Platypus Hostel, Bogota

we had a great time at platypus hostel.
its located near downtown bogota in the old la candelaria district.

the hostel is clean and there is really really good free coffee.
run by german (whos not actually a german but colombian) - there are about 3 or 4 hostels on the street.
every evening at 5pm, hermann dons his best window licker grin and hands out a free beer !!

we spent a few hours sitting in the courtyard drinking beers and getting to know other tourists.
its where we met ;
> stuey from australia (who is a freaken classic laugh for a sydney boy)
> andy and chris from atlanta (andy introduced us to beer, rum and grenadine)
> john from edinburgh (who had asymtomatic and atypical pneumonia - hopefully he will be over it by the time we all meet in bolivia)
> james from australia (who really needs to go up the coast to taganga - if he remembers the name of it)
> ... and john from gizzy to name just a few.

exploring the maze at the salt cathedral

viewing bogota from the top of cerro de montseratte

the international women of mayhem say ..

Platypus rocks !!

Bogota

The day after we got back to Bogota from Cartagena, we had a museum day.

First we went to the Museo del Oro, the Gold museum. Entry is only about US$1.00. There are about 40 000 pieces in the museum and some of them are on show as you walk around.

The rest are kept in room that opens to allow a certain number of people in for four minutes at a time. The pieces are displayed in a diorama dipicting the movement of the sun through the day. Tara and I were so impressed with this display that we had to go back in for a second look.

Next was the Military museum, which was free. There were a lot of model airplanes and boats on display, as well as uniforms through the ages. There were rooms of racks filled with guns from every country since the beggining of ... gunness... outside, the only place we could take photos, there were cannons and real tanks, planes and helicopters. A boy´s dream museum.

The next stop was the Gallery of Colonial Art. Rather boring with walls and walls of portraits of fat priests and ugly women. Not to mention the religious ones. But there were some very interesting pieces, and it only cost us about US$1.50.

The next day Tara and I went with Young Rob, Andy and John to the Salt Catherdral in ZipaQuira. We managed to walk all the way up a hill, which was nowhere near the catherdral, and had to go all the way back down again to get to it.

We found it eventually and walked to the entrance, only to find we had to walk all the way back to where the shops were to buy our tickets. We were certainly getting a lot of exercise.

It was all well worth it though. The catherdral was carved into the existing arms of the salt mine and you can taste the salt on the walls.

Along the way to the main knave of the cathedral, you walk past the many arms, each one representing one of the stations of the cross.

Eventually, just when you are all crossed-out, you come to the cathedral proper, and it takes your breath away. You view it first from above, and then you walk down into it.

In the cathedral is a carved slab, a copy of Michelangelo´s ´Creation of Adam´.

The next day we had a few hours to kill before we had to catch our plane, so we went by cable car to the top of the hill where the church of Monteratte stands, with Stew, John and James.

In between all this sightseeing, we did manage to meet some great people, drinks cheap Colombian beers and eat some fantastic, and cheap, food.

getting out of the unbearable heat

the easiest way for us to get out of the sun is to get under the water (well actually its to head into an air conditioned bar) .....
on our way around cartagena, nell found a dive shop right around the corner from our hotel.
we went on a day dive trip with La Tortuga Dive Shop.

we went out of the harbour via Bocachica and did two dives off Baru Island.

the water was a balmy 29 degrees but the visibility wasnt all that great. probably about 12m or so.

i´m blaming the crap photos on the visibility.

we met jim from chicago (if youre reading this jim, i lost your email address!)

the first dive, we got to do 2 wrecks in the one dive. we understand that the dive shop might have had a hand in getting one of the wrecks sunk.

there is a massive jewelfish living on the wreck (like a grouper). its called nacho and its about as big as my torso!

it was a bit dodgey of them to take us through the wreck without checking certs or anything but the swim through wasnt that far and you could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

we did our surface interval on Banau Island but they didnt tell us anything about the island or what was on it.

the second dive, we went off in search of barracuda and two undersea mountains - which we found one of.
the divemasters seemed a little bored by that stage but nell found a huge crab (and then got a whole lot of stings on her arm) and then when she surfaced i found a MASSIVE green moray eel.

a pretty cheap days diving (165,000 pesos for all gear and lunch).
all in all - it was pretty good ! and we got out of the hot sun for a while.

.... oh and the stings .... the only thing that seemed to help was cerveza ...

Cartagena

We started exploring Cartagena on Sunday the 9th of September, after deciding that we would not have enough time to go to Tairona National Park or Taganga- bad planning on our part, but so you learn.

It turned out that it was the Colombian National Heritage Day, which meant all the museums were free! It was also quite warm, but not stiflingly hot - the best day we had in Cartagena for walking around.

We started at the Inquisition museum (Palacia de la Inquisition), where we got a guide who spoke english, Tony. Tony was very animated while talking about the torture techniques, we think he might have been gay, what with all the make-up he was wearing. He taught us a lot of the history of Cartagena, invasions and pirates, plenty reasons to build the great big fortifications around the city.

Tony then took us to an Emerald ´factory´, which turned out to be an emerald shop, one of many in the city, and they proceeded to try to sell Tara and I some emerald jewellery. We used the excuse that we needec our money for a roof over our heads and food in our tummíes and made our way out of there.

We walked around the city going in and out of churches and walking along the outer wall. It is an incredibly beautiful city that throngs with history. There are also very few tourists walking around, which makes it seem all the more authentic and real.

We managed to find a room in a hostel that day, and would move into it the following morning. Back at our hotel, we went to the 18th floor swimming pool and took in the view of the old and the new city, Boca Grande.

The next day, after moving into out hostel room, we went exploring again, but it was so hot. So very, very hot. There was a sign on the beach saying that it was 37 Celcius at 10 in the morning!

We managed to walk around to some parts of the city that we didn´t see the previous day, and then walked all the way to the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas. We were dripping by that stage, so instead of going up the long slope to the Castle, we looked at it from the comfort of two chairs at an outside bar.

That evening we met up with Christina, a 19 year old Colombian who was working at the last hotel we stayed in. She took us to the Cafe del Mar, on the wall of the city overlooking the sea, and then to a friend of her late father who owns a restaurant in the old city. We had a great time, but ended up paying for her. She agreed to meet us the next day and said she would pay us back.

We met Christina the next day near the hotel where she works. She didn´t end up paying us back, but that´s a lesson learned for us. We decided it was, once again, too damn hot to do any exploring, so we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach.

That evening we had a lovely dinner on a balcony above the Plaza de Santo Domingo, safely watching the locals entertain, and try to sell things to, the tourists.

Cartagena is great, but you have to learn quickly how to just ignore all the street, and beach, hawkers.
Oh, and ... go in winter!