Bogota and Foo Fighters

It's been a while since I've posted anything here lately. I had both camera and computer troubles so I had to wait until I went home to NY for Christmas to get those things fixed. But I think I have everything working well now!

For most of January we didn't really do much besides get back into work and hang out around Pereira. Dereek got a new job teaching social studies at Pino Verde, so we were really just adjusting to some changes and trying to save a bit of money because last weekend we flew to Bogota for the Foo Fighters concert!

Immediately after school last Friday I took a cab to the airport to meet Dereek and fly to Bogota. Bogota actually turned out to be a really easy weekend trip because the flight is only about 30 minutes long. When we got to Bogota we took a cab straight to our hotel, which was in La Candelaria, or the old, historic section of the city. The little hotel we stayed in was called the Muisca Hotel. It was really cute.

Where we ate breakfast

Nice little outside area and the stairs to our room

Our room

On Saturday we didn't do too much besides go out for Indian food. Pereira does not have a huge variety in types of food and Dereek has never had Indian food before, so when I heard that there was a good Indian place in Bogota I decided we had to go. It was pretty delicious, not the best Indian food I've ever had, but better than I was expecting it to be.

The next day we had all morning to roam around Bogota. We spent all morning wandering around the area of our hotel and going to some museums. We went to a police museum, a gold museum, and the Botero museum. The police museum was pretty cool and even had a free tour in English. We got to see a bunch of old Pablo Escobar things. 

Pablo Escobar glasses, watch, and video camera

Wanted Sign

After the police museum we went to the gold museum. It was neat to see so many gold artifacts, but definitely wasn't a museum you could spent all day it. Cost of entry was only 3,000 pesos or about $1.50 per person though. So it was totally worth it. 

The last museum we went to was a Botero art museum. Botero paintings are pretty much all of fat people and honestly, aren't really my style, but they were cool to see and there were some other great artists there too like Picasso and Monet. 

All these museums were cool, but I think one of the best parts was just getting to walk around the city. The old streets and houses were beautiful and it was peaceful to just get to walk around and look at the buildings around us. 

Plaza Bolivar

View from the top of the police museum

church

Saturday night was the Foo Fighters concert and the reason we had come to Bogota. We got to the venue in time for the opening band, which was a South American band of some sort. They were okay, but nothing too special in my opinion. When Foo Fighters came on though, it was amazing. People in the stadium were handed out balloons in Colombian colors so different sections had different colors (red, blue and yellow) and were throwing them all over when they came on stage. They are really amazing performers and tons of fun to watch. At one point, the sound cut out and everyone in the stadium kept singing with Dave Grohl conducting. He really is a lot of fun to watch. You can tell he's very comfortable on stage and it makes the concert super entertaining. They played for almost 3 hours straight. It was great and a really good first concert for Dereek. Getting home after the concert was a bit of a pain because it took FOREVER to get a taxi, but other than that it was AWESOME. 

You can see the different colored balloons right before the start of the concert here.

After the concert, we were pretty tired so we went home and went to bed. The next morning we had a bit of time before we had to fly back to Pereira so we went and took the cable car up the mountain to get some views of Bogota. It was SO CROWDED and took so much longer than we thought it would. The views were great, but the mobs of people were not. We didn't have time to wait to take the cable car back down, so we did the 45 minute walk, which was also horribly crowded. It would've been so peaceful and pleasant if it wasn't for all the people. The views really were amazing, but the crowds kind of ruined it a little. Still glad we went though because I got some really good pictures. 

Waiting for the cable car

We did get a picture together while we were there!

The top of the mountain has a church. I think that's part of why it was so crowded the Sunday we went.

Overall we had a really great weekend and I'm hoping to get back to Bogota and see a bit more of the city and all the amazing things that are just outside of it. If you ever have the chance, I'd definitely recommend visiting.