Our Great Adventure: Bogota Day 312 27/07/2015

We had a leisurely start to the day and enjoyed breakfast on the hotel restaurant's balcony overlooking the narrow street. We chatted with an English chap, Alastair, who had just arrived the previous night from London and then was flying straight up to Cartagena that afternoon. He also planned to do the Lost City trek on the Caribbean coast and after a couple of weeks umming and arring we finally decided we would look to do it when we were in Santa Marta in a week's time. After dropping our washing off at the nearby laundrette we walked around the narrow district of La Candelaria where we were staying. It was very Spanish colonial in design as this was the founding district of the city which was known as Santa Fe before the Colombian revolution in the early 19th century. Whilst the streets were very busy with people popping in and out of their offices (lots of people in suits) and tourists you couldn't help yet again notice the strong police and military presence with the semi assault machine guns and mean looking rottweilers fully muzzled. There is still the threat of terrorism in Colombia although at the time of writing the main guerrilla group, FARC, have signed a ceasefire with the government and talks are underway. Seeing all the military and police gave us mixed feelings; both reassurance but also a sense of unease. We found a bank 3 blocks away from our hotel and frustratingly could only get a maximum withdrawal of 300,000 COPS (£70) before walking through the district of the famous Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, heading towards our destination of the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum). On arrival we saw it was shut as it was Monday so we walked along one of the main streets towards the main square, Plaza de Bolivar. The street was a strange mix of colonial architecture and horrible 60's and 70's office blocks making it seem a bit tired and scruffy; the fact they we also digging up the road contributed to this appearance. The plaza was huge and was surrounded by the Presidential Palace, Palacio de Justicia and the Capitolio Nacional. All these buildings were post independence in style, almost classical Greek, which made the large 19th century neo classical Catedral Primada, on the fourth side, really stand out. Behind it were the 600m heights of the mountains giving it and impressive backdrop. Our luck of being unable to get inside the key South American churches continued as we found the gates shut tight; maybe we hoped it was just for Monday's! We found a pleasant cafe nearby for lunch then headed to a museum which we saw was open just down from our hotel; the joint Casa de Moneda and also the Museum of Botero. It was free to enter and the museum had a beautiful courtyard in the centre. The exhibits in the Moneda showed the history of Colombia both in colonial and post colonial days through the different coinage and notes issued. It was very interesting and had lots of the machines displayed that were used to make the coins; it reminded us very much of Potosi. We then walked through to the Botero musuem exhibiting the strange works of Colombia's most famous artists, Fernando Botero. He is an evangelist of all things chubby depicted in the numerous paintings and sculptures of all things fat, mainly people. The sculptures were miniatures of the ones we had seen in Medellin a few days before. As we said very strange but quite compelling! We were then quite cultured out for the day so we headed back to the hotel and complied a list of things we needed to sort including the lost city trek, accommodation for the next 2 weeks in Colombia as well as sketching an outline of our final month away in Panama and the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. We also started to put out some feelers for a used Touareg car with some VW dealers for purchase when we get home. Dinner that evening was at a quiet but pleasant restaurant just around the corner of our hotel, making sure we were back in our room before 9pm when the police "clock off" and it's not the best place being out and about after then.