Spent this afternoon experimenting with GIMP today…
It’s good, well worth a download!
Bogota was cold & as we were only here for two weeks we decided to head to the warmth of the Carribean coast! Next stop Santa Marta:
‘British nationals travelling to the town of Santa Marta are advised to be cautious; two British nationals were robbed at gun point in broad daylight in Santa Marta on 14 August 2010.’ (British Foreign Office Advice)
Santa Marta was fine, didn’t spend long there but really nice feel to the town, Salsa music coming from peoples houses, great street food and cheap beers… it was nice and warm and certainly a relaxing atmosphere, not much to the town but its the gateway to Tyrona National Park: beautiful coastline where the rainforrest comes down over the hills and meets the sea. We camped the night at El Cabo, amazing to wake up on the beach and feel the sun…
So Bogota has a pretty bad reputation, however it seemed really developed and much nicer than I expected, the people were friendly and to be honest it felt safer than many of the other South American cities we’ve visited…
Bogota is the third highest capital city in the world (2625m above sea level) & with the jet lag you can certanly feel the altitude.
(photo: Bolivar Square)
Ok, so decided on a holiday to Colombia - few things we wanted to see back in 2004 but at that time it was a little too dangerous… seems to have settled down a little now….
Arrived in Bogota at 9:30pm - wasnt quite what I expected at passport control, on the landing card I had to write my hotel address in the city in the ‘Candaleria’ district: the passport control guy kept saying ‘peligroso’ and ‘no’, he even got someone over who could speak English, he told us we should not go there at night not even in a taxi, & it was super dangerous!
Doh…
Our options were limited and after asking a few people at the airport we thought it’d be ok & we’d give it a shot, took a cab, lovely guy who dropped us off without event at the hostel. We did see a guy carrying a golf club on our street though, pretty sure he wasn’t playing ‘pitch & put’.
For all you travellers out there where’s the remotest place on Earth? Good question eh? Well looks like the world is getting smaller as less than 10% of the world’s land is more than 48 hours of ground-based travel from the nearest city… Link to www.newscientist.com
