TRUCK DAY WAS ONLY 3 HOURS – WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOUT?

WEATHER: Cooler and 25C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: 3 hours in the truck

BUMMER OF THE DAY: 3 hours in the truck

WORD OF THE DAY:  Italian

DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 120km

We were told that it wouldn’t be far to travel today, but we have been told that quite a few times now, so it’s with a little skepticism we board the truck for the third last time EVER.  It is just starting to dawn in me this time next week I will be I will be on Easter Island on my second last night before finally leaving the South American continent after being here for nearly 6 months. 

I was in the room on my own last night as Heather had departed yesterday and it was nice to have some space to myself and spread out all my crap.  In saying that I am happy with the crap I do have left and depending on what I buy at the Otavalo Markets, I think I am going to be fine with my one bag to check-in in 5 days!  OMG 5 days!!!!! 

A 9am departure was a luxury and before we had even got out of the street Rosita (not Gray) hit a branch on an over-hanging tree and happen to snap it from the tree with it landing on a car directly below.  It was actually bigger than the normal branch that it warranted Gray to get out of the truck to check if there was any damage……and the punches just keep in rolling!!!  Luckily there was no damage to the car and we were able to drive off guilt free that no harm was done.  What a start to the day!!!  It’s our last full day in Colombia today as we cross the border to Ecuador tomorrow after lunch.  I have reall6y enjoyed Colombia, even with all the bad luck that we have had, that’s travel and shit happens.  But the people are friendly, they wave (big plus for me), its beautiful, it has beaches, it has mountains, it has shopping, no one got robbed, accosted and only some of the girls were offered some recreational drugs in Taganga, other than that we had no issues what so ever in Colombia.  We did use common sense, didn’t stray too far from hotels at night etc…. but its smart travelling and we all survived.

It took us a while to get out of Cali and the highlight was the passing of a street fruit and veggie market.  The traffic was shocking so we got to really see people go about their daily business as we were stuck in traffic.  We got the usual stares and people in cars next to us wanting to speak to us, but as my Spanish is non-existent I have to refer them to Danielle 4 windows back as her Spanish is quite good.  I wish I could speak Spanish and all plans of learning from home went unheeded and it makes me even more determined to learn Amharic so I am not left in the position when I move.   The fruit and veg market was amazing.  There were bikes, taxis, 4WD, pull carts, push carts, motor taxis all loaded to the hilt with purchases.  Colored umbrella’s shaded the sellers with their massive avocados, these things were twice the size of your fist, the grapes are the size of cherry tomatoes, there was lettuce, massive mango’s, oranges by the sackful, onions potatoes, tomatoes, bananas by the bunch and pineapples in their original form and already chopped to eat.  It was a hive of activity, colour and smells. 

It was a rainy day the further we travelled and it is funny to see how the motorbikes cover themselves to keep dry.  The main pieces they all wear are the poncho raincoats.  I saw one guy had plastic bags over his shoes, I’m guessing they aren’t waterproof.  Kids were on the back of the bikes sheltering under the ponchos and other riding with umbrellas in their hands.  I am still getting a lot of waves and I think the Colombians have been the best wavers of all the South American countries.  It probably has something to do with not seeing many tourist trucks like ours coming through, so we are a novelty and to get a gringo to return a wave is probably pretty funny for them.  I am more than happy to oblige and keep up the Tucan Ambassador-ship.

You could imagine our surprise when we saw the ‘Welcome to Popayan’ sign at 12.15am!!!  WTF.  I was just starting to get comfy on the truck.  We’re here already???  I have to say that I think this takes the prize for the shortest travel day of the whole 151 days.  3 hours!!  A walk in the park.  We were staying in the old town and after stopping out the front of the Dann Monastery Hotel (we are staying at the sister property in Quito) while Mark went to check on the hotels and returned 10 minutes later to tell us that Rosita was too big to get in and we just had to walk a block to the hotel.  I was okay with this as I had just packed an overnight bag for the one night stay, so I didn’t have to lug my big backpack.  I am not just a pretty face you know!  

Popayán is the capital of the Colombian department of Cauca. It is located in southwestern Colombia between Colombia's Western Mountain Range and Central Mountain Range. It has a population of 258,653 people and is located 1760 meters above sea level.  This town is well-known because of its beautiful colonial architecture and its contributions to Colombian cultural and political life. It is also known as the "white city" due to the color of the most of colonial houses and places in the city downtown, where several churches are located, such as San Francisco, San José, Belén, Santo Domingo, San Agustín, and the Cathedral Basílica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, known locally as "La Catedral".  The city's cathedral was home to the Crown of the Andes, a 16th century Marianist devotional object featuring emeralds taken from the captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa before its sale to finance local health care institutions.  Much of the city's original splendor was destroyed on 31 March 1983, when an earthquake toppled many buildings. Though many of them were rebuilt and repaired, the heart of the city still bears ruins and empty lots since the disaster.  Popayán has been home to seventeen Colombian presidents, as well as noted poets, painters, and composers. The University of Cauca (est. 1827), one of Colombia's oldest and most distinguished institutions of higher education, is located here; that is why Popayan is also known as the "University City."

In 2005, Popayán was declared by the UNESCO as the first city of gastronomy because of its variety and meaning to the intangible patrimony of Colombian culture.  The culinary history of the Cauca department was chosen because of their maintaining of traditional methods of food preparation which has been passed over through different generations orally. Popayán is the only place in Latin America to have been declared a City of Gastronomy by UNESCO, in tribute to its significant tradition of regional cooking. Typical dishes of the city are a legacy of both Spanish and indigenous cultural interaction, integrating components of local origin with fruits brought from Spain.  On 2009 September 28, UNESCO also declared the processions of the Easter Week processions as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Patrimony of Humanity.  Popayán was a very important town during the colonial period because of its location between Lima, Quito and Cartagena. Even after the discovery of the Pacific Ocean, Popayán remained a transfer point of gold and riches going to Cartagena on its way to Spain. Popayán also served as a colonial mine, producing various denominations of the Escudo gold coins and silver Reales from 1760 through 1819; it continued producing coinage for the new Republic of Colombia after 1826.

As a result of its colonial importance, Popayán is one of the most traditional Colombian towns and is very rich in Colonial architecture. Although in 1983 an earthquake destroyed part of the city, there are still several colonial bridges, museums and churches in the town.  Popayán has been destroyed by several earthquakes. The most recent and destructive lasted eighteen seconds and occurred on 31 March 1983. The reconstruction of the colonial city took more than 10 years and today it is still possible to see some lots that have not been reconstructed. The first earthquake seismic design code was established in Colombia as a consequence of this earthquake.

