La Concordia

Our overnight bus reached Bogota at 5:30 in the morning. We didn't have a place booked for the day. We had planned to go out of the terminal and hopefully find a place to stay somewhere nearby. As with the other cities in Colombia, Bogota too had quite many bus terminals and the one where we ended up didn't have any hotels or hostels marked anywhere nearby on our offline maps. After discussing a bit, we decided to book a place via booking.com and then take a taxi till there. The issue with that plan was that most places listed on booking.com generally have a check in time after 11 am, so even if we go to the place, we may not be able to check-in for another 5 hours. We decided to take a chance and booked a place (Ole Mi Casa). It was about 6:30 am by now. We decided to have our breakfast at the bus terminal only. That way, we hoped that by the time we reached the hostel, there would be someone at the reception and hopefully a room too would be available. We used the restroom at the bus terminal and then had our breakfast at one of the many small restaurants inside the terminal.
After the food, we took a pre-paid taxi and went straight to the hostel. The numbering on the street with the hostel was quite weird. We followed the numbers and also on the maps but just one number before the required one, the street ended and there were no more buildings. Hristo was not feeling well, so I went out and walked around and finally found the hostel one block before. We got our bags off the taxi and tried ringing the bell. There was no response. There was even an intercom which we rang, but there was no response initially. Eventually, somebody picked up the receiver on the other end and told us that he will come down to open. It turned out that the person who came to open the door was also one of the customers at the hostel and had been up due to jet lag. He had arrived from Germany a day before and had woken up early. He informed that the person at the reception and the breakfast cook normally came around 8 am. It was almost 7:15 am so we decided to sit and wait at the common dining area.
Around 8 am, the receptionist and the cook came. The receptionist told us that none of the rooms were available and that the check-out time was 11 am. He told us that he would need an hour after the check-out to do all the cleaning and changing the linen. We were quite tired and sleepy and Hristo was not feeling all that good, which at that moment, I thought was due to the lack of sleep. We asked if we could sit and wait in the dining area. That was not a problem with him.
Within another 15-20 min people staying there started coming to the dining room for the breakfast. Hristo wasn't comfortable sitting there with everyone around sitting and having breakfast. He decided to go and lie down in one of the big parks nearby. Maria followed him but I decided to stay back and try and make friends with the people staying there. While sitting and chatting with everyone I realized the different activities and tours they had been with. I started thinking of what all we could do during the rest of the day after we check-in. I started searching on the net and decided that doing the 3 hours free tour of Bogota would be a nice thing to do. There were 2 tours per day and one of them started at 10 am. This would be perfect, as we could use half a day with the tour and then rest and sleep the rest of the day. It was about 9 am by now and most people had started finishing their breakfasts. I messaged Hristo and asked him if he wanted to join. He replied back that he was feeling sleepy and would like to lie in the park for a while more. He told me to carry on. I asked around at the table if anyone else wanted to come along. One of the girls, Karin, from Switzerland had planned to do just that in the morning and agreed to come along. She too had arrived the evening before from Switzerland and had still not sized up Bogota just yet, so she was more than happy to have company while she got familiar with the surroundings. We walked the 2 kms to the starting point and were there 5 min before the starting point. The tour started at 10:10 am.Baca selengkapnya