Monday, December 10, 2012

Bogota, Colombia






It's going to be hard to catch up on my blog; I havnt posted an update in a long time. At the moment I am holed up for the winter in Tallinn Estonia, working at a hostel. It's a long ways from where I left off to here, so I guess I'll just start at the beginning. Bogota.

After being home a few months, I was more than ready to be back on the road. I bought a one way ticket to Colombia, and the journey began. I landed in Bogota, and quickly realize that it would be nice to know some Spanish. I'd gotten along pretty well traveling the world with only English, but here would be different.

right away my luck was a little bad, as I found myself standing at the luggage claim empty handed as everyone else had already gone. it took me forever to get everything sorted, especially since I didn't have an address for them to send my lost luggage, but eventually I did. I gave them a hostel address, and took a cab there, hopping they weren't full.




Hostel Alegria did have a bed, and I stayed in a big dorm room. Ive hardly ever stayed in dorms, but it was alright. Bogota is pretty high in elevation, so it's pretty cold. The hostel had a big fire place that we sat around and socialized.

On my second day, I met Lexzy. She's one of the greatest girls I've ever met. She's now my girlfriend, more than a year later. When I met her tere in bogota, she was the happiest and most energetic person I've met. Within 30 minutes of meeting, we were going for pizza in a hole in the wall place in the Old Town and then to a local rock concert.

Together we took the gondola up the mountain to Monsarrati to see the cathedral and view bogota from above. We walked and explored all over bogota, trying out all kinds of restaurants and clubs. It was great. Colombia ended up being my favorite country in South America.




Eventually the road was beckoning loud enough so as not to be ignored. With sad and heart felt good-byes, we parted ways. We promised to keep in touch, and obviously we succeeded in doing so. It was sad to leave her that day, but exciting to catch a bus to Cali.

Salsa! That's all I hear about in Cali, colombia. I'm staying at Pelican Larry's hostel, in another dorm. Everyone wants to salsa, and it's hard not to get pulled into the scene. Cali for me ends up being mostly sleeping during the day and partying at night.

It's a shame to hurry through such a great country, but I need to get all the way to Rio for New Years to meet my friends. So once again, I promise myself to return, and catch a bus to the border of Ecuador. The ride is one of the most beautiful, albeit long, bus trips I've done. Life is good.

4 comments:

  1. Glad to hear that you caught the entertaining side of Cali.

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  2. Justin, I am so glad you are blogging again. I just wish you would have been doing it all along. You will never know how many stories you forget over time.

    Keep it up. Huge fan.

    mark shoberg

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  3. Thanks Mark. I stopped blogging while i was writing my book. it felt like i was writing my experiances twice. But now im done with the book, so here i am

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  4. Looks like your Colombia journey started quite well ;)

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