It's Colombia, NOT Columbia

One of the most commonly misspelled countries in the world, there has been a movement afoot since 2013 to educate people about the proper spelling of Colombia's name.

Maybe it's because many people are familiar with the Canadian province of British Columbia that it's easy to get the "o" and the "u" mixed up.

Well, that was a pleasant surprise!

We departed our little cubical room in Guasca at just before 11:00am yesterday. Enjoyed our stay in the countryside...far better than staying in the city of Bogota. But, we were not totally done with Bogota because we were heading for Bogota airport for our flight to Medellin yesterday evening.

We found a bus marked "Terminal" and asked the driver if he was going to the main Bogota bus terminal. It's located relatively close to the Bogota airport, so that would be ideal. And he was...so we hopped on.

Would you go for a walk along a random dirt road in the countryside of Colombia?

As we were doing this yesterday, that was the question that came up. Our guess is that not many people would do the same things that we do, and yet these country road walks have been among our best experiences in Colombia.

There are no other tourists. In fact, I said yesterday that I figure we're probably the only Canadians to ever visit the little isolated town of Gacheta, Colombia.

Day trip to Guatavita, Colombia

Took a little day trip yesterday to the town of Guatavita. It's a tourist town on the Tomine Reservoir...a man made lake formed back in the 1960's to provide hydroelectric and drinking water to the city of Bogota.

The actual town of Guatavita was flooded at the time, and rebuilt at higher altitude.

Exhausted!

We slept just okay in our little cubicle above the noisy restaurant here in the town of Guasca, Colombia (pop 13,000). As we said yesterday, it's not ideal and it's a little overpriced compared to what we've been paying during the last five weeks, but we think we're going to stick it out here until Thursday when we go to Bogota airport for our flight to Medellin.

Because while our accommodation isn't great, the little town itself is nice enough and the scenery surrounding it is beautiful. And there are lots of areas to go for walks.

The Hilton, it is not...

We stayed at the Explora Hostel in the big city of Bogota for seven nights. The hostel itself was great, but seven days in Bogota was about five days too many. It's a big, busy, dirty city, in our opinion. Some may enjoy the "art" that adorns almost every empty space of exterior wall, but to us, it was just a mess.

Bogota, we gave you a chance, but first impressions rang true. You are not for us!

20km (13 mile) hike to Colombia's highest waterfall

They say to get an early start if you're going to visit Colombia's highest waterfall, but it was still after 10:00am by the time we found our way to the small bus terminal at the corner of Calle 6 and Carrera 15 beside the police station.

Chorrera waterfall (Cascada de Chorrera) is located off the road leading to the town of Choachi, only about 30 kms (18 miles) from the center of Bogota.

Change of plans...

We got up yesterday morning all set with a plan to go for a hike to Colombia's highest waterfall. But we made our way down for breakfast to see that it was raining!

So...change of plans. I went to the front desk to see if we could stay here yet another night.

Enough of Bogota...we needed some country fresh air!

We've seen almost all we want to see in the big city of Bogota, but we're booked in at the hostel here until Saturday morning. And we needed to get some fresh air and see some countryside. So yesterday we took a short bus ride to the little farming town of Guasca...only 50 kms (30 miles) from the hustle and bustle, yet rarely visited by tourists.

I figured out where to catch the bus at the corner of Calle 72 and Carrera 13 and we walked part of the distance before flagging a taxi.

"Watch your camera, this is a dangerous place!"

We've been trying to figure out our plan between now and the evening of December 14th when we fly back to Mexico City.

We're in Bogota now, but our flight leaves from Medellin. We had wanted to get up to Bucaramanga, but that's still 400 kms (250 miles) north of here and then it's not easy to get to Medellin from there. Buses don't go anywhere fast here!

Interesting day exploring Bogota, Colombia

We've booked in for yet another couple of nights at the Explora Hostel in Bogota. It's a little pricey at 75,000 pesos ($33.75 CAD) per night, but the room is decent,we have a private bathroom, it's quiet at night, and it's well located in the downtown area.

We had breakfast at the hostel. For 4,000 pesos ($1.80 CAD) you get coffee or hot chocolate, a little bowl of fruit, two eggs, bread, butter, and jam. For 1,000 pesos ($0.45 CAD) more, we substitute a corn arepa for the bread.

November Expenses

We'll do another update mid December after our Colombia trip is over to be able to show you what it cost in total for the entire six week trip. In the meantime, we'll continue with our standard monthly report, detailing what we spent during November.

We spent a total of $2,175. All figures are in Canadian dollars. (For USD perspective, you can take about 25% off!)

Back to the doctor!

The reason we came to Bogota a few days early is because I (Kevin) have had a very bad rash and itchy, blistering skin for the last two weeks or so. I would show you a picture or two, but it's nasty. So I'm not going to. Use your imagination.

Originally, this started small, on my right calf, and left forearm and it simply got a little bit worse every day...for the last two weeks!

Travel day! Villavieja to Bogota, Colombia

We were up a little late again yesterday morning. Because of the itchy rash, I haven't been sleeping much and so when I am actually sleeping in the morning, Ruth just allows me to sleep. That's all fine and dandy, but we should be getting up earlier on travel days.

We paid our bill at the hotel in Villavieja. Nice friendly little town and we would have liked to have stayed longer if it hadn't been so darned hot!

Amazing scenery at Colombia's Tatacoa Desert (part 2)

We're in Bogota now (that story will come tomorrow morning!), but we still wanted to continue this morning's post. So you might want to read that first if you haven't already. It's available here...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2015/11/a-bumpy-ride-to-colombias-spectacular.html

Okay...so if you've read that part we can now continue with our desert tour!