Our last night in town, we decided to take the advice of the New York Time’s 36 hours in Bogota article and check out local artisanal leather workshop, Giraldo Taller Manual del Cuero so Pat could look for a murse (man-purse).

We weren’t disappointed, the leatherwork was beautiful and Pat found a satchel for a reasonable price.

After our shopping, we took a taxi to the Zona Rosa, the modern shopping district, for dinner at the famous Andre Carne de Res.

Everyone we have met, raved about the “dining experience,” including the New York Times.  It includes live entertainment, professional dancers and tons of red meat.  Call me jaded, but I didn’t think it lived up to its reputation.  It felt very contrived and fake, and our dinner cost just about as much as a steak dinner in the US.  We also checked out Bogota Beer Company for a local brew.  All-in-all was a nice way to spend the last night with our new Australian friends, Cheryl, Josh, Charlotte, and Habesh.

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!!!!

The overnight bus brought us to our final destination – Bogota.  As soon as we got off the bus, we noticed we were dizzy and out of breath.  Bogota is 7,000 feet above sea level and you definitely notice the altitude until you get used to it.

The next thing we noticed was that people were standing in line to get a taxi even though there was a line of cabs as long as we could see!  You had to stand in line to have an official calculate your fare.  It keeps the cabs from price gouging, but I’m not sure it was worth the 30 minute wait!

Bogota was dirty, crowded, not as safe as Medellin, and had much colder weather, especially at night.  Our cab dropped us off at our hostel, Hostel Chocolate, which was the antithesis of the rest of Bogota.  It was quiet (almost empty) and very clean.  We picked it because it didn’t have a reputation as a party hostel and because they serve hot chocolate for breakfast – a Colombian tradition.  Our only complaint was the desk staff – most of them were cold and unfriendly.  Luckily, we were able to make our way around the city without their help.

We spent our first day there checking out the neighborhood – La Candelaria is the student/hostel neighborhood.  Unfortunately, all the students were at home for holiday vacation.  This made students a bigger target for crime and it wasn’t safe to walk around at night – or during the day we learned.  People on the street would stop and tell Pat to put his camera away nearly every time he took it out.  We ran into a couple staying at a nearby hostel and they told us that some girls they knew had been out during the broad daylight a few days earlier and they had gotten held up by some local hoodlums.  When the girl that was giving them trouble found out they only had $18US on them, she got so angry she stabbed one of the tourists.  Luckily the tourist wasn’t badly hurt, but it definitely put us on edge about our time in Bogota.  As a disclaimer to put our parents’ minds at ease, they were walking in an unsafe area, something that we were sure not to do.

The weather calmed down and we were able to get a boat from Capurgana to Turbo.  Turbo is a dirty, relatively unsafe port city so we were only there enough to find a bus and head to Medellin.  Luckily that was only 15 minutes!  We loaded our bags onto a coach bus for the 8 hour ride to Medellin.

As we arrived in Medellin it was like being in a completely different world.  We were greeted with a huge Christmas light display that stretched the length of the city.  It is part of a competition between Colombian cities:

We headed to Hostel Kiwi in the Zona Rosa with a few of our friends from the boat.  Unfortunately, the didn’t have enough room for all 7 of us, so Pat and I went to a hostel around the corner – Tamarindo.  Compared to the recently remodeled, flashy and modern Casa Kiwi, our hostel seemed very sparse but we were happy to be in a quiet place with a private room.  Plus they had cheap laundry service.  All of our clothes were soaked with saltwater from the boat and absolutely putrid.

Even though Medellin was super modern and fairly clean, we decided only to spend one night there because we were worried about being stuck there for too long because of the holiday season and missing our flight out of Bogota.

We spent our day there riding the metro, checking out the free botanical garden and butterfly garden, and enjoying the gorgeous weather.

We even caught a Quincienera (15th birthday celebration):

Medellin was a great city for people watching.  It was also very safe – it seemed like there were police on every corner.

Cycling is huge all over Columbia:

We couldn’t leave without going out to eat for traditional columbian dinner at Agua Clara.  Beans, rice, avocado, fried plantains and red meat – delicious!

That night, we hopped on an overnight bus to Bogota.  10 hours until our final city!

Sometimes Medellin didn’t seem to far away from America!