Popayán's Historic Downtown is considered one of the most beautiful and best preserved in Colombia and Latin America. Popayán has preserved its colonial architecture for more than four centuries, a reason why national Colombian and foreign visitors are seduced by its historic downtown. The cobblestone streets were almost all paved in 1937, however, there are a few projects which are currently being implemented to recover the old city's original look and this was where we were staying for the night.  It was still spitting rain a little bit as we arrived at out hotel.  The hotel had another large group in, so the boys got moved to the hotel next door and we stayed where we were.  After a 25 minute turn around, we walked the 2 blocks to the city center and then branched off to enjoy a leisurely lunch.  Steph, Marina, Shaz and I found a cute little Italian Restaurant where we got a starter salad, I ordered spaghetti carbonara, we also got garlic bread, French fries and to finish off we got a small custard and meringue for desert and it was all included in the pastas price of 10AUD.  It was an amazing meal and while we were waiting for the main course I made a phone call to Zeme.  It’s been a week and I said I would try and call once a week and I also needed to use the last of my mobile credit, so we got a good 8 minutes, it was a bad line, but what I could make out is that he has applied or has seen the Australian Consulate people about his visa for July.  Fingers crossed he doesn’t have any issues as I would be totally devastated if he didn’t come to Oz for the 10 days as planned.  We filled all the forms in while I was in Addis (I was allowed) so all should be in order for the submission.  Please, please Travel Gods you have to weigh in on this one for me as we know you really haven’t been around for the last 3 weeks that is for sure. 

Sharon and I took a walk around the small town after lunch and we saw a few of the main sights including:

Caldas Park.  This park, common passageway of students, executives, and all citizens, and cultural reunion place, it was born at the same time as Popayán in 1537, when the track in grid generated around religious, governmental, and founders buildings. Initially it was used as a marketplace. In 1538 it was placed a trap in the center of the park, where Jorge Robledo y Álvaro Oyón were beheaded. This trap lasted until 1766 when it was replaced by a faucet of water, which lasted until 1805 when a stone pile was put in its place, but it was removed too in 1910 after the inauguration of the monument to Sabio Caldas, a piece of the French sculptor Raoul Verlet, which has remained since that time in the same place. There exists a replica located in the Plazoleta de las Nieves in Bogotá. At the same time there were planted leafy trees which currently round up the monument and embellish this place. In May 2007 a proposal of architect Lorenzo Castro was made to remodel Caldas Park by expanding the pedestrian zone around the park, and in April 2009 the first phase of the work in the park began, in preparation for the celebration of Easter, a touristic time for Popayán.

Clock Tower.  It is the main symbol of the city, and it was called “the nose of Popayan” by Master Guillermo Valencia. It is a construction placed next to the Cathedral church, built between 1673 and 1682, with 96 thousand bricks.  The clock, made in England, was placed in 1737. Its mechanism operated by the action of two lead weights which were changed by Antonio Nariño in the Colombia independence dispute in 1814, when metal was required to manufacture ammunition.  After the earthquake of 1983, the clock was restored and put back in operation by the same English company that manufactured it, but it stopped working a long time ago.

San Francisco Church.  According to the architect, critic and historian Germain Téllez, the facade of this temple is the best example of baroque style throughout Colombia. In its tower is placed a famous bell donated by Don Pedro Agustín de Valencia. This temple is remarkable because of its altars decorations and its naves and apse proportions. In the San Francisco's square, it stands the monument to the local hero Camilo Torres, whose replica is located in the square of the Colegio Mayor de San Bartolomé in Bogotá.

Santo Domingo Church.  Fray Jeronimo Escobar founded the convent of the Augustinians in the late seventeenth century, whose temple was destroyed in the earthquake in 1736. Then, it was reconstructed thanks to contributions from notable people of the city, but it was necessary to restore it again after the earthquake of 1983. In particular it stands out its altar carved in wood and covered in gold, its expository baroque made in silver and a beautiful image of the Lady of Sorrows.

Catedral Basílica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción Church

Originally it was a straw hut, but in 1609 it was opened a second cathedral of mud and masonry. The current construction was consecrated in 1906 by Archbishop Manuel Antonio Arboleda, who brings it a magnificent European pipe organ. Its style is the neoclassical, and much of the building was restored because of the earthquake of 1983, including the great dome of 40 meters high, whose restoration was made according to guidelines of the original structure designed by the local artist Adolfo Dueñas.

It was a nice afternoon and it is the first one we have had for a very long time where we have had time to actually do something in daylight hours and it made a great change.  We were back to the hotel just after 5pm where we relaxed and watched some TV.  The Wi-Fi was intermittent in the rooms but we only had to sit in the hacienda courtyard out the front of our room to get connection, which we did when we needed.  We found the crime channel and watched back to back CSI Miami, New York and Las Vegas through till 8pm and decided we better get something to eat, even though we weren’t that hungry after such a big lunch, we were leaving in the morning at 6.15am, and wouldn’t be getting breakfast.  So we took a stroll back into town armed with our cameras and took some night shots of the Bell Tower, Santo Domingo Church and the park all lit up at night.  There wasn’t a lot of traffic on the roads, but there were a few people out and about and it certainly felt safe enough to walk around.  On the way back we found a small areapa place that did all sorts of flavors, so Shaz got 2 Hawaiians, and I got 2 chicken and bacon ones, one for dinner and one for brekkie and they were heated on a BBQ grill with the toppings and cheese put in the in the middle and slapped together like a sandwich.  We took them back to the hotel and it was just the right size for dinner and we now had something in the morning for breakfast.

Sharon and I have been scratching like mad all day from the blood sucking flying buggers.  My skirt was rubbing make them all itch.  We didn’t have any itch cream so we resorted to applying aloe vera and it seemed to help them calm down, but man scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch – ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

So that was how we spent our last full day and our last night in Colombia.  I enjoyed the country immensely and I think it would definitely be one that I would come back to again and spend some more time on the coast. 

   

MY DAY OF REST IN CALI

WEATHER: Hot and 28C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Meeting a new friend

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Not doing a thing all day-but I am allowed right?

WORD OF THE DAY: Rosita is HERE

Heather and I were up at 7.30am this morning.  For some reason I was just feeling wiped out and decided to stay at the hotel today to just watch TV and load my 6 blogs that I had written over the last few days.  The girls caught taxis to San Antonio, a restaurant and café area, to have a few drinks and a farewell lunch to Heather who was on a 4pm flight to Lima that afternoon.  She was due back to the room at 2pm, so I would have time to say goodbye to her myself.  That ray of sunshine will definitely be missed. 

I did do one productive thing today and I had arranged to meet a friend of a friend tonight.  Ana was a Colombian and living in Cali, so I promised that I would catch up with her.  I Facebooked Ana in the morning and we arranged to meet at 7.30pm at the hotel to have dinner there to make it nice an easy.  I was a little nervous and it felt like I was waiting for a first date, but Sharon was also going to be coming with me, so if things got a little awkward she could help me out. 

The internet plan pretty much went down the tube as the connection in the rooms was shocking, so I watched a few of the CSI shows, a movie and then had a LLD (little lie down) till 2pm when Heather returned from lunch.   The afternoon was spent talking and helping Heather pack and then a final hug and goodbye that lasted till the taxi was out of sight, I wish Heather all the best on her G Adventure trip of Peru and know that we will be catching up again when I am in London in August.  We got news that Rosita was out and had left the coffee plantation at 1pm.  How the hell she got out I will need to ask Gray.  They made great time and arrived at the hotel just before 7pm.  It was great to see the boys back safe and sound and our BIG yellow friend parked out the front.  What a relief. 

Something about the city I didn’t see.  Santiago de Cali simply referred to as Cali, is a city in western Colombia.  With a population of 2.5 million, Cali is the third largest city in the country, after Bogotá and Medellín. It has one of the fastest growing economies and infrastructure in the country because of its geographical location. The city was founded on 25 July 1536 by the Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar.  Cali is the shortened form of the official name of the city Santiago de Cali. The first part of the full name honors Saint James the apostle (Santiago in Spanish) whose feast day is celebrated on 25 July.

