Rollin' With the Homies
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2010
1
25
44
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
Hostal Sue Candelaria
Bogota, Colombia
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The choices were:
(1) Stay and check out Bogota (the better option if they wanted to rest from their flight), or
(2) Go directly to the bus terminal from the airport and leave for Medellin or San Gil.
Though I checked out of my hostel, they let me leave my bag there so that I could look around the city. I ended up wandering around with a couple of Korean guys who invited me to their home-cooked dinner the night before. We ended up going to a flee market, checking out the different street performers, and grabbing some coffee at a Juan Valdez coffee shop (you know, the Colombian coffee guy with the donkey?).
When we got back to the hostel, it was dark and I just hung out there until I had to go to the airport to pick up the guys.
I waited at the airport for over an hour an a half. I was worried that I might have somehow missed them. But, once we met up, they told met that their was too much air traffic and that their airplane was circling above the airport for a while. I wonder if that kind of thing drives up prices in the long run because of wasted gas.
Anyway, it was really good seeing them. It almost felt like I was back home and it's been awesome spending some time with them.
So, the consensus was choice (1) and we went back to the hostel I stayed the night before. Too bad it was full. So we went to their other location (just a few blocks over), left our stuff, and then grabbed something to eat.
Korea Dave bought enough food for the Koreans too, so we went back to the first hostel to eat and hang out with them. There's always something fun and interesting about that kind of cross-cultural experience. To get perspective about being Korean yet not being Korean seemed to be interesting for them as well.
That night, I got the worst sleep ever. Our dorm room was right by the street. Every time a car or scooter drove by I woke up. I woke up because the semi-circle shaped mattress wrecked my back. And I woke up because there were a bunch of dogs fighting on the street outside our room.
But, in spite of a long, sleepless night, I was stoked for the adventures that I would have with my visiting friends in the next week.
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The bad news that we found out about the next day is that nearly 80% of the attractions are closed on Mondays. Luckily, we were very happy with the museums that were open and we were too tired from lack of sleep. The good news we found out is that most of the museums are free this year in celebration of Colombia's 200 year anniversary of their freedom from Spanish rule.
The first museum we visited was the Police Museum. Free admission and free tour. The highlights of the museum were some of Pablo Escobar's belongings and a collection of different weapons.
The second museum we went to was the Botero Museum. I had seen a couple of Fernando Botero's paintings in some of my Spanish classes and was eager to see his works. He's known for drawing/painting/sculpting everyone and everything fat. Really cool stuff.
Afterwards, we went back to the hostel, crashed on the sofas, had McDonald's for dinner (not my choice), said our goodbyes to the Koreans, and got on a 10 hour bus ride to Medellin.
Fun day rollin' with the homies.
