Bogota

I had yet another long weekend at the beginning of May. We had Thursday, Friday and Monday off from school so it made for a nice travel weekend. I decided to go to Bogota with Tina, Paula, Jennifer and Jenna. Bogota is the capital of Colombia. It is a few hundred miles south east from Medellin but it takes about 8 hours to get there on a bus. We opted for the 40 minute plane ride. Bogota is very high in elevation at about 8,000 feet. It is in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains, very green and lush. It is also very cold. It rains a lot and the average temperature is in the 50's. This is probably the only thing that I didn't like about it. It is a huge city, around 10 million people. It had lots of museums, shops, cool architecture, an old part of the city, and best of all, lots of great food. It had much more of an international influence so it had tons of great restaurants. We spent most of the weekend eating! I forgot how much I missed great cuisine. We have good food in Medellin, but there is not much of a variety. In Bogota, we had curry, middle eastern food, great sushi and amazing Italian. They also had a microbrewery with great beer. I discovered my new favorite drink....vino caliente, kind of like mulled wine, great on a cold wet night in Bogota. Our favorite was the Mexican restaurant we found on the first day. It was so exciting we spent an entire afternoon there eating everything on the menu and drinking margaritas. I know I live in South America, but look at a map. You are A LOT closer to Mexico than I am. They don't do Mexican down here. Anyway, it was a great trip!!!

Our first stop was Hard Rock Cafe. I know!!! But the $20.00 burger was worth every bite and the ambiance reminded me of home

Our Hotel

The fabulous Mexican restaurant with great Margartas

We spent the afternoon in The Plaza Bolivar

feeding the birds

seeing some cool buildings

and meeting some very interesting people

This really cute old man drew a picture of Tina in like two minutes when we were in the plaza. Then later that night he was standing outside of a club we went to miles away from the plaza so I had to get my picture.

Jenna riding an alpaca in the plaza...lots of laughs!

The clown/mime that made balloon thingies for all of us

And another very weird clown/mime doing a show

We took a tram up to one of the peaks overlooking the city called Cerro de Monserrate. There was a church up there, beautiful paths to walk on, some restaurants and an amazing view of the city.

We had several fun nights out in the city. Lots of great clubs and dancing. Of course, it was always raining. This guy was well prepared with the biggest umbrella I have ever seen

A guy on stilts performing in one of the clubs

And just to make sure I don't forget where home is.....