June 18 - June 23, 2008
I arrived Bogota at 7 am after a 7 hour bus ride from San Gil. Once I arrived, couchsurfer Eliana was there waiting for me at the bus terminal. We sat and waited for ever to catch a bus or cab back to her place. We finally ended up catching a taxi after about an hour of waiting. I have never seen so many taxi´s that were all full in my life. On the taxi ride to her house we saw a guy on a motorcycle rear-end a bus, and he fell right into the median, and was knocked out cold. You have to be crazy driving a motorcyle in a huge city of Bogota with 8 million people! I picked up some dunkin donuts at the bus terminal so I had something to give to Eliana, but once we arrived her place she insisted on making me breakfast as well. A few hours later after relaxing, she then made me lunch and then met up with her boyfriend and two of her other friends who were all very nice. My first day in Bogota was a great relaxing day after some long travel days, and I hope I can make Eliana´s first couchsurfing experience a great one!
I spent three nights at Eliana's place and I couldn't have asked for a better host. We checked out a couple muesuems in downtown Bogota that were pretty cool. One was the museum of gold and another one was a musuem on how they make their money which was pretty cool as well. On Saturday morning Eliana's friend Viviana told me that Eliana got into a little fight with her dad, and that it would be best for me to come stay at her place instead. So, I packed up my bags and went to the University with Viviana and Eliana because they both had to give exams to their students. They both are studying to be english teachers, so they introduced me to their classes and told them they could ask me any questions after their exams. I was in their classrooms from 1 to about 5 pm...I had plenty of time to study up my Spanish and it was fun to communicate with the 14 year old kids after they were finished with their exams. During the exams they were all trying to get me to give them answers. It was pretty funny, and a good time!
After the exams were done I took off with Viviana to her mom's house which is in a town called Duitama about three hours north of Bogota. She thought that I would be able to catch a bus from there to Medellin (my next destination), but unfortunately, I was not able to. So I ended up spending two nights at Viviana's mom's place and then went back with her to Bogota. Viviana was a great host who was always making sure I was doing alright, and she introduced me to some of her friends who were all very nice.
The bus ride back to Bogota on Monday was a long one. It took us 4.5 hours on the way back, and when we arrived Bogota, it took us about an hour to get to the bus terminal because we kept on stopping to drop people off along the way. This bus drive was far from smooth too. You would have thought it was the bus drivers first time driving a stick. Everytime he stopped and started back up I got whip lash from him shifting gears. He couldnt even shift into third gear smoothly. I was quite exhausted after that bus ride, and then I caught another one to Medellin at 1130 pm that night (I arrived into Bogota about 930 pm on Monday, June 22). The ride to Medellin was nine hours, so I arrived Medellin about 830 am Tuesday (June 23) morning.