The city rests approximately 1,000 meters above sea level and its topography is fairly flat.  It is Colombia's third largest airport in terms of passengers, transporting 2,667,526 in 2009 and the city is located in a valley and the city is completely bordered by mountains to the West.  It is normal in Cali to think of a shopping mall as a touristic place. Most of them are built like urban boulevards, with open-air walking corridors that look like a 'Main Street' side walk. With large facilities providing full amenities, Caleños love just talking walks in them, enjoying the fact that everything is at their hands.  Tens of smaller malls are spread all over the city. According to recent Lonely Planet guides of Colombia, Cali has recently become famous for being a prime destination for people seeking cheap cosmetic surgery. Cali's surgeons are famous in Colombia for having shaped some of the country's most beautiful women. There have been no significant reports of problems in this area, but Lonely Planet advises proper research before pursuing such an idea.

I waited out at reception from 7pm in case Ana arrived early and our dinner group expanded to Marina and Steph as well which I was fine with.  The more the merrier I say.  Ana arrived right on time and it was great to meet her.  The hotel restaurant was closed tonight, so after Ana worked out what we wanted to eat, we caught a taxi squeezing all 5 of us in one and headed to a shopping center that had a variety of restaurants to choose from.  Not a food-court or eatery but proper restaurants, so we chose a meat restaurant, took a seat and enjoyed a lovely meal with new and old friends.  We asked Ana a lot of questions about her family, job and country and she was more than willing to answer them all.  After we had paid the bill we exited the shopping center to the taxi ranks where there we no taxis waiting.  One of the security guards was walking past on his walkie talkie and spoke to someone and we were told that one was on its way.  We waited around 10 minutes when we were all thinking the same thing and Steph said let’s just walk to the main road and hail one, but Ana told us in no certain terms, that it would be unsafe to do that, at this point another security guard on a motorbike and a sawn off shot gun slung over his shoulder stopped by to tell us a cab was only 5 minutes away.  The cab turned up and would only take 4 of us, so Ana put us in the cab first and a second one was called for her.  She got the taxis number plate and the drivers name and asked me to Facebook her once we got back home.  So with a hug and a promise to keep in touch we made our way back the hotel just after 10pm. The internet was a little slow when we got back and I wasn’t able to get a message out to Ana till just after 11pm and she replied back that she had actually phoned the hotel when she hadn’t heard from us to make sure that we had got back okay.  That was so sweet.        

So that was my day in Cali.  Not much, but apparently I didn’t miss much either, so I will take the rest days as they come and as we said goodbye to one friend and met another one it was still a good day all round. 

ROSITA ALSO HAS HER BAD DAYZ

WEATHER: Hot and 29C and raining and cooler 19C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Nerding it up all day and not feeling guilty

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Not making out of the coffee plantation-Rosita bogged again

WORD OF THE DAY:  Can’t be repeated on the blog-too offensive

DISTANCE TRAVELLED: Nil till 5.50pm and then 180km

We woke to blue skies and birds chirping this morning.  We got a small luxury of a sleep in with a departure time of 9am and breakfast was on from 8am.  We were heading to Cali for 2 nights with only a short drive in front of us of about 5 hours, spirits we high of the shorter drive today, even if it took an extra hour or two unless something went drastically wrong (touchwood) we would not hit single digits in the truck today.  The only real concern was getting Rosita down the steep hill, across the bridge and up a smaller hill on the other side.  It had rained overnight, but the sun was out and things didn’t look too bad at all. 

The truck was all loaded and ready to go at 8.45am, so Gray decided to turn the truck around and after talking to him this morning he was going to try and do a 100 point turn in the car park to get Rosie around but when he started the truck plans must have changed and he decided to use the small football pitch next to the round house as his turning circle which normally would have been okay if it hadn’t rained the night before.  He bumped over the concrete divider (leaving a small damaged hole) got to turn 90 degrees and then…….she got bogged.  With wheels spinning and a bit of mud flying it didn’t look too bad.  She wasn’t deep in mud, but there was just no traction what so ever.  There was a small groan from the group, but with the run that we have had the last 4 weeks, we are now just learning to roll with the punches.  We can’t change it; it wasn’t done on purpose so let’s just help out where we can and learn to be patient.  I never thought by the end of the afternoon I would be ready to kill a few people with their negative attitude, whinging and whining-seriously……..  

Gray decided to leave Rosita for an hour, to give the ground some time to dry out.  We were lucky the sun was high in the sky and was beating down, so this was a good sign.  The bad sign was Gray donned his overalls and this is always a bad sign of thing could get tricky.  Not only does Gray cook for us, but he knows every inch of Rosita, what he has in his tool box and not always have we seen him do things by the Rosie Manual, but he has to work with what he has, if not a little unconventional at times, but he has always got us out of whatever situation Rosita has put us in and again we had 100% faith that this would also be the case today. 

We had always planned to get a group photo of us today, as it really was the last opportunity with us all together as New Heather leaves tomorrow for Lima and Blue Heather leaves in Otavalo and we had the time now that Rosita wasn’t moving anywhere soon.  We got most people in the photo; I don’t know why people won’t get into a group shot at least for the end of tour photo.  I know people don’t like having their picture taken but at the end of the day, we are tiny specks in the photo as we were using Rosita as our back drop and I have to say that the photos turned out awesome.  Gray wouldn’t get into a single photo, but he was just being difficult and I could use a certain word but it’s not fit for any ears and I won’t even tell you what it starts with but it is a terrible word and that is what he was being today.  All issues aside, he could have stood in A photo.  We also got a photo with the 4 originals.  Sharon, Julia, Kate and Myself.  171 days for the 3 of them and 154 days for me, that is a massive accomplishment and with Mark (no Gray) we got a few snaps to mark the occasion.  I’m getting a little emotional now as the trip draws to a close.  It has been a wild adventure.  Some ups and downs, more ups and we have circled a massive continent.  It is a trip that I will not forget and it was pretty cool to look back on the photos of the day from this section today to just remind me of what we have actually seen over the last 6 months.   

The morning progressed with not much result.  A lot of digging started, plantation hands came to help, gravel was bough, hay was supplied to try and give some form of traction and at 11am the scrap metal man arrived with his jeep to see if he could help.  Rosita only needed to be moved a few centimeters to get her back wheels onto the traction grips and hopefully that would have solved it all…..  but he just didn’t have the ompffff and after around an hour with some cash in hand and a wave, they left us to try plan 32.  The blood sucking flying buggers were back in force and I think they were at the worst when you were standing on the grass.  By the end of the afternoon I had over 15 bites on my legs and a few on my arms and they were itchy as hell.  We were all scratching like we all had fleas or something. Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.  It was the worst I had been bitten on my whole World Odyssey and they were driving me nuts.

