Bogota!

I arrived in Bogota, Colombia yesterday night -- the first stop on my Amazon trip.  Met Aunt Kari in Miami, as well as two new friends -- Charlie and Annette.  The four of us will be meeting up with a larger group tomorrow morning and heading down to Leticia, Colombia/Tabatinga, Brazil.  But, today we had a chance to explore Bogota.

We had a few major ideas on places to visit, and managed to get to most of them.  We started with a trip up to the top of Mount Monserrate (elevation: 10,431 feet), which overlooks Bogota and the Andes.  The view was pretty and impressive, and we got to enjoy the teleferico (cable car) trips up and down.

View from the top, lookin over La Candelaria and the rest of Bogota

The Andes!

Initially is was pretty nice out...

Then a giant rain storm moved in

Looking back -- the whole top of the mountain is completely covered in clouds

After descending, we wandered towards the area of town called La Candelaria, stopping on our way to check out some Colombian emeralds.  Turns out Colombia is big into emerald mining.  Also big in this region is gold.  Actually, some of the legends about El Dorado (the City of Gold!) seem to suggest it was near this area.  The ancient people of the region did work with gold, and we visited an amazing gold museum which had everything from ceremonial crowns and breast plates to fancy nose-rings and decorative pieces.

I know basically NO Spanish, but I think this man was probably trying to sell me this llama.

MMmmmm.  Just making some corn.

Lots of emeralds!

Jaguar-inspired mask

Check out the nose ring in the middle.

Lots of frogs, which made me think of Macy.  All sorts of other creature too.

We hunted down lunch (oddly difficult, but it was Sunday, so much was closed) and attempted to visit the supposedly awesome Botero museum, but that was also closed (which was very strange, since they are evidently open on Sunday and holidays, usually).  Still, we stumbled upon a cool military museum and had a good time exploring the colorful streets of Bogota.

So, in case you were looking for a tank, some cannons, planes,
a printing press, a reactor and various missiles and whatnot....

They are right here in La Candelaria!

    

Then back to the hotel to relax and get prepped for our flight tomorrow morning.  I likely won't be able to put any more posts up until after the trip, since there will be no internet in the rainforest.  However, I still plan to post pics when I return.