I barely slept 3 hours last night, my body was functioning beyond exhaustion. I also felt a little bit of the altitude. It was quite unlike me, Bogota was 2600 meters above sea level, and how could I not prepare some altitude medication. I thought I used to visit cities higher than 3000 meters above sea level, I was ok after a day. So, I entrusted that I should be fine. Maybe because the lack of sleep plus the altitude and I am also a couple more years older, I found myself getting tired every so often throughout the day today.
Carlos came to my Airbnb just before 7pm, he just finished a night shift and was going to crash here for a few hours before we ventured out. And so we did. First thing first, I had to get a local sim card so I can use the google map and google translate, what am I going to do without them in a country that 90% of the time I have absolutely no idea what the people were saying, and nor do they know what I am saying. I got the sim card and credits for enough for 20 days for COP 30000 which is like USD 8.
Today’s itinerary is all the typical Bogota highlights. Our breakfast was tamales Colombiano + café/chocolate. Their tamales are no joke, it is not the dinky Mexicano who-ha. This Colombian version of tamale is so huge, so filling, it might as well be the lunch of the day. The entire chicken drumstick with bones (and pork as well) are in it. I like it, sort of my first local Colombian dish.
We took the local bus system, kind of like the Silver Line in Boston, there are designated station with platforms, and you get in and out of the bus from those platform. I got a stored value card to use the bus system. It was not exactly clearly marked which bus on which platform though. I can see that I may have trouble finding my bus if I was not with Carlos, even he has to ask around. We went to Cerro de Monserrate first, since it was not raining this morning. Bogota is in raining season, I have been very much prepared to do thing indoors. Instead today, it was all walk walk walk... Cerro de Monserrate was a small rocky hill, we took the cable car up and took the Funicular coming back down. We had some Coca tea on the top of the hill, Carlos had never even heard of it and refused to believe there is such a thing in Colombia, he thought it was coca cola in tea, I said they are popular in Peru and Ecuador and they drank it for altitude sickness. Ha! What did we find on Cerro de Monserrate - Te de Coca. Learn something new each day, bitches!
It was almost 1:30pm when we came back down from Monserrate. Debating between taking a cab back to Airbnb since I felt so exhausted, or go to eat Ajiaco for lunch and see the graffiti district in La Candelaria, we picked the latter. A short uber ride to Plaza de Bolivar from the Monserrate cable car station, we found a restaurant where we had ajiaco, a creamy soup with corn, chicken and potato. What not to love about that combo. La Candelaria is another hilly neighborhood with all these old buildings, a section of it were all painted with graffiti. It was nice, I enjoyed that area, but man, did that hilly road killed my legs. My calves were burning. It was begging me to find a place to sit and have a coffee. We grabbed a coffee at a Crepes/Waffle place and another long walk on Avenida Jimenez (with street vendors for a mile long) to the bus station. Some 15 stations later, we got off at Calle 66 and more uphill walk to Airbnb.
I suggested “Parroquia” (parish) for dinner, I really meant Parrillaria (grill). Chorizo antioqueño, and BBQ chicken wing and octopus for me. Shower still has issue, another lukewarm shower. Contacted the host, they will be here to check it at 9am in the morning.
All other photos from Day 2 are here.
