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The Irish guy said to me last night in a top cork accent ‘Colombia is the only place I know where driving is an adventure sport’ 

He isn’t kidding. So you’d think sitting in an ancient 750,000mile v8 van over something that can’t really be classed as a road with different doors that fly open around corners multiple times (not joking) and with an outrageously chilled colombo playing raggetron would be enough of an adventure…

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Well as it turns out not…

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Yes, I KID YOU NOT that is a family riding on top of the van. I’m unsure if that is the coolest or worst mum in the world. I need more time to contemplate a crazy day. 

So much choice of coffee and such little Spanish to read descriptions. It’s always a surprise what turns up, today it was some weird creamy thing:

(And a cake which involved a lot of pointing) 

A street art walking tour is not really something I’d normally enjoy. In fact, I can’t name a single street artist name that our guide mentioned -but there is no denying that there is some beautiful graffiti here

Street at the bottom is where our hostel (Bogo) is and the sun is out!!!!

5min walk to a trip advisor recommended restaurant for dinner. What could possibly go wrong? 

Well 2mins away from the hostel we’re walking along and a local lady (with pretty good English) and a dog comes rushing up to us, wide eyed shouting ‘this is not safe, what are you doing!!!’ ‘Oh my gosh’ she says while hitting her head with her hand ‘stupid tourists- do you have valuables’. ‘Oh my gosh there are 8men with knives you stupid tourists, ohhh my goshh’ 

Frankly, I found the beady eyed lady more scary than the prospect of 8 knife wielding men which says a lot. She did seem completely and utterly crazy. 

Either way, as the hostel was still in sight we bravely headed back up the hill and got the hostel owner to order us pizza 😁

This is the way to gamble in Bogota…

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You can forget about roulette. This is just better. 

Shahd and I were mocked by the hostel owner and a yank by the level of effort we maintained to get the gas hob lit and boiling some water after I pulled out my tetley tea

Why do only the British understand the importance of tea? 

So today we’ve decided to step it up a notch and move from our jet lag recovery hotel to the first hostel!! It feels so homely and friendly and we’re finally hearing some English!! 

We got a cable car up Monserrat and was rewarded with some fine fine views and a real top notch coffee. I’m definitely noticing the altitude though. It’s a bizzare feeling- kind of a mix between drunk and hungover. Slightly not with it, CONSTANTLY thirsty and regular headaches bleruhhhh- could be the terrible fumes here also? Not sure. Every car here is a million years old and so many leave trials of smoke behind them

Oh and we also saw a wild Llama 👍👍

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This does not look easy. 

News flash: The Colombians can’t make tea. It came with a block of cheese and some bread. Predictably coffee is the way to go 

The food is pretty funky, our chicken and rice combo came in some weird sea weed like container- tasty though!!!