The Vagrant Gypsy Life

Day 274 Thu 2/6

Woke up early to go for a walk around Bogota. Also visited the ATM to replenish diminishing funds. Got a bus to Tunja in pouring rain from Portal del Norte. 2 hours to Tunja and a collectivo to Villa. Pretty village, but hard walk to get to the lovely hostel, Renacer guesthouse. Chat with Sage, a Californian, after dinner.

Day 275 Fri 3/6

Spent most of the day on a hike, with 4 other folks in the hostel, to two waterfalls – El Angel and Hayal? After 6 hours of mostly easy hiking, we were back at the hostel. The taxi came out to be cheap for the 5 of us. Dinner was a bit expensive at one of the best restaurants in town – Antique. I had a couple of glasses of wine, my first in about 3 months!

Day 276 Sat 4/6

Headed to the market in the morning. Thanks to Sage, who informed me about the existence of a French bakery in town, I had the opportunity to taste chocolate brownie to die for and a couple of other goodies. Headed off to El Infiernito & El fosil with Mark, a Londoner and Tillman, from Frankfurt (Frankfurter? 🙂 ). Infiernito was nice, but el fosil was a waste of time and money!

Most of the people I had met the last couple of days left. However, folks from Bogota arrived to join me and Tillman in the pleasnt 8 person dorm. The dorm had a beautiful view!

While preparing dinner at the hostel, met an extremely friendly Colombian civil engg couple, Fernando & Carolina. They were enjoying their 3 day weekend and were on their way to visit Carolina’s parents. They were working in Medellin, but Carolina got a new project in Bogota and was headed there after their holidays.

Day 277 Sun 5/6

Starting to fall into a routine here – Frnech bakery in the mornign after breakfast!

Follwed by a 3.5 hours hike up a hill with Tillman to see the views of Villa and surroudings village. Met more friendly Colombians on the way down. The couple had exchanged the rigours of a Bogotan life for the more relaxing splendours of Villa. Spent the afternoon reading “Silence of the lambs”.

Tillman was off to Cucuy. I might run into him again on the lost city trek up north.

Day 278 Mon 6/6

I had thought of leaving that morning, but extended my stay. Villa in beautiful, with whitewashed houses, adorned with colourful doors and windows. The cobblestones on the streets, however, made for extremely uncomfortable walks and was the one thing I did not like about the village.

After a pleasant afternoon, ecovering from the morning spent walking on those blasted cobblestones, reading and catnapping in a hammock, I found myself all alone in the dorm. All the Colombian folks had left. I went into the common area to meet a few newcomers, a couuple of Argentine girls, Rosario and Cyntia. They were both from Buenos Aires and Cyntia is doing her PhD at U of Austin. Spent a couple of hours chatting with them and Toni, from Cataluña, before partaking a dinner of pizza.

Day 279 Tue 7/6

Spent the day hanging out with the Argentine girls. We got lost walking to Pozos Azules, local swimming holes. However, the 4 hours walk was far from unpleasant and my Spanish stood the test.

Toni and Franck, a Frenchman, joined us for a night of dinner and music at Antique. We were the only customers and the musician played for us. The girls, Franck and Toni joined in the singing and drumming. Yours truly with singing skills best left to solo pérformances in showers, took over the obligatory role of photographer.

Day 280 Wed 8/6

Toni, Franck and self went on a hike to Iguaque. We headed out eary, since we were warned it is a 6-7 hour hike. We walked really fast and made th roundtrip in 4.5 hours. The walk was through some lovely flora. We expected more fauna, but only managed to see one bird! We spent about 30 minutes at the Laguna Iguaque, located at an altitude of about 3800m.

We were driven back by Jose, the park ranger, who had some lovely bits of information to share about the flora and fauna of the park, political situation in Colombia, history of Villa, among other things. Made for a nice trip home. Dinner was pizza again with 5 other folks from the hostel.

