dare2go

Colombia: Finally Out Of Bogotá


Exhibit from the Museo del Oro

Continuation from < Page 2 < !

Monday, 2 June 2008, San Agustín
We are now out of Bogotá for the final time and on the road again. We arrived in Bogotá on March 4 and left on May 29 - almost 3 months. With the short trips taken out to Villa de Leyva for Easter and Los Llanos to test drive the rebuilt engine, we were a total of 69 days in the city. It was certainly a relief to drive out on Thursday and know that we wouldn't be returning. Although, I do admit to holding my breath, with a slight fear that something would go wrong... And now we are in San Agustín after spending a couple of days in the Tatacoa Desert - blessed isolation. It was dark overnight except for the stars (not a streetlight to be seen); it was quiet except for the munching of cows, horses, goats or sheep when they wandered near the camper - but not all the time (did hear a plane a long way off once!); and no buses, taxis or motorbikes to contend with (there actually were a couple of bikes occasionally, but they would usually stop to let us past!). But more about that in our next update.
It is not that we disliked Bogotá specifically - we are not fond of spending time in any large cities, and this one became particularly onerous because there was no escape and our time there was so indeterminate. But we read a lot and Juergen played Sim City a lot and in between we did occasionally go out to do things that are only possible in a city.
Since our last update, where we described getting our visa extension, Juergen still had to get an extension for the car permit (which took two trips to the DIAN office and quite a bit of red tape) and a new insurance (which only needed one trip to the insurance office and patience while the attendant typed all the relevant information into her computer while continuing a conversation with a colleague next to her). And that was the end of our 'brush' with the bureaucracy.
In the yellow pages we found a chiropractor. He is an American and has practiced in Colombia for many years. He sent us for x-rays, which was another interesting experience, although neither of us felt completely secure about the antiquated equipment they were using. But we will have them to show future practitioners that we might find along the way. His efforts were fairly successful in sorting out our backs and necks.
We found somewhere to buy more memory for the computer at a reasonable price - Juergen needed it to make Sim City run more effectively! The place we went is called Unilago and has a huge number of individual small stores which sell almost everything electronic that you could possibly want - except, as we discovered, electronic translators!
Regularly, during our time in Bogotá, we visited large shopping malls. Usually this was just to go to a supermarket to shop, but we did go back for a second haircut (shows how long we were in Bogotá - the first time on our journey to have two haircuts at the same hairdresser!), and Juergen shopped for underwear, t-shirts and a new pair of shoes. We also went to the movies one afternoon and saw a rather good thriller called 'Vantage Point'. It's possible that we would have gone to the movies more often, but there was seldom anything showing that we really wanted to see. We did use our computer on occasion to watch a DVD though, and the television in the flat worked ok sometimes. It had a channel in English which showed a lot of American series. I managed to catch most of a mini-series called 'Damages'. We don't really miss television, but sometimes it is nice to have the opportunity to vegetate in front of something fairly mindless - especially in this sort of situation.
On May 1 we ventured into the city centre, first of all to go to the Platypus Hostel to use its book exchange. I managed to exchange more than a dozen books with ones which appeared to be ok. It would be really interesting to be able to track down how these books come to be in Bogotá, if it were possible. I found an Inspector Bonaparte which was published and printed in the 60's - a uniquely Australian book in this hostel! I had hoped to discover how the hostel came by its uniquely Australian name, but the owner disappeared before I could ask him. On the way to the hostel we passed two parades related to Mayday - the first seemed to be the typical workers march one would expect, although at home you wouldn't expect to see a naked couple making some sort of point we didn't quite get! The second was obviously the anarchists out in force having their own parade down a different street. When we left the hostel we decided to walk a different way back to catch the bus and in one area passed some police in full riot gear, complete with a couple of armoured cars - we didn't see any sign of trouble though. There were streets blocked off so we couldn't work out where to catch the bus back 'home', and we eventually hailed a taxi.
One of the sights we hadn't wanted to miss in Bogotá was the Museo del Oro - the Gold Museum, which houses a magnificent collection of pre-Hispanic objects made from gold as well as a lot of ceramics. Unfortunately this museum is currently closed for extensive renovation so we had to satisfy ourselves with a selection which is on display in another museum. This museum is part of the complex housing the Botero donation, the old Mint and the art collection of the Banco de la Republica (Central Bank). We didn't see everything the complex has to offer, but the representative collection from the Gold Museum was definitely worth the visit.
On the same day we went to the Homeopathic Pharmacy, which is just across from the museum to obtain a remedy for altitude sickness that we had heard about from Juergen and Eli. A few weeks later we returned to the pharmacy to stock up on some first aid remedies we found recommended on another traveller's website.
On Mother's Day we decided to visit the Botanical Garden. It was a nice day and we definitely didn't have to go to the workshop because it was Sunday, and I had read in the Lonely Planet that it was easy to get to from any bus going to the airport. We caught a bus going along that road and got off at the appropriate point - and then walked for close to an hour to reach the Garden. We had thought to see plants that were indigenous to Colombia, so imagine our surprise when one of the first sights was a huge bed of Kangaroo Paw! And a very healthy lot they were too - the climate here obviously agrees with them. The garden as a whole looks like it was well planned and executed and then the funding dried up somewhat. It really looks like it could do with a lot of maintenance to restore it to its former splendour.
One thing we did do to alleviate the tedium somewhat, was to plan our trip to the Galapagos. There were two reasons for this - it gave us something to look forward to, and it should help us to avoid the possibility of having to hang around in Quito (another big city) waiting until we can get on a boat! We had a look on the internet at websites recommended to us by other travellers and sent some enquiries. Cometa Travel, which exclusively handles the boat "Angelito", came back with a quick and friendly response. We decided to go with them because the price was reasonable, the boat is relatively small and the agency has been very understanding of our situation of not knowing for sure when we would actually get to leave Bogotá. The trip is costing almost as much as the repairs to our truck, but it is such a unique place and probably the only opportunity we will have to visit it, that we decided to go ahead and book it. Besides, after all the time we have spent in Bogotá, we deserve something really special to look forward to. We had discovered that it was quite a simple matter to fax our bank and organise a telegraphic transfer to pay the mechanic for the repairs, so we went through the same process again to secure our place on the cruise. We are really looking forward to the June 22 departure.
Having easy access to internet in Bogotá has been a lifeline. Not only have we used it extensively to track down parts for the car, but I have been in almost constant contact with my family and friends at home. When my best friend became ill, it was such a relief to be able to check how she was almost everyday by walking a couple of hundred metres down the street and logging onto Yahoo Messenger for a chat.
In closing I must reiterate the tremendous friendship and support provided to us by Alvaro and his family. His father would pop into the apartment every now and then just to see that everything was ok for us. Even though it wasn't the most comfortable of places to be and we would rather have been in our own little 'house', we are endlessly grateful that we didn't have to spend our 69 nights in Bogotá in a hotel or hostel. We had such a lovely lunch with the whole family last Monday by way of a thankyou and farewell. When Hernando (Alvaro's father) came to collect the keys on Thursday we were all choking back the emotion somewhat. Even though the time spent in Bogotá was so tedious for us, we are still convinced that the Colombians are the most friendly and helpful people we have encountered on this journey.


 
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