than usual. I think some relaxing days should be planned ahead.