I arrived in Bogotá safe and sound after a smooth-ish journey. My stopover in Madrid was very short so a decent sprint to the airport was needed to ensure I caught my flight! Poor organisation on my part combined with some bad luck as my plane was leaving from the last gate in the last terminal and I couldn’t have been further from where I needed to be! All was well thankfully.

My first hostel of the trip was ‘Cedron Hostel’ run by Gabriel and his wife Patricia. Despite having little English, they made me feel right at home. Tori’s flight was delayed, so I had one day to myself to get a feel for the place!

Jet lag was in full swing so I woke very early! The hostel provided a very cute breakfast which all the guests ate together.

It was a great way to get recommendations of what to do in the city with little effort. After speaking with another guest, I booked a walking tour of the city with Hector for 10am.

The tour was perfect to get a grasp of ‘Downtown’ and ‘La Candelaria’, the main parts of the city.

On the tour I got my first look at the exotic fruits that everyone talks about in South America.

I tried the ‘Maracuya’ based on the guides recommendation which was made of lemon, passion fruit and mint. (The lemons here are actually limes!)

I also tasted the local beer, ‘Chicha’. (It was 5 o clock somewhere!)

On the tour we saw the ‘Emerald Market’ in full swing where traders were gathered to buy and sell emeralds. We were warned in advance what to look out for which was men in suits holding small pierces of white paper containing the emeralds. Had we not known what was happening, it would have seemed very dodgy. But we were told if you know your stuff, it’s the best place to get emeralds at a good price!

The tour was very informative. We learned about the artist ‘Fernando Botero’ who has a Museum in Bogota, and other names such as Simon Bolivar, Gabriel Garcia, and Pablo Escabar who all had a huge part to play in Colombia’s very interesting history. To top it off, I even met Michael Jackson!

It was a really great tour, so much so that I booked a second ‘Food Tour’ with Hector for the afternoon! Instead of having to find a place for dinner, I got a taste of all the best foods in Bogota! Now this was my kind of tour!

To start off I tasted my very first empanada.

This was followed by a ‘bunuelo’ which was basically a filled donut. I chose dulce de leche of course!

Next up we tasted some corn, that tasted more like popcorn than sweetcorn. It was much tougher that home, although still tasted great with butter and salt!

Traditionally this is paired with a drink called ‘Limonada de Cäna’ which is made from lemon (limes) and sugar cane.

On route I bought some dragon fruit and ‘mangostina’, which is absolutely nothing like a mango!

Our next stop was to a Colombian bbq restaurant. In Colombia they don’t bbq on charcoal, instead they cook on wood, like this:

From here we went to ‘Puerta de la Cathedral’ to taste Bogota’s best ‘Ajiaco’, a traditional vegetable soup served with rice, avocado, capers and cream. It was absolutely delicious!

To sweeten us up, we got an ‘oblea’ next, which is a traditional Colombian wafer desert. One of the toppings was actually cheese. They put cheese in almost everything in Colombia – even in hot chocolate!

This brought us to our last stop in a barista school where we first received a shot of ‘Aguardiente’ which considered Colombia’s national drink, before finishing the tour with a coffee lesson.

Colombians take coffee very seriously. We were given a choice between three coffees, which were all made in a different way. I chose the strongest coffee, which was made using a piece of equipment I had never seen before called a ‘sifon’.

The process started like this, and as the water was heating the coffee was added.

This was the finished product.

I took the scenic route back to the hostel passing by some incredible art. The colours and vibrancyof the art here is incredible!

Walking around when it’s dark is not a good plan in Bogota, so I stayed in the hostel for the rest of the evening and waited for Tori to arrive. Poor Tori had a quick turnaround as we had another flight for the next morning! Overall, I enjoyed my short visit to Bogota.

Next stop, Medellin