Bogotá 22-26th October

I have been spending the last few days here in Bogotá, definitely the friendliest south American capital city i´ve been too and the most relaxed. I arrived on Wednesday and spent the day wandering around the old district of the city called la Candelaria. This is a network of old colonial streets and lanes, with the odd square dotted about. One of the squares near my hostel is the centre of emerald trading in Bogota, as well as numerous shops there a loads of esmerldos (emerald traders) in the square, looking rather shady in their all too shiny suits...
I took a trip into the northern part of the city on a fruitless search for an English language guide book to Columbia. The general feel of the city is very friendly, and the traffic is almost tame compared to normal South American standards.
The nest day I tried to go with a couple of guys from the hostel to the gold museum. It displays a lot of the gold that was plundered by the Spaniards from various ancient cities in Columbia. Unfortunately it was closed fro renovation, and the museum that a lot of the gold had been moved too was closed due the close proximity of a large demonstration. So instead of museums, we took a trip to cerro Montserrat reached by a cable ride ride high above the city. The view of the city is pretty stunning as the city is built almost up the sides of the mountains. Later on I took a trip to the police museum, which is actually part of the police headquarters. The police cadets have to spend some of their training being guides in the museum (I assume to help them learn their history), so I had my own personal guide Juan to take me round. It is full of interesting artifacts (well mainly guns etc), and has an exhibit detailing how they hunted down and killed Pablo Escobar, one of Columbia´s most notorious drug lords. They also have several walls full of mug shots of various drug cartel members, including a lot after they had been killed by the police!
Yesterday I went with a guy called Milo (from the hostel next door) to a town north of Bogotá called Zipaquirá. It is about 50km north of Bogotá and nearby is the worlds largest salt mountain. This mountain has been mined for several hundred years and is still working now. The most interesting part however is that a large part of the mine has been turned into religious shrines and also a huge underground cathedral. Again we had out own personal guide to take us around underground for about an hour, where we were almost completely alone. Most of the religious work has actually been constructed in the last 20 years and the showpiece is the huge cathedral. It occupies a cavern 75m long and 18m high, with huge supporting columns over 10m in diameter.
Today I visited the Botero Museum, which contains a large collection of both his work and other famous artists like Picasso and Monet. Botero is famous for painting everything fat, including copies of the Mona Lisa and the Sunflowers. Later on today I am going to head out to the airport to meet Ben. Quite exiting to have a family member coming out for a few weeks, tomorrow we are going to fly to Cartagena on the Caribbean coast.
O