Lunch was served at 12.30pm.  People were still okay, there were a lot of worse places we could have been stuck.  We had the pool, the view, the weather, the round house for power, toilets and showers.  It was just a further day of rest and we weren’t missing anything in Cali, as there isn’t too much on offer there except Salsa Clubs.  This was okay.  I was keeping busy nerding up on the computer.  I caught up to date on my photo of the day pictures, so when I get internet they are ready to upload.  The last few days photos have all been loaded, turned and cropped also ready to be loaded and spent the rest of my time writing and compiling my very last blog for Bernie’s World Odyssey, which won’t be till September, but there is a lot of information that I plan put in them with stats and figures (surprise) so I have had to refer to my last diary for information and also previous blog entries as it will be a BIG job.  I started re-reading a few of my blogs in the process and it was awesome re-read things that I had totally forgotten about, and with a little personal high five to me for my perseverance, information and content I think I am going to really enjoy reading my travel diary from the start to relive every single moment of my trip.  To blow my own horn a little I am pretty damn proud of my blog.  I am hoping I will have time when I get to Ethiopia to do this as I settle in and look for work and just relax and wind down from one adventure to start the next one.

I have a plan which I still need to run past Zeme, but with my arrival into Ethiopia at the start of September, I am allowed to enter on a 3 month visa and until I find work and get sponsored by a government approved company I can’t stay longer than 3 months at any one time.  Easy answer is that I leave (London, Kenya, where ever is cheaper) and then re-enter again to start a new 3 months.  I’m not sure how open immigration would be to that option should I try it more than a few times, but it is a last resort that technically would work.  After being twice now, I known what to expect but I need to work out what I am going to need to bring from home, what I can and can’t get readily in Addis etc….  Clothes are my number one issue.  Ethiopians are all very skinny and I didn’t see many clothing places that would accommodate my ‘size’.  I know I could probably get clothes made, but 90% of the time they just never turn out the way you had wanted, but this would be a backup plan should I need anything urgently.  I then sit back and think I have survived on 2 pairs of shorts, 3 skirts and a pair of cargo pants for the last 13 months, how much do I actually need to take?  In my defence I miss my dresses, feeling like a lady and having some respectable hair for once, so I still plan to take a bunch of clothes, anything more than 6 main items of wardrobe will be a blessing for me and a great start.  After my second visit medication, drugs etc... Won’t be an issue, that is all readily available, so it tis then onto some comforts of home.  I have gone without for 12 months, but long term is a little more serious so I plan on sending some ‘care’ packages to myself containing Twisties, Burger Rings, Tim Tams, BBQ Shapes, a supply of salty plums, Smarties and Red Frogs.  That is what I am missing now and will make a god start to my stash in Ethiopia.  Hopefully when Zeme tries them all he won’t like them and then I get them all to myself, but we have pretty similar eating habits and foods so I have a feeling he will enjoy them as much as me!  I have decided to look for a job when I get there, see how hard it actually is, get word out there but just adapt and settle in over the next 3 months, taking language classes, learning to cook traditional food and just finding my feet.  The 3 months would then bring me to early December and I am thinking that Z and I could go to Australia for Christmas for around 4 weeks and then with my return in January look in earnest for a job and get back into some form of routine starting the New Year, well in Western time, the Ethiopian New Year is normally in September/October so I will to celebrate that twice a year.  Yeah I think I am liking that idea already!  So that is a rough plan till January and then we need to think about using my last section of the round world ticket before April 2013.  Maybe this travel gig just isn’t quite over yet and the beauty is I now have Zeme to share it all with. 

At 2pm a tractor came up to help us.  Surely this was going to be the answer.  It all looked so positive, but the problem was the tractor was no getting any traction either and was churning up the grass in the process.  There was one moment where it looked like she was going to get out, she rolled back and forth a few times but just couldn’t get that last push out, it was around 3pm when this happened and I think it started to sink in that we were probably going to be here for another night.  With Rosie getting pushed and pulled, dug around, lifted and jacked she was actually sinking deeper into the wet grass.  The football pitch now looked like a mud bath as it was now getting carved up by the tractor as well as Rosie and also the diggers.  As the afternoon wore on some storm clouds rolled in and lot of thunder was threatening and eventually dropped some rain for around 15 minutes.  This was not good news for the rescue mission and at 4pm Mark informed us that he has arranged a 28 seater bus to come and collect us and we were going to leave Gray and Rosita behind for the night and a rescue mission was being prepared as we spoke of a temporary road to be made to get her out tomorrow-all going well……   So with Rosita on a jack, we were allowed one at a time onto the truck to get off our hand luggage that we needed and we were also told to take all out personal effects, but we could leave our souvenirs and stuff we didn’t need for the next 24-48 hours.  Hang on, that doesn’t install a lot of faith that she will make it to Cali tomorrow……  I left my souvenir bag anyway, worse case I thought if she doesn’t make it tomorrow, they have a whole week to get her to Quito, so I wasn’t too worried leaving some stuff on her.  Worse, worse case they would have to send a bus back to get all our belongings off and get them to us in Quito, so either way we would see our stuff again. 

The fluro green bus arrived at 5.15pm and we were on the road with a wave to Rosita, Gray and Dom who had decided to stay and help Gray at 5.40pm.  It was going to be around a 5 hour drive and we also needed to stop for dinner along the way, we would be lucky to get into Cali before midnight.  Mark figured we were better off doing it this way than waiting till tomorrow for the bus transfer as if we arrived tonight that would give us the whole day in Cali tomorrow rather than travelling for half the day and not getting much time there.  Plus he had paid for the hotel, so we would get no money back and then he would also have to pay for an additional night at the coffee plantation, so all round it was a wise move.  There were a few grumblings form a few individuals complaining that the call was made too late, a day had been wasted sitting here and I was ready to slap them silly.  The last thing Mark needed was people ratting at him firstly as he was on the phone most of the day, helping Gray in the mud and keeping us all in the loop, what else do you expect the man to do.  Seriously.  Yes we have had some badluck, actually a lot of badluck, but that is what happens when you travel and instead of it coming in 3’s we have been hit with it coming in lots of currently 15’s!!! (touchwood for no more for the last 5 days). 

We stopped at 8pm for dinner and it was surprisingly a great place to stop.  It was buffet style, a Colombian fast food chain, that made our burgers fresh to order and fresh fries, washed down with a Pepsi and rice pudding for dessert it all hit the spot.  The only bad thing was it had to be inhaled as we wanted to just keep moving, so after jacking into the free Wi-Fi as I ate and using what Tash claimed as the best bathrooms in South America (they were pretty impressive) we were back on the road at 8.40pm for the final slog to Cali.  The bus wasn’t that comfortable, but with my IPod plugged in I managed to get around an hours sleep to the flash of the fluro white flashing lights on the top of the bus.

We made good time and arrived into Cali at 11.30pm.  Our bus driver wasn’t a 100% sure on where the hotel was, so we paid a local taxi to take us there which I thought was a great idea, especially with 22 tired people in the back, I personally would have paid for the taxi to get us there quicker.  Once at the hotel it didn’t take us all long to get our keys, which were named again and not room numbers and I was lucky that I got to spend New Heathers last night together.  We were on the ground floor in Camillea and we could get Wi-Fi in our room, albeit it was a dodgy, slow connection but enough to get messages from Zeme and Easter Island vouchers from Beth. 

I also have to shout out a thank-you to Sharon who sewed up my skirt today.  It is one of the few remaining original items from home and the material is just wearing thin, but there was a rip near the pocket that was just getting bigger and bigger, so she sewed it up for me and I just hope that I can get another 8 weeks out of it.  For something that only cost me 20 bucks, worn to death, already been repaired in Vic Falls when I ripped it all the way up the split, it has done me proud.  Just 8 more weeks buddy, 8 more weeks.   So thanks Shaz you’re a gem.

