FedExito - Bogotá, Colombia

éxito = Success

Thanks Dad and Tito Danny for making this package and delivery a success! I'm back in business with a digital camera and a cell phone (both were stolen along the way). In your honor, here are some of the first pictures that I took (thanks for having the battery charged).





Bogotá lived up to the hype. And the hype was: It's cold in Bogotá.
- Elevation of about 8000 ft.
- Sunset : 6:00pm
- Jacket & pants : everyday
This doesn't sound like summertime to me.

We stayed at the Villa Candelaria hostel in the old historic city center known as La Candelaria.
The hostel provided us with 3 blankets (2 thick wool ones) plus the bed sheets to protect us from frostbite.







We've been dying to watch a Warriors game and with a strong and fast internet connection in the hostel, we attempted to watch the Warriors vs. Lakers game via Skype at the Foxwood. It was more like watching the Blurriors but it was fun to listen to the homies shouting and hoping for that all to familiar "miracle 4th qtr. comeback." Also, big ups to Boots for hooking it up with the Slingbox. "Hook it up, hook it up, hook it up BOOTS!" It was nice to watch American Sportscenter and NBA fastbreak for once.




It was all business in Bogotá. We applied for our Brazillian Tourist Visas at the Embassy. $130.00 USD just to enter Brazil. YIKES! I have this feeling that it will be well worth it though. We had a couple of days to explore this huge captial city (8.5 million people) as our visas were being processed:




Guinea Gambling: It's kinda like roulette except instead of one ball you have about 7 guinea pigs. And instead of black, red, & green numbers, you have a rainbow of plastic tub igloos.
Place your bets on top of the tub you think the guinea pig will enter. Game on.


We came across a hip neighborhood with cool restaurants and fresh shops. I pretended like I was in the market for a sic track jacket.





NCD's in the house.


Our favorite restaurant down the street - Balmoral. Most restuarants only offer the 'set menu' special aka Almuerzo during certain mid-day hours of the day. But this restaurant served the $2.22 USD meal all day which included soup, main dish, and juice. But the best part of eating in this restuarant is that we could dance silly while eating and the waitresses' would love it. Everytime we would come we could just tell that they were waiting for a retarded shimmy or alternating shoulder shrugs to come out. And after eating, they would watch us leave as well in case we would peform a little bonus farewell jiggle. I gave them a little Usher glide on my way out. "Eso, Eso"


They closed the Carerra 7 street this Friday night for some street performances and such.



It was too cold to be wandering the streets at night so we would kick it in the hostel w/ Ron y Coca-Cola.



Bogotá is not known for being that perfectly safe place, especially for us foreigners. Still gotta keep an eye out for those sneaky pick pocketers...


BOOM. Visas processed and passports ready to go.
We got on a bus that same night and headed to the North Coast of Colombia to catch some much needed Sol....



So in the words of Ari Gold... " It's Bye Bye Bogotá"