I woke up fairly early this morning but Daniela proved a bit more difficult to get out of bed which was something I already understood going into this. The main thing was that we had a tour that was starting at 9am and we wanted to eat breakfast before we left. She ended up getting out of bed at about 8:10 or so and we made it to breakfast by maybe 8:45. The tour showed up while we were still eating but since it was a private tour we really weren't holding anyone else up. The guide only spoke Spanish so I picked up what I could along the way and Daniela translated a lot for me.
We started out with a drive across town towards the north where we stopped at a square that was supposed to be the original founding location of the city of Bogota. It turns out that the concept is in contention and there are at least 3 sites in the city that claim to be the founding location. In any event it wasn't really much to look at but there was some interesting graffiti on one building. After getting the history it was back into the car where we headed to a stop that took us in a roundabout method to the main square or Plaza de Armas. I have to admit that the square was not really all that great. I liked Lima's much better as it was cleaner and the buildings around it were more impressive. We did get to see some of the preserved colonial architecture on the way there as well as a visit to the Museo de Botero. Botero is a Colombian painter that made all of his paintings of people look like they were very fat. I particularly liked his version of the Mona Lisa. In any event there was art from several other famous people besides Botero including a couple by Renoir and Picasso. It was a nice little museum with the building itself being a traditional colonial style. They also had a museum of the mint in the same complex. They handed out coins minted at the museum as a souvenir.
The main square was a lot of graffiti and wasn't particularly that clean. The guide said it was because there was a big celebration the night before that the city was a bit dirty. This was after all a holiday today, being the day they celebrate Cartagena's independence. Ok, so maybe that is why it was a bit messy. In any event as I said before it wasn't really all that impressive. The main cathedral was large but we didn't go into it. I am not sure if it was open.
After the city center we traveled far uphill to Monseratte which is a mountain that overlooks the city they have a church on top. We rode up to the location on a cog railway. The church has a stations of the cross in statues leading up to it. There were some very nice views of the city from various vantage points. The location is over 3000 meters in altitude. Also the start of Christmas decorations is upon Colombia right now as well so they had a very large nativity setup in front of the church that would be lit up at night. Inside the church they were having mass. We kind of moved through it quickly then back outside and eventually down again to the car but this time by cable car. What would a vacation of mine be without a cable car involved these days. Wasn't really much of an issue though as the car was crowded and it was not really easy to see the straight downs if they existed.
After Monseratte they took us to an ATM so we could get out more Pesos as we had used up what we had from the night before already then we ran through a touristy shopping arcade where Daniela bought some earrings she liked. We then stopped to get a fresh juice each from a stand. I had a very sweet mandarin juice and she had one from a local fruit I do not know the name of. We then drove the main guide to a place where he could get home. The driver stayed on with us and drove us outside of Bogota to a city called Nemocon where we took a tour of a salt mine. On the way to the salt mine we stopped and got a couple of sandwiches for lunch. We ate those in the car during the drive to save time. They were ham and turkey with cheese and were good. We also got fresh made juices. I got a mandarin juice that was quite good. The ride was at least an hour to Nemocon. At Nemocon it was straight into the mine and to tour that was just starting. The guide did speak English so he would tell me what he told everyone else in occasions where he had the chance. Daniela did translate some of it for me. It was really a neat tour. They basically harvest salt by water, which is how I expected they would do it. Particularly interesting were the salt pools that were so reflective that they made everything look much bigger. The water was very still which made the mirror effect even more convincing at times. The salt formations were also very neat. They had actually built a chapel into the mine as well though it is not truly active these days. It is however used for occasional ceremonies and even weddings. The mine is still active but the level we were on is only for tourists now. They said it was about 60 meters deep with the deepest level being 200 meters or so. I enjoyed it but something inside the mine completely stuffed up my nose and it got a little bit hard to breathe especially climbing back out. Bogota in general is about 2500 meters or so I think in altitude and I don't think the salt mine was any less. I am sure that didn't help me fully. I haven't had issues in altitude before but not being able to breath properly certainly can be an issue.
After the tour we stopped at a small pastry shop and Daniela bought a couple different things including a local bread roll (which I basically ate), dulce de leche, some sort of milk curd thing and a lemon dessert that also included milk I think. Everything was good though she saved some of it for later. Then it was the hour plus drive back to the hotel. We got cleaned up and then headed back out for a night on the town.
We had a taxi take us to the Parque 93 and walked a loop around it before settling on Habana 93 for our first stop. They were going to have live music and that seemed like a good option. We didn't really eat there but did have some dumplings stuffed with shredded beef as a snack. I had 2 different dark beers (all they had was dark beers). The first was a Club Colombia Dark and the second was an Apostal. I liked the Club Colombia better but both were good. Daniela had a couple of very weak mojitos. The live music was a Cuban band of 3 members. one played guitar, one double bass and the last bongos. They all took turns singing. Obviously everything was in Spanish. They were quite good. Daniela said almost all the songs they sang were very sad. I didn't recognize any of them.
When Habana 93 appeared to be closing early we moved on to the Bogota Beer Company which is a small local craft brew. We started off with a beer sampler which had all 4 varieties. They pilsner style was a bit bland but the rest in general I liked. They had an amber, a porter, a honey kolsch and Belgian style as well. The Belgian was their limited run and it was good with a very fruity almost lemony feel to it. I however settled on the amber and had a couple of those. Daniela had a couple more mojitos. These were stronger than the first set. The place was still crowded when we got there. We ordered an appetizer of German style sausages of which the chicken one was better than the pork but the rest of the stuff on the plate was average at best. Either way we talked through the night and it came on to closing time. They actually took our unfinished drinks and put them in plastic cups and sent us out of the restaurant. I have never had that happen before. A cab was already by the place so we had him take us back to the hotel. He would not drive until we drank our drinks down to a level they wouldn't spill. So we had to sit there for a few minutes more while we tried to get to an acceptable level for him. We then got back to the hotel and finished out the night.
The pictures from day 2 can be found here.
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