What a day.  But we made it and we have all our fingers and toes that Gray, Dom and Rosita all make it in sometime tomorrow as well.  

DAY OF RELAXATION AT A COLOMBIAN COFFEE PLANTATION

WEATHER: Hot and 28C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing the coffee roasted

BUMMER OF THE DAY: The sun disappeared after lunch

WORD OF THE DAY:  Blue Heather making a comment about economizing…hilarious

We woke to a beautiful view of the coffee plantation and surrounds.  It is quite surprising when you arrive in the dead of night just what the scenery looks like during the day.  It was truly stunning here with rolling hills of coffee trees and valleys below us.  We had a plantation tour at 10am; breakfast was at your own pace from 8.30am of cereal and cold milk!!!  This is a treat and it just makes your cereal taste so much better.  It is only the long-life stuff, but when it’s cold it is delicious.   I am happy to report that Rosita made it safe and sound up the last hill this morning safe and sound.  It is amazing what can be done when you can actually see according to Gray.  The next step was going to be trying to turn her around tomorrow, as there isn’t a lot of turning room, but Gray seems to have it all under control, let’s just hope it doesn’t rain and we should be okay. 

Nadia, her husband and the plantation manager took us for a walk around the grounds.  We started with a walk to get a better view of the coffee plantations from a bamboo house that had been built a few years ago.  They used the local bamboo from the river on the property and the actual structure was strong as an ox, but the matting has been worn down by the weather and we had to make sure that we were walking on the beams of the house and not entirely on the actual matting as it was a little thread bare.  But the view was great and it was a cute little place made entirely from bamboo.  The steps, the doors, the chairs and also the tables all made from bamboo.  Cool little joint. 

From here we walked back up the hill and proceeded to walk some of the plantation and saw the plants at all their stages of growth and we learned how much time and effort goes into getting that coffee into your cups back home.  It is a pretty labor intensive job and I am surprised that the coffee isn’t more expensive than what it is after seeing the process from start to finish.  I’m not a coffee drinker, but it was an interesting all the same.  After the picking process we saw each step, all done by hand and pretty simple machines.  Starting with the gathering of coffee cherries:  during this stage, only the totally ripe cherries, normally red or yellow, are picked. Green cherries spoil the taste of a cup of coffee. This process is performed entirely by hand.  Then the Pulping: the same day the berries are gathered, they are subjected to a pulping process, whereby the berry is removed from the bean.  Next is the fermentation: during this part of the process, the beans are allowed to rest. Then the washing: the remains of mucilage left on the bean are removed and sugars are eliminated with fresh water.  Then the drying: after washing, the beans are exposed to the heat of the sun for their humidity to decrease, thus facilitating their conservation. To make transportation easier, the dried beans are then packed in clean sacks made from sisal. Further on, the thin shell of parchment called pergamino is removed from the bean.  The last process is the roasting of the coffee.  It was really cool to see it all from start to finish and the final product on the table smelt amazing and that is from a non-coffee drinker. All that for one bean.  Next time you have a cup of coffee you don’t finish, think of all the man hours and production time that has gone into that cup.  It gives me a new appreciation for the drink that is for sure. 

Colombian Coffee is a protected designation of origin granted by the European Union (September 2007) that applies to the coffee produced in Colombia.  The Colombian coffee has been recognized worldwide as having high quality and distinctive taste. The main importers of Colombian coffee are United States, Germany, France, Japan, and Italy.  Historical data indicates that the Jesuits brought coffee seeds to South America with them circa 1730 CE, but there are different versions of this. Tradition says that the coffee seeds were brought by a traveler from Guyana who passed through Venezuela before reaching Colombia. The oldest written testimony of the presence of coffee in Colombia is attributed to a Jesuit priest, José Gumilla. In his book The Orinoco Illustrated (1730), he registered the presence of coffee in the mission of Saint Teresa of Tabajé.  The first coffee crops were planted in the eastern part of the country. In 1835 the first commercial production was registered with 2,560 green coffee bags that were exported from the port of Cucuta, near the border with Venezuela.   Regional climate change associated with global warming has caused Colombian coffee production to decline since 2006 from 12 million 132-pound bags, the standard measure, to 9 million bags in 2010. Average temperatures have risen one degree Celsius between 1980 to 2010, with average precipitation increasing 25 percent in the last few years, disrupting the specific climatic requirements of the Coffea Arabica bean.

After we had been shown the whole process we waited a further 20 minutes for the coffee beans to be roasted which were being hand turned in a metal barrel over a log fire by a very good looking Colombian young man.  Now listen here, there is nothing wrong with a little window shopping and he was very easy on the eye that is for sure.  The beans when they were the right colour were then tipped onto a concrete table where they were able to cool and then we could try a few of the end product.  By the time they emptied the barrel the whole 6m table was covered in cooling beans and it was really cool that we were allowed to touch them.  Then of course cups of coffee came out on trays for people to try.  I didn’t have a cup of coffee as I really don’t like the taste, but I did try a few of the roasted beans just on their own and they were okay.  They still had a coffee taste to them but they were all right.  We got some great photos with the 5 stages of beans and a few of us made words in the roasted beans which looked awesome.  Nadia then asked who wanted to buy some of the coffee after we had all had our dirty mitts all over the beans.  Too funny, I am sure that is the stuff they will be selling us.  It is a small operation all the work is done manually and different farms have different levels of technology processing them all but it was amazing to see how much work goes into making a single roasted coffee bean.  It gives me a new appreciation for the drink even though I am not a drinker of coffee.  On our walk around the plantation the whole group was getting bitten by these little flying insects.  They looked like midgies but only slightly bigger and you didn’t know they had bitten you till you went to scratch and there was a little blob of blood at the bite site.  Sneaky bugger, but we didn’t really think anything else of it as we all had little red spots on our arms and legs.  I am calling them bloody sucking flying buggers. 

We walked back to the accommodation for lunch and then the day was free to do whatever we wanted.  Some of the guys walked down to the river for a swim, people sat by the pool and read books and I decided to sit in the shade with my computer and blog.  I also wrote some postcards which have been a long lost job that I need to pick up again.  From sending 5 postcards a week to not having sent one in 8 weeks, I feel a bit bad I have lost my postcard mojo.  So I got some postcards in Cartagena and we found some very elusive stamps in one of the souvenir shops and they weren’t kidding when they said that postage wasn’t cheap here.  Each postcard costs 4AUD to send and I thought Ecuador was expensive at 2.50AUD a postcard.  But I do need to send them so Zeme and the God-daughters are first off the ranks and I need to get Dave's new address in Brisbane and I have Sean’s 20 line long addresses that I should also send one too.  With only 8.5 weeks left of my trip, I have a feeling I may beat some of my cards home now, but it is the thought that counts right!  The sun disappeared in the afternoon and it looked like it was going to storm all afternoon with some threatening clouds and a lot of thunder, but thankfully nothing eventuated.  I have a feeling if it rained while Rosita is still up here we maybe get in a spot of bother.

