Part I: Colombia
Bogotá, Colombia
September 1st was the first official day of our adventure!
After a late night arrival, we woke up at the fresh hour of 8am. We began the day by going out for breakfast at a local cafe, eager to test out our Spanish chops yet again.
Chevere
We walked down the road from our hostel and encountered a quaint little cafe, which had walls adorned with festive ornamental pigs. As we sat down, an adorable little girl of the owner tried to offer us gifts, we think. We have no idea what she was saying. It looked like a bag of balloons, but her mother shooed her away.
Plaza de Bolívar de Bogota
After our first meal, and the prologue of the well practiced phrase "No hablo español bien. ¿Tú hablas inglés?", we decided to explore the downtown square of Bogota. It was a busy Saturday, with street carts, locals, music, celebrations, dancing and llamas!
$8 CAD llama pic, #worthit #animalselfies
We dove face first into the dried bananas and churros, and as we walked amidst the large crowd we decided on our next journey: to find a SIM card. Oh, the SIM card.
We headed down one of the busier streets full of people selling everything from plushy lions that look like Simba, to paper sculpture art made of Venezuelan money. We spotted the Circle K of South America, OXXO, that looked like it sold phone data plans. We made our way to the counter and fumbled some Spanish that we typed into Google translate, while pointing at the "Recargas" sign, only to realize we didn't have a phone number and the OXXO didn't sell SIM cards. It was a recharge station (recargas, duh!) He gave us our money back and we went off to get the real thing.
After finding a SIM card for very cheap, we went back to the OXXO and got the TIGO plan we had pointed at earlier, and then finally we had a whole GB of data we could use . . . mainly for Google maps. As of now, we still haven't fully activated our phone number, but it works for 30 days and that's all we need.
After that we explored the plaza a bit more, sat on the plaza steps, and bought some brand new swanky "RayBan" sunglasses. We later had dinner at La Chopperia, a nice little place where we got our first taste of Columbian craft beer (of which we don't know the name). We just said "Si" and nodded our heads at the samples he gave us.
La Chopperia, Bogota
L - that night we went back to hostel and I tried to read my book. I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I had a nap. After awaking, refreshed and recharged, I went downstairs to meet all our hostel mates. Then we hit up an Irish Pub, in South America. Cuz you know, those O'Rourkes.
B - while Laura was reading, or napping, or whatever, I was laying in my bed, but I couldn't sleep. I heard a faint guitar and some singing from downstairs, so I followed the music. Cuz you know, I'm an O'Rourke. Anyway, I went down to one of the common areas where 4 of our hostel mates were playing guitar and singing some songs: Father and Son - Cat Stevens, I'm Yours - Jason Mraz - you know, all the hits! So I joined and had fun hanging out until Laura woke up and we went to the pub.
The Pub, Bogotá
We sat under the open sky in the pub, and cheers'd with a couple o' beers. It was a great way to end our first day.
The Pub, Bogotá