Bogotá

Bogotá is a HUGE city... around 9 million inhabitants and they're a LOT of fun and extremely friendly. Bogotá has a pretty perfect climate since it's way up high in a mountain valley. It gets nice and cool at night (around 50 degrees)and warms up to around 75 every day. On Friday I met my friend Seth at the airport and he's now my traveling buddy for the remainder of the trip.

Bogotá residents seem to have a great affinity for gathering in the streets and having parties so every Friday night they close down their main downtown street and the street fills up with all sorts of vendors selling about anything you can imagine like meat on a stick and corn on the cob to watches and sunglasses. They also have artists of all shapes and forms... literally!! I saw a singing dwarf, a small child singing worship songs for her pentecostal church (completely awful sounding) and punk kids rapping in Spanish. There were also artist making every type of art imaginable. Everybody was having a great time wandering around gocking at the array of things going on.

We also checked out the very posh Zona Rosa and watched the US play England to a draw in the first game of the world cup. The restaurant Andre's Carne de Res (www.andrescarnederes.com) was an over the top steak house with some of the best food I've ever tasted in my life. The menu was HUGE... think Cheese Cake Factory on steroids and the entire place exuded fun. A few Colombian girls dressed up as cheerleaders even came downstairs and started chanting "USA! USA! USA!" Made me feel extremely happy.

Today Seth and I decided to explore Bógota by bicycle as they have the largest route system in Latin America and in addition to that they close down their main road every Sunday from 7 am to 2 pm for bike and pedestrian traffic in an effort to promote fitness. While looking over the rental bikes at the store near my hostel, I quickly realized that these weren't the best quality bikes in the world, but I figured that it'd be fine for our cruise around the city. We started out and went about 6 miles north of the old city to the Zona Rosa where we stopped at a patio restaurant to eat and watch some Australia vs. Germany soccer. Then we headed over to check out the massive Simón Bolívar park... Bogotás take on central park. The Park was completely filled with Colombian families out paddling around on the lake, with tents and was a very carnival like environment. Then my bike problems began... The bolt holding the rear spring to the frame came out and the frame collapsed on itself. We came up with the solution by using the paddle lock for locking up the bike to secure the frame. I thought all was good until as I stood up to power my way up a hill the peddle broke off from the crankshaft. This absolutely couldn't be fixed!! Unfortunately we were about 5 miles from the bike shop and needed to get back. After a bit of practice I somehow managed to use the side of my sandles to apply torque to the crank and somehow ride one peddled back. I only suffered a few minor scrapes to my foot and all worked out well. The only other collateral damage suffered in the bike ride was that a mangy street poodle was meandering down the sidewalk where I was stuggling to bike and I assumed that South American dogs would be as intelligent as their North American cousins and move out of the way... Unfortunately that wasn't the case and with my bad brakes on the bike I ran right over him... right over his rib cage!! I kept going as I didn't want to run the risk of being liable for vet bills but could hear the poor mongrel squeeling for the next 3 blocks!

After looking over the itinerary for the rest of our trip we decided to revamp our route entirely and fly down to Leticia Colombia which is on the Amazon bordering Brazil and take a boat up the river to the Peruvian city of Iquitos from where we'll fly on to Lima. This little Amazonian Jungle trip will start on Tuesday.