Pippa week

Trip Start Nov 08, 2008
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Trip End Jun 30, 2009


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Flag of Colombia  ,
Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Flew to Colombia to meet our friend Pippa who had decided that her 2 week holiday from work would consist of running around Colombia. Neither of us had done much planning and it wasnīt until we got there that we realised it was twice the size of France.

Ah well. Meeting up with Pip again after two and a half years was lovely and we had much to catch up on. But we wasted no time in seeing the city and getting out. Strolled around the old city, Candelaria, and marvelled at just how civilised and unthreatening the capital city is. But realised very quickly not to get too complacent as walking down the street with pizza fuelled a torrent of abuse in spanish and english from a homeless guy.

Popped into the gold museum which has a fantastic collection of gold that the Spanish didnīt get their hands on, ate weird snacks - except the local delicacy of fried ants - and also took a trip to the Salt Cathedral, which was 2 hours out of town and meant that we missed our bus. Oops. This is a weird place. Itīs a working salt mine into which they cut a space resembling a cathedral. It has the largest underground cross in the world made of salt. But to be honest, it was just a dirty salt cave with some religious artefacts in it. The most exciting part of the day was the bus journey home where the driver thought he could make a railway crossing and we got stuck between the gates. Luckily the buses in Bogota are so tiny we squeezed into the space between the track and the gate and the train rumbled past, but it was a close call. Not sure how many lives iīve got left now...

Working out our route with Pip in a bar that night we realised we had no choice but to take a 20 hour bus journey on my birthday. Boooooooooo. Now thatīs the way to spend your holdiday!
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