Travel

[CoffeeNut]

Hello fellow travelers.  I have arrived in Bogotá and am ready to share my journey. I am going  to try and do this in the format in which @World_Traveler   does since I consider that the benchmark for reporting.  Share some pics and fun facts 

We arrived the night before.  The first leg of the flight was to Atlanta. I don’t know about y’all but I love layovers in busy airports.  Nothing better then sipping on a vanilla latte and people watching.  Some people are dressed in their Sunday best, some...well....not so best.   Some are happy, some are stressed. I love seeing what purse and bags people carry and also shoes.    The flight to Bogotá was about 4.5 hours from Atlanta. Very smooth.  An hour in immigration then collect the luggage 

I am usually the vacation planner. Right down to the last detail and I research and research.  However this trip is total opposite. My husbands  sister lives in Bogotá so we went to visit and I had to plan nothing except which hotel we wanted to stay since sis in law place is too small.  She has stuff planned to see and so.  So this is a such a nice treat.  We arrived to the hotel around midnight.

Day one:  This was the view we woke up to

For those that don’t know, Bogotá is the capital of Colombia.  Population is more than 8 million and elevation is over 8 thousand feet.  Because of that the climate is usually coolish in the 50s and cloudy and rainy.  

This is was my breakfast this morning at the hotel.  Regional fruits, scrambled eggs and some rice mixture. Delicious !!!

Bogota is in the central time zone.  Sis in law picked us up from the hotel. She took us to Bolivar Square. Simply stunning. This old church from the 1500s was the focal point 

More square view

I want ant to say this is the presidential palace. It was heavily armed with guardsmen and military with machine guns.   The last pic..see that tiny church...we will explore that in next post. 

[itsmagic]

What a great trip report!  Looking forward to more. 

[Elri]

@CoffeeNut

Your pictures are great!   Is the coffee all that?

[OKPrincess]

@CoffeeNut Look forward to reading about your trip to Columbia. Hope you have a great time. Thanks for sharing with us.

[Kachina624]

@CoffeeNut.  Surely looks like you were going to get a good, hard rain.  Can't wait for more of your adventure.

[CoffeeNut]

Day one continued:

For one thing, we are not used to this high elevation.  We would have to walk 3 or 4 blocks then take a little break.  Especially after walking up the incline  to explore this colorful church.  So I took many pics and rested some.  So colorful and just one of those wow moments.  

This was a few blocks down from the square and the church.  

That took most of the afternoon because traffic in Bogotá is a nightmare.  I will tell you more about that in future days posts.  We are staying for 4 days.    Sis in law did an excellent job for our first full day. She planned light today so we could get used to the elevation.   

The monetary system they use is the Colombian Peso.   Currently one US dollar is 2800 Pesos.  Meaning the exchange rate is very good and a lot of stuff is a huge bargain.  Food being one of them.  For dinner we went next block over to a really nice restaurant.  I had this very nice turkey salad with beet chips, fresh mango and raspberry vinaigrette. It was 17000 Peso ( 6 US dollars j.   Husband had Sea Bass with prosuetto, salad and roasted potatoes. It was 36000 Peso ( 13 US dollars ).  Can you believe that !!!!!

Thats is it for day one.  Day Two will be posted late tomorrow night.  

[Annabellethecat66]

Wonderful!  Thank you for taking the time to share with us.  I loved reading your post and seeing the pictures.  Thanks again!

[Alter Ego]

Loving everything so far! Church photos in particular were fabulous. I love food pics 😊

[JudyL]

Looks fabulous so far!  The church pics were wonderful.

[World Traveler]

@CoffeeNut YAAAAAY!!!! Love reading your posts and love, love, love your photos! I feel like I am right there with you. 

I really enjoy reading the tidbits too......elevation. I had no idea Bogota was so high. I need time to acclimate for high elevations like that.

Checked on trips down your way and think I want to do some countries in South America again; it's been a while. Hopefully, I can make it to Colombia.

Looking forward to reading the rest of your posts. Thanks so much for taking the time to let us know what you are doing! Very interesting.