City tour with Gina

We didn’t get a great deal of sleep! The street outside our room was very noisy with car horns blasting, music blaring, and people partying until the wee small hours. We got our own back by having showers and moving bags around at 7am when everyone else in the building was trying to sleep 😂🤣.

We had pre-booked a city tour and needed to be at the meeting place a 6-minute walk away by 7.50. Breakfast at our accommodation doesn't start until 8am, so we ventured out and found a hole-in-the-wall café where we bought two strong black coffees and one freshly-cooked cheese empanada-type thing for a total of about £1.20! It was all delicious! (Note to self - I really must brush up on my basic Spanish - there isn't much English spoken here.)

Suitably refreshed, we walked on to the meeting point for our tour. Whenever we arrive in a new city, we always book a tour. It's a great way to get a feel for a place, see the main sites, and learn something about the history and culture. This tour proved to be the perfect choice!

Our guide, Gina, is Bogota born and bred, and has been working as a tour guide for the past seven years. She is passionate about her city and loves sharing her extensive knowledge with her guests. There were 5 of us on the tour. The other three were all Americans just in town for the weekend. I had to remind myself that, for them, it's only a four-hour flight away, rather than the 14 it took us!

Bogota is the 3rd highest capital city in South America behind Quito and La Paz (we'll visit both of those later in this trip). It sits at 2640 metres above sea level. It is relatively cool all year, with a high of 18 to 20 degrees during the day and a low of 6 to 9 degrees at night. It can rain a lot - something that we would discover on our first day in the city!

Gina explained to us that Bogota is an artsy city that allows you to feel like a local. I love that! It has world-class graffiti artists, interesting architecture, top-notch Colombian cuisine, and a UNESCO preserved historical district (La Candelaria where we were staying) set against a mountain backdrop.

We had seen some of the street art and architecture as we walked from our hostel this morning - photos attached to this footprint 👣 😅.Read more