strange goings on!

Me taking on the monsters!

Jude's not so tough opponent

Bogota

Salt Cathedral, about two hours from Bogota

So far I haven´t been able to write too much on this blog as I´ve been assigned the task of getting the pics on, which takes forever as the comps are pretty much useless here. Anyway, I`ve finally found some time to write and include some previously missed stuff!

Our first impression of Colombia consisted of us being hounded by about 5-6 bus people trying to sell us tickes after we'd crossed the border. After flicking them out the way we got into the actual terminal to be confronted with the largest speaker system playing at level 11 with the whole terminal gyrating to the bongo music.... and I mean everyone...the pleople behind the counters, the people in the shops, the people by the stalls, the actual travelling customers, and all the other random people who didnt have anything better to do on a Monday afternoon at 1pm than come to the local bus terminal and jump about to music and throw their hands in the air! It was very strange trying to get a bus ticket off a man who every 10 seconds proceeded to spin and dance in a circle. More strangly we havent actually experienced anything quite like that in Colombia since, which means we should be getting down to the local bus stop more often!

Weird hotels have also been occuring more often, the strangest being in Giron where the staff looked at us in bewilderment as to what we were doing there, and thought it strange that we gave them the key when we left the hotel, and we needed to almost force money onto them as they didnt seem to know what to do with it. I still wonder if we actually just forced our way into somebody´s house without realising it, oh well!

After finding the beautiful village of Ville de Leyva we read that there were a number of local things to see only one hours walk away. After being told `just follow the path` we found ourselves lost in the middle of the countyside with nobody around, the sun streaming down, and infront of us were 5 different paths all leading in completly different directions. A major problem that we've noticed in Colombia is that they have a fear of writing any signs anywhere unless it is completely and utterly neccessary, which means never. Therefore not surprisingly this occured again, and we just had to make educated guesses. Yep, we screwed it up, but by doing so we came across, of all things, an ostrich farm....... IN COLOMBIA! we had to check it out, and had the opportunity to feed the horrible things. Jude obviously pooed her pants and kept hiding behind me, lucky me, though she was up to the task of dealing with the baby goats.

Anyway, after getting lost a few more times and finally finding some big fossil that we'd been aiming for (wasn´t worth it) we realised we'd been on our feet for almost 6 hours. So to make sure we got back we then walked along the road, with every bus and taxi not stopping for us (they really love us gringos) we came across aload of farmers trying to get a broken down car onto their truck. After a bit of hulk hogan shenanigans we got it on and then were given a lift back to town. I dont want to think what the other tourists thought when they saw a dirty bashed up smelly truck with a farmer, wife and kids with us squeezed next to them, these 2 white lanky sunburnt faced gringos, smiling like freaks as we were so happy to finally make it back!

since then we've been drinking in bogota, eating massive amounts of food for nothing (i'll save that for a blog entry of its own) and watching Changing Rooms on our bedroom tv. Imagine our surprise when we saw Carole bloody Smiley on the telly!!