Colombia's capitol cont
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2010
1
79
366
Trip End
Jul 13, 2012
Bogota, Colombia
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Got up at 9am after a better night (no slaughtering of animals, just some light snoring) and had breakfast then walked round the corner to the Museo de Botero which has works of art by several other artists but mainly Fernando Botero who likes to paint everything fat. From there we
went next door to the Casa de la Moneda (the mint) which has a collection of British (from a Birmingham co.) machinery and we had a demonstration on how some of them work and also got given a souvenir coin. After that we went to the Museo del Oro (gold museum) which is
much bigger than the one in Cali (with three floors of the stuff!). We then returned to the hostel for lunch and then Skyped our parents. Once it had stopped raining, again, we headed out to Parque de la Independencia to see the wax palms (Colombia's national tree) and next door to look at the Plaza de Toros (bull ring). We had just enough time to go the Museo Nacional in downtown before heading back to the hostel for dinner. On the way back we decided to go up the cable car or funicular to the top of Monserrate but when we got there it was closed, so we decided to stay another night and go tomorrow. Back at the hostel we cooked dinner and then sat and chatted with fellow travelers. Later watched a movie (Tron Legacy) and went to bed.
18th Apr.
Got up just after 8am and had breakfast in the covered courtyard whilst it bucketed down with rain. We hung around the hostel until it stopped raining at around 11 and then eventually caught a bus to the botanical gardens. It wasnŽt however as straight forward as we thought to catch a
bus as none of them had where we were going on them and it was difficult to find which side of 4 roads they stopped. We asked a policeman and he helped us find the right bus but we would have to get off near the science museum and walk for a bit. A lady on the bus also helped us get off at the right stop and as we were near we decided to see how much the museum cost. It was a little expensive for the amount of time we had so we walked the 20-30mins to the Botanical gardens. We spent an hour and a half in there and have to say that they werenŽt as good as weŽd thought theyŽd be. There wasnŽt much in bloom and a lot of the places weŽd liked to walk (like the rose garden) were closed off as they were working on them. After leaving the gardens we walked to the Simon Boliva park and walked round the lake to the cascade at the bottom. The cascade was quite cool as there was a spiral staircase to get to the top with a lovely view of the park and lake, and the way down was via some stairs that followed the water down. Had it been running it would have been even better but it was still none the less quite nice. We then caught a bus back just in time for it to start raining again and when we arrived back, decided that it was too wet to go up Monserrate and went back to the hostel. We then headed out in the pouring rain to get some dinner (pizza) and returned a little damp. After a hot shower, we packed ready for tomorrow and then retired to bed.
19th Apr.
Got up at 8am and checked email whilst waiting for breakfast to start, typical it's late the day we're leaving! After breakfast we caught a taxi to the bus station only to find that there weren't many and the first one doesn't leave until 4pm! So we did a bit of asking around most of which was a no, but we asked a policeman if we were at the right terminal and he did some asking around too. He came back and ushered us round the back (uh oh) but it was to the Bolivarino exit gate and he persuaded them to get us on the next bus leaving at 11am. Tourist card strikes again!
