My final day in Bogota was a typical one. Buying gifts for the family back home and one more night of partying before making the big trip home again.
Day 37
Back to Bogota! I caught a bus in the morning from the terminal of San Gil. The bus that was meant to take 6 hours eventually took nearly 9. The bus was half an hour late and once we got to Bogota we got in to the worst trafficjam ever. It took two hours for the bus to wrestle itself through traffic. Once at the terminal I had to get in line for a taxi to my hostel.
An hour later I got to the hostel, cooked me some spaghetti I had left and had a beer at the hostel bar. There I met a few guys from Scotland and England who had been living in Bogota for the past few years. Most of them got married to a Colombian girl and were now teachers at an international school in the North of Bogota.
They invited me to come with them to a club in Zona Rosa, the uptown nearbourhood of Bogota. Here prices are a lot steeper than the rest of Bogota or Colombia for that matter.. 20,000 pesos (8 euro) entrance fee for the club is not an exception.
All in all it became a fun night and the guys treated me as I was their friend they knew all along. I were invited to a birthday party of the guys I went clubbing with the day before. I decided to go and visit the birthday party as it did happen to be my last night in Colombia.
I was meant to catch the transmilenio bus to the Northern part of time, but as I was running late I decided to grab a taxi instead. It took a good half an hour to get to the Northern part of town, where the guys were living. They already told me their neighbourhood didn’t look anything near like downtown Bogota and I had to agree with them. Big appartment buildings with big fences and security guards. The guys had been telling me it was quite safe to walk the streets around there at night without any problem. Something you won’t have to try in the citycenter of Bogs.
I got to the address of Andy, the Scottish guy, a tad late. I told the security guard at the gate I came to see a Scottish guy named Andy. Thankfully the guard knew what I was talking about and gave Andy a call. I was let in and walked up to his apartment. There I found there was no need to rush as they were still in the process of getting ready theirselves. I sat down and watched a bit of television while waiting for them to get ready. I also went to buy a bottle of shampoo for the birthday guy. He was turning 29 and the night before I had been making fun of his decreasing hairline. On the streets we met up with one of the other friends, an Ozzy guy, before we headed over to the party.
We grabbed a taxi to the house of the parents in law from Dan, the birthdayboy – another big apartmentcomplex. The birthdayparty consisted mainly of foreigners and their Colombian wives. It turned out to be a nice birthdayparty, not much different from the birthdayparties you would have out here probably. After a lot of food and rum’n’cokes later, we headed over to one of the clubs in Zona Rosa. We had free entrance as one of the guys at the birthdayparty was co-owner of the club. We spent most of the night at this club dancing the night away. It became a fun night.
Around 3 am the party ended, as all clubs do in Colombia. We exited the club. Most of the people I was with were going home, yet I wasn’t ready to go home just yet. Andy was up for a bit more partying too, but when most of the others went home, he decided to go home as well. I knew of one more club being open, fairly near to my own hostel. I decided to go there instead of joining the others for a drink at their apartment.
I grabbed a taxi and told the driver to take me to this one and only club that happened to be still open. Once there I asked some military guys where the party was supposed to be. A little bit walking down the streets I found a lot of young people walking into an underground parking garage. At the entrance of the garage I found a few people from security letting people in. After a short wait I was let in. From there I had to buy a ticket. I was shocked to hear about the 50,000 pesos entrance fee (20 euros). I figured this had to be a really fancy place, as in a place like Colombia that’s just unheard of. I payed the money and went in.
From there I caught a lift to the 12th floor of a big skyscraper. Once the lift arrived booming beats came out of the doors. The doors opened and I stood in the middle of a proper club. I decided to carry my jacket, as I didn’t feel like paying even more for wardrobe too. More people thought the same, who were carrying their jackets too. I walked in and found Mark Schulz spinning the wheels of steel. Soon enough I understood why entrance was so damned expensive. He did a great job spinning some awesome tunes. Public as in many electronic clubs was mainly maie unfortunately, yet I was having a good time with my 4 euro beer anyway. I decided to stay for a good 2 hours, as I was afraid staying longer would result in sleeping through my alarm and missing my flight back home. Around 6 I grabbed a taxi back to my hostel. Around 6:15 I was in bed and ready to catch some well deserved sleep.
Day 38
I woke up around 10:30. I didn’t sleep great as I knew I had to get up early and not sleep in. I had a shower and checked out of my hostel. For breakfast/lunch I went to a Shawarma shop I had been walking past for the last few days. I still wanted to try their kebab’s, so that’s what I did. After lunch I went back to the hostel, packed my bag and said bye to everyone. From there I caught a taxi to the airport. Unfortunately I had some trouble getting there as traffic just stopped in one of the mainstreets of Bogota. Turned out a parade was marching through the streets of Bogota because of a national holiday. I started to freak out a bit, as I didn’t know how long this shit was going to take. Fortunately after 10 minutes traffic started running again. Finally I arrived at the airport 2 hours before my flight was departing.
I had to get in to a massive line for check-in. The line took over an hour before I was finally able to check-in and get through passport security. While in line I found out I could get a special stamp at the airport office, so I wouldn’t have to pay airport tax. I told the people behind me to kick my bag forth in line while I went to get a stamp. They seem trustable enough to keep an eye on my bag, besides: it only contained my dirty laundry anyway (afterwards thinking of it they could’ve thrown a lot of shit in my bag if they had really wanted to, but thankfully none of that happened).
Finally I got on the flight on time. I said good bye to Colombia, but definitely not farewell. I am sure I’ll be back, as I had a wonderful time here!
Day 39
Back home! After a 5 hour wait on the airport of Madrid I finally flew home, back to good old Amsterdam. Even though I wasn’t just ready to get back home, I had no much other choice. Back to reality.
Thanks everyone for reading my adventures! I’ll be back for more adventures as soon as possible!!
Thanks
Aug 14th 2010 – Aug 15th 2010
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