Tonight’s dinner was the last Gray cooked dinner of the whole trip.  It doesn’t mean that much to the newbies as we haven’t camped once on this trip so he hasn’t had the need to cook for them, but after 145 days on tour and approximately 60 of those camping we have been SUPER lucky that 58 of those times Gray has enjoyed cooking, even after driving up to 10 hours on the day.  This was a big deal for the 4 of the originals (I’m counting myself) so after dinner I got up and made a speech in front of everyone thanking Gray for the great meal tonight and for all the meals he had cooked for us over the last 5 months.  For me to get up in front of 22 people is a BIG deal as I am not a public speaker and I have to say I also got a little emotional about it all with the trip coming to a close.  It really is an amazing feat what Gray has done and I would like to say thank-you again Gray for all the great food that you have served us.  I am also very lucky as I requested roast chicken and mash for our last meal after Gray had cooked an amazing chicken in Salta just after Christmas.  And my wish was fulfilled and the meal was amazing.  You R.O.C.K Gray.

The rest of the evening I spent listening to music reading my book and while I had the space and the charge I decided to back up the first 8 months of photos on my external hard drive that I had corrupted in Cuzco in December.  I had all the photos in their original format on the micro SD cards and I was going to see if I could get someone to just retrieve the corrupted files from my hard drive when I got home, but no time like the present so I spent the next few hours backing up 31,168 photos into new folders on the external drive.  I have now taken 46,978 photos on my trip so far and to break that down a little that is 119 pictures a day, when the things I am seeing and doing I think that is quite moderate.  I haven’t forgotten that on my Africa trip we all took a guess on how many photos I would have by the end of my Odyssey and below are what the guesses were in July 2011:

15,555 Janet

28,488 Paps

29,555 Jo

30,489 Em

33,333 Bree

32,873 Sean

34,245 Emma S

35,731 Lisa

37,377 Laura

38,641 Emma T

43,246 Louise

46,100 ME

49,251 Katie

63,483 Mike

92,000 Julia

So everyone is now out of the running except Louise, ME, Katie, Mike and Julia.  Based on the 119 pics a day with 109 days of my journey to go that will make it a total of or close to 59,830 photos and that would make Mike the winner.  But the trip is not over yet but that is where the tally is standing as we speak.  It is also scary to think I have loaded 85% of those pictures to Facebook, wow that is a lot of pictures but when I am old and gray they will be good to look over and I love sharing them with people that may never get the opportunity to travel to all these countries.

So that was our great day on the coffee plantation and it was just what everyone needed to relax and have some QT (quality time off the truck).  Tomorrow we head to Cali, a big city for 2 nights and then the final push for the last 3 nights of the trip.

ONE WRONG TURN MEANS ONE SPECTACULAR DRIVE

WEATHER: Cold leaving Bogota at 10C, warmer in the afternoon 26C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Driving through the spectacular Andes again

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Missing Zeme today L

WORD OF THE DAY:  ANDES

DISTANCE TRAVELLED:

I am starting to sound like a broken record, but today was going to be a long day.  Mark is now getting the travel times from locals and the lady at the restaurant said the drive to the Zona Coffee was around an 8 hour drive.  So we need to add 2 hours extra for Rosita and also a lunch stop, so we knew we would be hitting the double digits for another day in the truck.  I may sound like a crackpot, but I am still enjoying my truck days and as the time passes and we are closer to the end of the trip I feel sad.  Sad that I am leaving Rosita, sad that I will no longer be in a group, sad that I will be saying goodbye to people that you have shared an epic adventure with.  Whether you have made lifelong friends or not it is the companionship and I am going to miss everyone, there is no doubt.  I know, I know it is a different attitude to a week ago, but it is just starting to hit me now and I am a very sentimental kind of person.  I always have been.  So it is now the 4^th last truck day, 7 nights till we are back in Quito and my time in South America is done.  With the exception of Easter Island (who belongs to Chile) I can safely say that I am ready to leave and I have a full 12 months before my round the world ticket brings me back here.  I was just going to forfeit the leg from London back to South America, but I am now thinking that maybe I will use it to get back to the continent and maybe Zeme and I can do the last 3 countries left to do of French Guyana, Guyana and Suriname.  Why not?  Anyway a long term plan and I have a lot more things to think about than April next year at this point, but it nice to have a long term plan for travel, I have always been that way. 

I have been getting our travel mileage from Gray since Torres de Paine last year to add the information onto my blog.  When I returned from Ethiopia we got a little slack in getting the numbers from Gray and in fairness me reminding him to get them, so I got his taco disc’s this morning and worked out the mileage myself.  Gray has a machine in the cab where he has to legally each time he drives the truck has to record his driving hours, distance travelled and the speed that he has gone over the day.  They look exactly like a CD but are made of paper.  So I had to sort them into order and then subtract the end kilometers from the start kilometers to give the distance travelled for the day.  I didn’t do the 28 days I missed in Brazil, but I probably should have worked that anyway so that the people that did know how far they travelled and I guess it would be good to know how many kilometers I missed.  I think I will ask for them back to work that out. 

Bogota is a massive city and after an hour of driving, we had to refuel Rosita and it took us another hour just to get out of the city limits.  It’s Sunday, so the roads aren’t as busy and it’s interesting to watch people go about their morning.  Passing food markets, meat markets and flower markets with people doing their Sunday thing.  There is a lot of graffiti on buildings, but 60% of it is quite good artwork or interesting pictures.  There doesn’t seem to be any effort to clean it up, but there is a lot and it would be a mammoth task to just have it all done again.  Yeah I probably wouldn’t bother too much either.

12 noon and we are back to driving in the beautiful Andes.  Not only is the scenery green, tropical and spectacular, but the temperature rose a good 10 degrees and the sun also came out to play which just helps lift the mood of the truck and we can open our windows and let in fresh air and I can stick my head back out the window again.  You can always tell when we are on main roads, as there are always trucks on these routes in this part of the world.  After around an hour we verged off to the left and Agatha and I saw the trucks verge right.  We looked at each other and figured that Gray must be taking a short cut.  Well when we stopped for lunch at 2pm the truth came out that we had taken the wrong turn but it worked out okay for us as it was the prettiest drive of the trip so far.  One wrong turn meant one spectacular drive for us.  I was to find out later that Gray in fact had done a little loop and we passed the petrol station we had stopped at hours before and none of us in the back had picked up on that fact!  Cheeky monkeys!  The other dead give-away was the road was in pretty bad condition in some sections and I found it hard to believe that it was a national highway.  Mark rekons it added around 2 hours to the trip, but most people were unaware so if they don’t know why tell them? The blog doesn’t count as it has passed and they won’t be reading this post till they are well and truly home I am sure.

We stopped for lunch at a service station on the valley floor and a police officer stopped with flashing lights behind the truck.  Marks first words were what have we done this time but he was just being nosy and want to say hello.  He looked through the Tucan brochure, checked out our trip, we gave him our lunch leftovers and then we were back on the road again.  This was the real scenery started, they never fail to impress, no matter what country you are in.  We started the climb up the mountains to the maximum altitude we would make of the day of 3000m.  Thanks to Moon for all the altitude readings that he has on his fancy watch and I keep asking his how high we are the second we go up a small mountain.  I really need to invest on one or at least a fancy gadget that will tell me.  I’ll add that to my list of things to buy when I am back home. 

