We arrived into Bogota early evening and grabbed a taxi to take us to the hostel in the Candelaria region, the old city. About 4 months ago for no apparent reason, the local council decided to rename and renumber the streets of that region so when we'd booked the hostel we had the old address of 16th Street, such & such a number, and the new address of 12th Street F, some other number. Fun times. Eventually we arrived at Sue's Hostel and settled in. It was a heap colder than in Cartagena, probably mid-teens maximum, so we pulled out the jeans and long sleeved shirts for the first time in ages before heading out to grab some dinner.

The next couple of days were spent exploring the city and shops- we needed to get a hammock or two for the future Iquitos-Yurimaguas (in Peru) boat ride and sort out the malaria tablets, but the major event of the week was our one year anniversary. There was a steak restaurant which was meant to be pretty good so we made reservations and booked a taxi. Turned out the bloody restaurant was 35-40 minutes away, and that was with a completely dangerous, speed demon, no real use of the brakes driver. It was terrifying! We made it to the restaurant in the end, only 15 minutes or so late, and after ordering a beer or two, waited for menus. And waited. There was a woman singing with a live band, also several of the staff were in costumes (including, really weirdly, something from the era of 1700s France. Marie Antoinette anyone!?). The beers were drank and we started wondering if perhaps it was a set menu where they just bring food out… then one of the waiters came over to see if we wanted any starters—starving, we said hell yeah. Then after the starters had arrived and been eaten, they offered us menus, I swear it was the oddest restaurant dining experience I'd had for a while. But pretty worth it, as once the food came out it was excellent. We even had the band come over and sing us an anniversary-type song and give us a ceramic mini-van. Right up there with the menu procedure was something else a bit funny- in the toilets they had huge tubs of Listerine mouthwash with wee plastic cups to make use of it. Happy days.

Our other mission had been to get malaria tablets. We rocked into a pharmacy just round the corner from the hostel and explained to the elderly pharmacist what we needed. He only had 2 packs of doxycyclin in stock so sold them to us and said he'd order some more in for the next or next next day. They arrived (on the next next day) and we were the proud owners of 90 doxycyclin tablets. We were covered for malaria and good to go!

Two things that weren't quite as good to go were the e-reader and laptop. Somewhere between Cartagena and Bogota the bottom corner of the e-reader screen had been squished so there was an inch wide space on the screen where there weren't any words. The laptop had the same thing on the top left corner of the screen. During the few days we were in Bogota the e-reader survived with no further damage…the laptop got progressively worse. It happened almost two weeks ago and we now have the right hand quarter of the screen to use. Fun times! Called the insurance company, they said we had to submit a claim once we got back to the UK…typical. Nick checked out the price of a new screen though, and it shouldn't cost too much to repair (if he does it, it won't at least!).

While in the city we visited the Gold Museum, which is full of pre-colonial discoveries from around the country. It was quite interesting to see the development of metallurgy, with iron only coming into the continent and country in the 15th century or so (it had been around in Europe for centuries prior).

Across from our hostel was a bike tour place so we arranged a city tour for the following day, which included a trip to the unofficial street-capital of emerald selling. Colombia as well as cocaine, is known for emeralds- third largest producer/mining country in the world if you believe. I'm not a huge jewelry wearer and don't know how much gemstones cost, but the prices of the stones they were showing us seemed hugely cheap so we hoped to get back there after the bike trip to have a proper look. Fernando our guide was excellent, he knew a heap about the city and its history and obviously loved what he was doing. The bike agency sponsors a small eatery in one of the squares which we also visited where the proprietor lead us through a local delicacy- Barranquilla. Basically this drink has got a couple of different splashes of alcohol, some kind of fruit syrup, a touch of something called 'laugh juice' (or love juice, I couldn't quite understand his accent)…and a live crab. You throw everything in a blender, including the crab, and hit 'go'. We did try some and spent most of the drink trying to get the other one to finish it. It tasted a tiny bit like cherries and if I hadn't known it had had a live (once upon a time) crab it might have been sort of ok, but I couldn't get it out of my head that we were drinking something which had crab guts etc in it. Eww. But, when in Rome…

The days passed though, and before we knew it it was time to get going for Leticia, the Colombian border town in the Amazon. Armed with insect repellants, malaria tablets and a heck of a lot of sunscreen, we were ready to rock.