Colombia

Zipaquirá

11 Aug , 2014  

Today is Monday. Many museums are not open on Monday so I decided to go to a nearby town to visit their famous Salt Cathedral. Unfortunately, since moving hostels, I wasn’t able to find any new friends to join me on my adventure. Was a little nervous at first given that it’d be my first day alone and it’d mean that I’d be forced to speak Spanish to get around, but since I’m now writing about it, safe to say I survived 🙂 One of the things about being alone is that you can appreciate what you see more, but at the same time, I had no one to share my thoughts with so now I get to pour them out into my blog:

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Colombia

No Air

10 Aug , 2014  

I feel like Jordin Sparks’ song ‘No Air’ song was written with bike riding in Colombia in mind…or at least that one line of the chorus was. “Tell me how I’m supposed to breathe with no air… no air, air”

This morning I woke up and realized I needed accommodation for tonight because I hadn’t planned far enough in advance to know if I’d still be in the same place by now. Unfortunately, the hostel is full tonight so I’ve had to pack up all my stuff (amazingly I got it all to fit back in the backpack and yes, it now feels heavier for no apparent reason since I’ve managed to hold off on shopping so far) and had to hike a few streets away to the closest hostel that had a bed. Its not as nice here – I hate when you can’t even sit up in the lower bunk because the upper bunk is too low.

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Colombia

Cerro de Monserrate

10 Aug , 2014  

Yesterday, for the first time since arriving, I felt the effects of altitude sickness. It’s not fun.

Since learning that Bogota doesn’t have seasons because the weather is always the same, I expected that all days would have reasonable weather. But yesterday, I looked at the weather forecast and found that the next 7 days expected rain. Not ideal weather for climbing the local mountain, but I decided to go anyways – weekends are the safest as there are more people and less chance of being robbed.

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Colombia

The BOG

9 Aug , 2014  

Learnings & Observations:

–       Bogota does not have any seasons; the weather is pretty similar all year round.

–       Normal sized people cannot fit on the city buses. 15cm is just not enough space to fit my legs into!

–       Some Bogota nightclubs now have extended hours; they used to close at 3am, now they close at 5am. Because lets have more drunk people around.

Haven’t got much to say about my arrival day in Bogota except that I slept for about 16 hours after getting access to my room. Must have overslept because I still woke up tired the next day….nothing unusual there.

I realized 2 major things at breakfast the next morning: 1: the hostel serves CocoPops!! The fancy pants cereal. And 2: I forgot my tube of Vegemite. Devastated. Feeling un-Australian.

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Arrival

6 Aug , 2014  

I’ve made it across the Pacific Ocean to Chile!

Learnings & Observations:

– Chilean Customs officers may or may not fine you for bringing in fruit and not declaring it, depending on the mood of their boss when they ask.

– When getting a share-taxi from the airport, the only instructions after paying at the desk are: “Go to door 5. Find Antonio”

– Keeping within a road lane is completely optional – why do that when you could drive hovering over 2 lanes and weave in and out of traffic as you please?

– English is not the common language spoken by travellers here; there’s lots of Spanish and French.

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Trip planning

4 Aug , 2014  

Yay! So finally I have my blog set up!

Some of you may think I’ve already gone seeing as I did tell everyone I was leaving on the 28th of July, but no, I’m actually still in Melbourne. Still packing.

If all goes according to my you-can-barely-call-it-a-plan plan, I’ll be on the Sydney to Santiago flight at midday on Wednesday the 6th of August. Only 2 days to go! From there, I may or may not spend a day in Santiago before catching another 6 hour flight up to my first official destination: Bogota, Colombia.

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