So we are now sharing the roads again with hundreds of trucks of all sizes in both directions.  It makes for some pretty interesting driving as some of the bends in the road seem so tight for the trucks that at some sections the ongoing traffic has to stop for them to get a big enough swing to get around the bend.  There was a lot of roadwork’s happening building massive bridges, we saw around 4 in different stages of being built and on some sections of the mountains they were widening the bend to give them extra room.  It really was a stunning drive, the road butts onto the edge of the mountainside for most of the drive and scenery was lush and tropical.  We spent most of the afternoon at 2400m and at 5pm we were stopped for a passport check.  This was the first one in Colombia and they were quite thorough getting us all off the truck, which we haven’t done in a long time.  As the men came off the truck they were given a pretty intense pat down, which that has never happened before and the ladies were asked to stand to one side.  The Police had what looked like near new automatic machine guns slung over their shoulders and none of them looked a day over 20.  They are all so young, I wonder if they have compulsory service here?  I will need to check that.  They then took all our passports and one guy sat at a bench seat and proceeded to look at every single passport to make sure we all had an entry stamp in there.  The Police all looked friendly enough and at one point one of them came over to tell marina what beautiful eyes she had!  Was that a pick up line?  He was cute in a Colombian kind of way.  They obviously don’t do a head count as Shaz had her passport locked in her big backpack so decided to just risk not getting checked and it paid off as they didn’t even notice that a passport was missing.  Agatha also had hers packed and handed in a photocopy, which after a few exchanges they accepted even though they didn’t actually see her entry stamp.  At the end of the day I think they are just being nosy and want to check us all out.  What started with 2 Policemen when we drove off there were 8 of them, so the freak show had again worked its magic.  I am going to have to get used to it when I move to Ethiopia, as I am a ‘freak’ there, but armed with the local language (well after I learn it) I will feel a lot more comfortable and if I can converse with them I may not fell so out of place and the freak factor will be replaced with some ‘shock’ factor that I can speak their language. 

We got to see yet another beautiful sunset as we descended to 1200m, and it was one that stretched across the whole horizon with hues of reds, yellows and oranges.  Just magic, and another truck day that ends with a night time arrival.  This is how we roll on this section of the trip and travelling in the Andes.  We finally arrived into the coffee plantation at 8.30pm.  12.5 hours after leaving Bogota this morning.  The drive did seem to go quick today, the marvelous scenery I think made the trip go faster and I do have prime position with my seat and this is why I decided to stay where I was than take Debs seat on the other side of the truck.  I always get seats on the side of vehicles that have the window facing the sidewalks that is one of my tips for over-landing and an important one at that.

Well no trip after 12 hours on this section is complete without some drama and this one was a doozy.  The coffee plantation was located at the top of a small hill that required Rosita to come down a steep hill, this was no worries for Rosie with only one tyre slippage at the top, she then had to cross over a very narrow bridge, which at this point I was getting a little worried as she then had to do a sharp right turn off the bridge up another large steep hill to get to the top and the accommodation.  This is where the problem arose.  As it had rained the day before there was a patch of grassy section after the bridge before the concrete track started for Rosita to get some traction.  So after 10 minutes we all hopped off and walked up the hill and left Gray to try and get Rosita up the hill.  The main problem was that it was dark, pitch black and he really couldn’t see what he was doing.  Well after 45 minutes he finally decided (wasn’t really up to him as he would have kept going till midnight) that we had to get the food and bags to the accommodation, so the managers of the property backed down there car and loaded the bags and the food we needed for cooking, yes it was 9.30pm and we still had dinner to prepare, and got that all going.  Dinner was on the stove quicker than you could say jumping jackflash and Gray was in there chopping and cooking.  That man is a machine, 12.5 hours of driving, 45 minutes trying to get Rosie up the hill and then straight into the kitchen.  AMAZING STUFF. 

The accommodation is pretty cool.  There is a pool, a round house that is self-contained with a fridge, a bar area downstairs, three bedrooms upstairs and an en-suite.  There was another building with dorms and then there were rooms attached to the main building that contained the kitchen, sitting area and the dining room tables and chairs.  It will be nice to spend a full day here I think.  Dinner was on the table at 10.20pm with lots of help and hands thanks to people helping my cooking team out tonight.  We will all certainly sleep well tonight.     

RAINY DAYS IN BOGOTA

WEATHER: Cold, wet and 16C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing some museums

BUMMER OF THE DAY: It was a really wet morning

WORD OF THE DAY:  Serial Romeo (personal joke with Agatha)

What a great night’s sleep.  The room itself was cold, but the bed as there was no heating in the rooms, but there were 3 blankets on the bed, the bed was comfy and I was able to check Facebook from it was well.  Does it get any better than that? 

It was a free day in Bogota and Mark said he would take us all into town to show us around and give us some bearings and then we could go off and do what we wanted for the rest of the day.  It really hadn’t stopped raining all night and after a great breakfast we all loaded into 3 taxis for the 30 minute drive to the old town.  It really was wet and the roads had retained a lot of the water and just like any other country when it rains there was a lot of traffic on the roads, but this could be normal with a city that gets a lot of rainfall over the year due to its altitude and being the world’s 4^th highest capital.

Bogotá is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is the most populous city in the country, with 6,840,116 inhabitants as of 2005 and one of the biggest of Latin America. It figures amongst the thirty largest cities of the world and it is the third-highest capital city in South America (after La Paz and Quito) at 2,625 meters above sea level.  With its many universities and libraries, Bogotá has become known as "The Athens of South America".  Bogotá owns the largest moorland of the world, which is located in the Sumapaz Locality. The area of modern Bogotá was first populated by groups of indigenous people that migrated from Mesoamerica. Among these groups were the Muiscas who settled in what is now mainly Cundinamarca and Boyacá. With the arrival of the Spanish colonizers the area became a major settlement, founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada and later capital of the Spanish provinces and the seat of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. With independence Bogotá became capital of the Gran Colombia and later the capital of the Republic of Colombia.

Bogotá has a subtropical highland climate with the average temperature of 14.0 °C, varying from 3 to 20 °C during the course of the day. Dry and rainy seasons alternate throughout the year. The driest months are December, January, July and August. The warmest month is March, bringing a maximum of 19.7 °C. The coolest nights occur in January, with an average of 5.4 °C in the city; temperatures can fall below freezing in the nearby towns causing frosts and fog in early morning, with the lowest recorded temperature within the city being −7.2 °C in February 2007.  The official highest recorded temperature is 24.9°C reached in January 1992 and March 1995.  While temperatures are relatively consistent throughout the year, weather conditions can change dramatically during the course of a single day. Climatic conditions are irregular and variable due to the El Niño and La Niña climatic phenomena which occur in and around the Pacific basin and are responsible for pronounced climatic changes. This makes the city's weather unpredictable; sunny mornings can turn out into a severe-storm afternoon. 

Street arrangement of Bogotá based on the Cartesian coordinate system. North is to the right.  The urban layout in the center of the city is based on the focal point of a square or plaza, typical of Spanish-founded settlements, but the layout gradually becomes more modern in outlying neighborhoods. The current types of roads are classified as calles (streets), which run perpendicular to the Cordillera, with street numbers increasing towards the north, and also towards the south (with the suffix "Sur") from Calle 0. Carreras run parallel to the hills, with numbering increasing as one travels east or west of Carrera 1.  The numbering system for street addresses recently changed, and numbers are assigned according to street rank from main avenues to smaller avenues and local streets.

