Bogotá D.C.

Thanks to the Lonely Planet book I was made aware that you could book a tour of the presidential palace. I made the request a week or so ago which was accepted, and even better that they had an English tour option!

The whole government district of the city is in the city centre but surrounded by roadblocks and guards to create its own mini community within the walls of the road blocks. We were booked onto the 10:30am tour and arrived at one of the policed checkpoints at around 10am. We showed them our reservation and presented our passports for inspection. They asked us to wait a few minutes and in the meantime the Presedential motorcade passed right by us and into the government district!

When we were allowed into the area we didn't really know where we were going so we kept asking different guards about which direction to head. It was strange walking around as literally the only people not dressed in some sort of official uniform.

We eventually found the building where our tour would start. The other guests in the room where a school trip and half a dozen locals. Absolutely no sign of anyone else English. What made it funnier was that everyone was dressed very smartly in their political, military, police or school uniform, whilst me and Dan looked like Scousers on tour. Dan even had my walking pants on as the dress code said no shorts 😆. We tried.

So we set off with our entirely Spanish group. One of the guards that came with us spoke English and translated absolutely everything for me and Dan and answered our questions. It was a very interesting tour of the grand building and to learn more about the history of the area. We felt very special having our own dedicated guide and wondered how we'd gotten ourselves into this situation.

We couldn't take any photos inside as we had to hand our phones in at the start. The only photos we could take were at the very end with the sword of Bolivar and its guards, the two of us looking a little out of place.Read more