Merida and Bogota

So, we haven't seen any big snakes/ reptiles/ nasty things that bite since Sophie's last blog, mostly due to us not having the time or money to go on a 3 day excursion into the jungle. These things are expensive and always seem to be run by Germans. Not that they'd be any cheaper if done by any other nationality of course.

What we did do however, was go to Merida, a city nestled in the middle of a rather large valley.


Me annoying Sophie with the camera as the bus careened around the side of mountains.


The peaks around the valley can reach over 4km and the highest has one of those bloody Bolivar statues that seem to be around every corner of every town in every south american country. We stayed in this place run by Germans (again) and Sophie made me go horse riding.

1. James doesn't like horses
2. James thinks it's odd that we still sit on animals

So basically, i was shitting myself. So thankfully, to put my mind at rest, i soon learnt that:

1. We weren't going to be wearing helmets
2. We were going to be riding through a JUNGLE
3. The other 4 in the group were drinking aniseed flavoured cane liquor

I got on the horse and after about 10 minutes of praying i wouldn't fall off into a river, i learnt that i had the most docile, ignorant and slowest horse in the whole ranch, and began to enjoy it. Huzah!

Thankfully, you cant quite see the panic in mine or Sophie's eyes. My horse is eating. It did this a lot.



As did Sophie's.

I don't really understand the cowboy hat obsession myself


Or why the French guy with the camera turned it onto black and white mode. Maybe it went with the hats.




We spent the next day trying to walk normally around Merida whilst finding camping shops (one was crap, one didn't exist, and one was closed. pfft)

The square, with some mountains behind, covered with clouds. Some of them had snow on them.



The next day, we took off to the Colombian border via bus and then taxi. In our guidebook it says that many taxis will take you over the border for $20, stopping for exit and entry stamps and whatnot along the way, and this seemed like a good idea compared to waiting for a busload of people to get their passports stamped before moving on. Unfortunately, the taxi driver we ended up with didn't have a clue what he was doing, bungled through the towns on either side of the border, banged the taxi into a lamp post and possibly someone's truck, and got us to the airport for our cheap internal flight about 30 minutes before it was taking off.

So now we're in Bogota. The first thing to say about this place is that it's bloody cold. It's 16 degrees today, and i look at the UK weather report with envy. The UK perception of Bogota is a little unfounded. There are rough parts, like in every city, but this is the first city we've been to that seems to have art, music, fashion and nightlife that a mature capital city should have. We've checked out the gold museum (which has a lot of gold) and the Botero museum (which has a lot of fat people) and Sophie has spotted a woolly jumper that will make her look even more like Marla Singer than she normally does.


PS. Sophie bought a poncho and gnome hat in Merida