2011 finds me south of the border – just shy of the equator in fact. Luis and I chose Colombia for this year’s escape to the tropics. Colombia is well known for which agricultural product? Yes, you guessed it – coffee! We should be all set for our 12 days here.
I wanted to compose this at a proper keyboard but on 1-Jan the choices of local Internet cafes led us to a dingy overcrowded mall basement stocked with Pentium 4s from another era. I looked up the APN for this mobile provider (Comcel), put it in my phone, fiddled with it unsuccessfully for a bit, put it away. Many hours later, lo and behold, I get an email notification out on the streets of Chapinero. I have a connection while it’s still 1 Jan!
No photos on this first entry. We got here 48 hours ago after an 8-hour trip. The first lodging was at a hostel; we’re now at the Hotel Dann on Calle 19. For New Year’s Eve we walked to the Colpatria building and found an outdoor concert. At 22:45 Luis wanted to return to the hotel where the desk clerk offered us a glass of wine. We watched TV coverage for the 2011 countdown on channel 10 – the same concert we’d just left.
Today we took the funicalar up Monserrat to see the gorgeous view of this city of 7.5 million. Then we went to an Internet cafe to adjust hotel bookings at San Gil and Santa Marta over the next few days.
Naturally there were food stops along the way. Luis will write more eloquently on those!
Looking forward to San Gil!