New Year’s in Bogota

It was harder than we had expected to make plans for New Year’s in Bogota.  We were expecting the capitol city to be full of fun things to do for the holiday, but it turned out that New Year’s eve was considered a family holiday and everyone was expected to spend ring in the new year at home with their family.  The bars didn’t even open up until after 1:00 in the morning!

For the tourists, one of the local hostels, the Cranky Croc, organized a Party bus which drove around the city from 10:30pm until the bars finally opened up.  It was “all-you-can-drink” while on the bus, then you were taken to three of the better clubs in town, including a hotel bar on the 32nd floor with a city view.  The only catch is that all this entertainment cost $40 US!!!  It also went until 6:00 in the morning, which was a far cry from our usual 10:30pm bedtime routine (remember, there was nothing to do after dark where we were staying in Bogota).  We decided spending all that money to stay up until the wee hours of the morning just wasn’t worth it, so we opted to celebrate the New Year quietly back at the hostel with a bottle of cheap champagne.

We went to the Cranky Croc for a New Year’s eve barbecue and watched our fellow travelers prepare to spend all night on a bus!  Naturally, most of the preparations included drinking tons of Colombia’s famous rum.  Then we headed back to Hostel Chocolate and rang in the  New Year with some fellow travelers, Cheryl and Josh.  Nothing says hard-cord partying like being in bed by 12:15 on New Year’s!!!!