Bogotá has gone to great lengths to change its crime rate and its image with increasing success after being considered in the mid-90s to be one of the most violent cities in the world.  In 1993 there were 4,352 intentional homicides at a rate of 81 per 100,000 people; in 2007, Bogotá suffered 1,401 murders at a rate of 19 per 100,000 inhabitants.  This success was the result of a participatory and integrated security policy, "Communidad Segura", that was first adopted in 1995 and continues to be enforced.  According to a 2011 article in The New York Times 'street muggings and thefts on public transportation have surged since 2007', leading certain commentators to declare a crisis of security in the city. According to several polls around 72% of the inhabitants say they have been victims of violent crime in 2010 and 2011.

After getting dropped at the entrance to the Gold Museum and with the weather as abysmal as it was, we decided we would come back the that museum, go with Mark to see parts of the old town and then come back to that.  It really was a museum day, and I generally am not a museum going kind of person, but to see something of the city I decided I would go with the flow as I was here now anyways.  We did have a plan to see the city by foot and then go to the City’s tallest building to get a view of the city, but the weather was just not going to co-operate so we had to get a backup in plan. 

The city is so big, it has 20 different zones, but the old town was just beautiful.  Walking to the main plaza looking at the buildings you could have been anywhere in Europe.  The buildings that made up this square were the Nariño Palace, The Presidential residence, Palace of Justice, Colombian National Capitol and the Liévano Palace which houses the office of the Mayor of Bogotá.  As we were standing there the street was closed off with motorbike police and with flashing lights and about 6 black BMW’s they zoomed past us with what we think that the President was in one of them and as quick as they had passed the street opened up and traffic carried on as usual.  Now that’s the way to get someone important through the city. 

From here Mark walked us to the Fernando Botero Museum.  It was free entry, it was raining so it was a sound option at the time and I am so glad that I went in.  Fernando Botero Angulo (born April 19, 1932) is a Colombian figurative artist. His works feature a figurative style, called by some "Boterismo", which gives them an unmistakable identity. Botero depicts women, men, daily life, historical events and characters, milestones of art, still-life, animals and the natural world in general, with exaggerated and disproportionate volumetry, accompanied by fine details of scathing criticism, irony, humor, and ingenuity.  He came to national prominence when he won the first prize at the Salón de Artistas Colombianos in 1958. Working most of the year in Paris, in the last three decades he has achieved international recognition for his paintings, drawings and sculpture, with exhibitions across the world.  His works are housed in the heart of Bogota; Museo Botero (Botero Museum) showcases the works of this national treasure.  The museum displays an electric array of paintings which reveal qualities of skill, humor, satire and whimsicality the artist was gifted with. Fernando Botero's series on "fat people", the paintings of which are funny and quite unusual. Furthermore, you can also see fine collections by other artists such as Picasso, Renoir, Dali, Matisse, Monet, Degas and Chagall. We spent around an hour walking the rooms of his art and was pleasantly surprised to see works from Monet, Picasso and Chagall also in display.  We were allowed to take photos in here without a flash and the security was pretty tight with electronic alarms if you got too close to any of the pictures and security in each room.  I can’t remember the last time I was in a museum. 

From here we all split into smaller groups.  The gals wanted to go and have a look at the café section of the old town as the rain had stopped but Matt, Agatha and I decided to head straight to the Gold Museum and then that would be my dose of museums done for the rest of the trip.  With a stop at a money changer for Agatha and a stamp stop that turned into a free cup of Colombian coffee we made it to the Gold Museum just after midday.  There were a lot of police and important people with walkie talkies out the front, but we walked in no worries and purchased our entry ticket of 3000 pesos (1.70AUD) and headed to the second floor of the museum.  On the first floor is the museum's main entrance, the shop and a restaurant, The Gold Museum Restaurant and Café.  The Gold Museum, Spanish: El Museo del Oro, is a museum that displays an extraordinary selection of its pre-Hispanic gold work collection - the biggest in the world - in its exhibition rooms on the second and third floors. Together with other pottery, stone,shell, wood and textile archaeological objects, these items, made of what to indigenous cultures was a sacred metal, testify to the life and thought of different societies which inhabited what is now known as Colombia before contact was made with Europe.

In 1939 the Bank of the Republic began helping to protect the archaeological patrimony of Colombia. There is an object known as Poporo Quimbaya which was one of the first in a collection and has now been on exhibition for 65 years.  The museum houses the famous Muisca's golden raft found in Pasca in 1969, that represents the El Dorado ceremony. The heir to the chieftaincy assumed power with a great offering to the gods. In this representation he is seen standing at the center of a raft, surrounded by the principal chieftains, all of them adorned with gold and feathers.  After a decade of works, the museum was expanded and renovated in October 2008. With the renovation, the museum organized the permanent exhibition in five rooms with archaeological objects and an interactive room. It also added an auditorium, some temporary exhibitions rooms, a cafe, a restaurant and a souvenir store.  The museum has a collection of 55,000 pieces. 6,000 pieces are on display in their expanded building. There are bilingual descriptions of almost all exhibits.

On the second floor the exposition begins, the Main Room is called People and Gold in prehispanic Colombia. Through its glass cases it displays the goldsmith work of the different cultures which inhabited Colombia before the Spanish people arrived.  The exposition continues on the third floor, with The Flying Chamanic and The Offering. The first shows the process of Chaman's Ceremony with its different gold pieces, the second is divided into three parts; the Offering Room, the Offering Boat and the Lake.  At the end of the exposition there's a Profunditation Room with artistic videos about the most important gold pieces of the museum.  It was a great museum and super busy with groups and school groups but after an hour in there I really had had enough and was getting a little weary.  So I had had a successful morning in the city and I saw TWO museums and I was pretty chuffed. 

It was lunch time, we were famished and after walking the streets for around 15 minutes we found a chicken restaurant that looked like it served more locals than gringo’s.  I don’t know why being in a chicken place that I ordered a steak, but I did, which it was okay but I sat there and watched the roast chickens spin around over the open fire.  They looked so good, so I decided to get a half chicken to take-away and that I would eat that for dinner tonight so it would save me having to go out for dinner later, especially if the weather was still crap. 

I decided to head back to the hotel on my own, so Matt and Agatha made sure I got into a cab safely and I started my 30 minute journey back.  I was thinking at this time about missing foreigners, what if the cab was heading somewhere else, as the cabbie kept looking at the hotels business card and the address a few times.  As the streets are all numbered and the zones, I could figure out we were travelling in the right direction and right at the end of the journey I recognized 2 landmarks and felt better that I wasn’t going to get taken for a ride.  The meter said 12100 pesos but he only charged me 9000 so with a tip of 1000 pesos and a sigh of relief I was back safely.  I mean I was in Bogota, in Colombia after all, I think I was entitled to feel a little intimidated.

So the afternoon was spent watching some TV and nerding it up on the computer.  It was great to just chillax and have some time to myself.  Sharon was still in town with Marina and Steph and I was able to catch up on another blog and chat on Facebook with a few friends.

It was shame that the weather was so crap for most of the day, but some of the crew did end up doing the cable car as it cleared up later in the day, but I just couldn’t stay out past 2pm but I am happy with what I did do for the one free day we had in the Colombian capital.  How many people do you know have been to Bogota?