Day 269 Fri 27/5
A long day that started at 5:30 am. Got to the bus station around 07:30 and had to wait till 08:20 for my bus. The long 12.5 hour bus journey was made bearable by some beautiful scenery and the novel I was reading, the third policeman. An absolutely hilarious novel, full of absurdities that turn out to be not very absurd after all.
I am not going to forget my taxi ride from the bus station to the hostel in a hurry. The driver seemed to be in training for his F1 career. After a 12 hour bus ride, I wasnt quite in the mood to enjoy his style of driving and was extremely glad when we made it to the hostel in one piece!

Day 270 Sat 28/5
A day that started off with heavy rainfall trapping most of us indoors. The rain eased a bit around 11 and I managed to head out for a walk. I also changed hostel to move to a smaller place, in a really pretty colonial building. Settled in to watch the UEFA Champions league final. Barcelona were in scintillating form and displayed their and won 3-1. I was all alone in my hostel. Wish I could have been in Plaza Cataluña for the game. The sun had come out and I headed to wander the streets of La Candelaria before heading back around 18:00 to settle in with a book by David Mitchell called Black Swan Green. Finished the book before drifting off to sleep.

Day 271 Sun 29/5
Certain days not much goes your way! Woke up to find that the neighbourhood of La Candelaria has problems with water. Lack of water made me a wee bit grumpy. To make matters worse, it started pouring down when I headed out of the hostel. It got even worse when I reached the Museum of gold, dripping wet to boot, to find that most museums are closed today due to some elections. The nice lady with the police told me that the Museo de Bogota was open. They had an exhibition of photos – one floor of photos of concentration camps and one floor with photos of miners and mujeres rebeldes y felices. Needless to say, the photos of the concentration camps were grim and suited the weather and made me feel quite melancholic.
After a break at the hostel to get dry, headed out for a walk around La Candelaria. Sunday evenings do get quite busy around here! Had sun for a couple of hours and it was very welcome!

Day 271 Mon 30/5
Another rainy day. Luckily I meant to spend most of the time in museusm. The trio of Museo Botero, Museo de moneda and Museo del Banco de la republica are free to the public and showcase works of artists from Colombia and Europe. I enjoyed quite a lot of what I saw and spent about 3-3.5 hours. My lunch again was at a vegetarian place – the food was really good, albeit a wee bit expensive.
Spent a couple of hours walking around places I hadnt seen before. Headed back to the hostel when it started getting cloudy and watched some tennis.

Day 272 Tue 31/5
Museo Nacional, a prison turned into a museum in 1948, was well worth the trouble of walking 30 minutes! The entrnce fee is 2000 pesos, which is a little more than a dollar! It is a mixture of Colombian history, art and ethnographic museums. After about 4 hours, I felt too tired to absorb things and left. My stomach was also crying out for food. More veggie fare. There seem to be quite a lot of vegetarian restaurants in Bogota and the big cities in Colombia.

Day 273 Wed 1/6
A group of Russians had made it to the hostel the previous night and demonstrated that it surely was their only time in a dorm by making a racket early in the morning. I was, fortunately, well awake before they started their conversations, but the rest of the folks in the room werent impressed.
I left the hostel early to head to Zipaquira, about 40 km away from Bogota, a mining town (salt) where the claim to fame is the Catedral de la Sal (Salt Catedral). The original Cathedral was shut down due to safety issues, and the construction of the new one started 20 years ago and took 5 years!
I got to Zipaquira around 09:30 and with help from the friendly locals, made it to the Parque del Sal. The entry is expensive, but well worth it. I havent seen anything like the cathedral anywhere. It was a bit cold inside, with the smell of sulphur. A guide is included in the entry price and though in English, I managed to understand about 80-90% of his informative talks. They have mass at the cathedral every Sunday and apparently even weddings.
The guided walk took an hour and I then spent another 30 minutes retracing the route we took.
I got to Bogota a bit late and missed lunch. Too tired to walk around town, I headed to the hostel and watched Nadal recover his form to beat Soderling in the French open quarters.