South America sounds kind of close to North America. Believe me, it is not. What it also is not is due south of North America, although in my simplified mind that’s exactly where it was. Guess it’s a while since I looked at a globe. Not only that, South America is massive, and when you’re all the way down in the south of the South, it’s a long long way not only to Tipperary but also to California. The answer: break up the return journey.
Work restrictions limited our choices, but one country stood out as being a promising option – no work permits needed and pretty much as close to our time zone as we could get in South America. It also wasn’t on our previous 2003 global adventure itinerary and so was new to us: Columbia.
I have to admit when Darren first proposed Columbia I was a tad skeptical. Guns and drugs and gangs and shootings. An unsafe place where we could be robbed at gunpoint, umm, no thanks. I was assured that my impressions of the country were at best outdated. The country had come a long way since the days of Pablo Escobar and we’d be just fine. And just like that, we were going to Columbia. The plan: to work a week in Bogota, work a week in Medellin, work a week in Cartagena, and finish up with a week’s vacation (somewhere in Columbia) over Christmas, flying back in January to start the new year at home.
Bogota was all a bit of a blur honestly. After leaving the ship in Ushuaia and flying north, we had a long layover in Buenos Aires and then an overnight flight to Bogota. We rocked up all bleary eyed ready to start work on a Tuesday morning. Our destination for the week: Selina – the Digital Nomad Hotel Of The Future (according to Forbes). Beyond the promised creative living and working environment, we were actually very pleased to be greeted with an included breakfast, random though it was.
Also rather impressive was the proximity of Selina to the nearest brewery. Literally right next door.
So we made it there and not too much further honestly. Although we did partake in the excellent local restaurant scene, with a nice meal out or two.
And we embraced the Selina lifestyle where our hectic working days blurred traditional boundaries with coffee shops, bars, and the World Cup final. Good job we were so tired when we went to bed for when the late night live music finally ended, the DJ kicked it up a notch. The paper thin walls did little to keep the tunes confined. The Latin salsa beat ran through my head as I drifted off, music and sleep forging an alternate dream-state where penguins pirouetted with footballs in my head and formed a drug-fuelled conga to party the night away.
Our Bogota visit coincided with a national holiday on 7th December: The Day of the Little Candles. Unofficially, this marks the start of the Christmas season by…. you guessed it, lighting candles. I’m sure it’s a very lovely and traditional way to bring family and friends together to embrace the upcoming festivities. For us having very recently arrived in a foreign country, it was a somewhat subdued affair on the hotel front doorstep. After all, it doesn’t take very long to light a candle.
By the end of the week, we had recovered sufficiently to spend a little time before work doing something touristy. And the most touristy thing to do in Bogota is take the funicular up the Montserrat mountain that dominates the city.
When you’re immersed at ground level, the hustle and bustle of the city is all-consuming. There’s a sense of urgency peppered with beeping and honking of impatient traffic, weaving of motorbikes, and yelling of street side vendors. The funicular on the other hand took us into a different world. The views were breathtaking and the change of pace like a weight off our shoulders. For the first time we were able to “see” Bogota.
Speaking of Christmas decorations, they were very much getting into the spirit of Christmas up this mountain. Well, they had decorations with lights (it really was so very tempting to come back at night) but they were not not your average traditional Christmas decorations. More of a jungle theme going on. We were literally surrounded by colorful monkeys, bears, snakes and anteaters.
They also had various effigy re-enactments of scenes from the New Testament featuring Jesus Christ. Not in the spirit of Christmas, these were permanent statues. Funny enough, they didn’t seem out of place surrounded by tropical plants and thick rainforest – it added an air of pensive tranquility as we wandered the grounds. I didn’t even mind the Christmas lights draped tastefully across the scenes.
Although I feel they went a step too far when they tried to marry the religious statues with the jungle flora and fauna. And there you have it… my overarching memories of Bogota are this series of ”Jesus and the [random animal]”.
