Golden Showers - Well, Gold and Showers

We had enjoyed our time in San Agustín and Tierradentro as they're a little further off the gringo trail (especially Tierradentro). However, now it was time to head firmly back into tourist central - Bogotá, Colombia's capital. We took a nightbus from San Agustín that arrived at 5am, and spent a lot of time drinking coffee until we could check in to our AirBnB later on. We'd chosen to base ourselves in the historical district, La Candelaria, which is where most of the attractions are, and the AirBnB was great - run by a very friendly French-Colombian family.

The main square, Plaza de Bolívar, in Bogotá

So, Bogotá. Bogotá is big.Very big. In terms of population, it is the fourth largest city in all of South America and the second largest we've been to behind Buenos Aires, with nearly 10 million people. It is also high, at about 2650m - the third highest capital city in the world after La Paz and Quito. And based on our experience, Bogotá is also rainy. It rained every day while were here, including some enormous thunderstorms that flooded some streets and caused delays at the airport when the control tower was struck by lightning! The weather liked to fool us by appearing beautifully sunny every morning. Thus without fail we'd say, 'shall we take the raincoats? Nah, we won't need them.' And without fail we'd get soaked. Apparently this much rain is unusual for the time of year, and probably due to the El Niño phenomenon.

Incredibly detailed figures in the Gold Museum

There's plenty to do in Bogotá, and we duly visited the majority of its major tourist sites. One of the highlights was the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum), which is one of the best museums we've been to in South America so far. It tells the history of gold in Colombia, focusing on pre-Columbian times and explaining how gold was obtained, what was made with it, the indigenous mythologies surrounding it, and so on. There were plenty of stunning gold items on display, some dating from over 2000 years ago yet incredibly complex, intricate and beautiful in their designs.

Street art on the graffiti tour

Aside from the Gold Museum, we spent one morning doing the popular graffiti tour around La Candelaria and the city centre. This was quite interesting but the group was huge - over 30 people! - and the guide focused more on the artists' styles than on the actual content / meaning behind the street art. We'd have liked to know WHY a given artist had chosen to portray a toucan with a halo, rather than how he'd done it! We also took the cable car (so many cities in South America have cable cars!) to the top of Cerro Monserrate, up at 3100m. The view of the city was quite nice, but sadly the clouds rolled in, the vista deteriorated extremely quickly and the torrential rain began anew. Another day we visited the Police Museum, which included quite a lot of interesting information on the hunt for Pablo Escobar in the early 1990s. On display there was even a desk Escobar owned, which on first sight looks normal, but when kicked in a certain way reveals a false back and false bottom, with several secret compartments. There was also a sophisticated machine Escobar had used for counting banknotes; the only other one of these in the country at the time was in the national bank!

Somewhat hazy view of Bogotá from Cerro Monserrate

Wanted poster for Pablo Escobar, in the Police Museum

We had heard a lot about the Salt Cathedral in the town of Zipaquirá, which is often described as 'the marvel of Colombia'. Understandably, we were keen to visit, and as Zipaquirá is not far from Bogotá, we made a day trip. It took us an hour and a half from La Candelaria using the Transmilenio bus-metro thing (more on that to follow!) and then a local bus. On arrival, we were horrified to find the ticket price for extranjeros (foreigners) was 50,000 pesos. That is, £10. Which is a LOT in Colombia! For reference, the Gold Museum cost 3,000. Even for Colombians the price was 28,000, which would definitely price a lot of locals out of coming here. Pretty ridiculous. Still, we thought, we're here now, and we reluctantly paid up.

The main nave in the Salt Cathedral

The Salt Cathedral is basically a huge church built underground in a salt mine, complete with the stations of the cross, also made of salt, on the way. I have to say that the cathedral itself was pretty cool - it was incredible to be in this huge chamber with high ceilings and massive pillars, all deep underground and mostly built of salt, granite and marble. The stations of the cross were also well done, we thought - mostly very understated and simple. However, what we didn't like was the way the entire experience had been made into a massive tourist trap. You had to go round with a guide (totally unnecessary), there was cheesy music playing, and at the end we were greeted with rows of the usual artesania shops. Yes, souvenir shops. And a coffee shop. Down a salt mine! On top of this, anything extra had to be paid for on top of the crazy first price; extra if you wanted to go in the museum, extra to see more of the mine, extra even for toilet paper...! We were very disappointed overall as we felt the whole place was a bit of a farce and a complete rip off. But ho hum, we had to see it really.

One of the Stations of the Cross

Our spirits that day weren't improved by the arduous journey back to Bogotá from Zipaquira. This was our first experience of the Bogotá traffic, which is quite legendary. You'd think in the late afternoon the traffic would be okay coming back into the city, just bad leaving it. You'd think wrong. It took us 3.5 hours to get back. As I mentioned before, part of the journey involved the Transmilenio, which is Bogotá's equivalent of a metro. But rather than a train, it is a bendy bus, 2 or 3 carriages long. Many things about this bus challenged our brains. For example, why have an 'express' bus when it can only go at the same speed as the non-express buses? They all go in the same lane and can't overtake. Or, why not let all the people leaving the bus at the stop get off before everyone else shoves their way on? And, why plan your rush hour schedule so that 90% of the buses coming through the busiest platform at 6.30 pm are 'en transito' (in transit) and not stopping?! Maybe we were just in a bad mood, but we were tearing our hair out a little! Oh for the good old Tube.

View of Bogotá from our AirBnB

On our last day in the city, we decided to treat ourselves to a posh restaurant as a belated celebration of our being away for one year. Said restaurant, Matiz, was 8 or 9 km from where we were staying. Given our experience of the traffic, we left nearly an hour to get there (by taxi). It took us an hour and a half. The taxi driver seemed determined to use the big main road, despite it being completely rammed with traffic. At one point he turned off, and we breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he'd finally seen sense and was going to go via the nearly empty side roads instead. But no, after a few blocks it became clear he was instead just heading across to the other big main road. Which, surprise surprise, was almost stationary. Dare we suggest that if more drivers were willing to use non main roads, the traffic problem might be slightly less bad?!

More street art around La Candelaria

Anyway, end of traffic related ranting! Luckily the restaurant had kept our table and we enjoyed a fantastic meal - a tasting menu of I don't know how many courses that has to be one of the best meals of the trip so far. Cocktails and then wine pairings with each course meant we soon forgot our frustration with the journey. It was a nice way to say goodbye to Colombia, and to Latin America for a while as we move on to destinations more Caribbean in their nature. Next, the island of Curaçao, before we head to the Guyanas.