Bogota, Colombia, South America

I was a bit nervous about how today was going to go, but it could not have gone smoother. I got up this morning and packed my bags to leave my casa. Elina and her daughter had gone to the beach two days ago and were not coming back until this afternoon, so I didn’t get to say bye and thanks to her. I did get to say bye to her mother though, who was a sweet lady. She didn’t speak english at all, but she was really friendly.

One of their family friends gave me a ride to the airport, a little cheaper than getting a taxi, so that was nice. I arrived there two hours before my flight got checked in no problem. I was a bit nervous about going through immigration to leave because I’d read somewhere that if you have dual nationality you can run into some problems. The article said they may ask you to prove that you have denounced one of the nationalities, or prove that you live permanently in the other country. This would have been really difficult for me because I didn’t bring any paperwork with me, and their lack of internet would make it really hard to find any proof. Luckily for me, I handed over my British passport and my visa, and they let me pass straight through. I’ve been really lucky with border crossings so far, so let’s hope that continues for me.

The flight went perfectly and I got into Bogota a little early. My friend Melissa was nice enough to pick me up from the airport, and it was really nice to see a friendly face on arrival. It took a little while to get to her because the immigration queue was crazy long, and the customs queue was even longer, but I got there eventually. I didn’t realize this was happening, but Melissa and I went straight from the airport to her friend’s house for a birthday party. It was her best friend Lorena’s birthday, but the party was being held at her other friend Alejandro’s house. It was a really nice night.

I got to meet a few of Melissa’s friends who work with her, and we enjoyed an awesome meal prepared by Alejandro’s mom who is a chef. We had some massive prawns on a bed of pasta for dinner, and an excellent apple tart for dessert. I didn’t understand most of the conversations that were going on amongst everyone at the dinner table, but Melissa did her best to translate for me when she could.

We left around 11:30pm and headed for my “house hotel” that I’m staying in. Luckily the woman who owns it stayed up late enough for when I arrived at midnight, so it was no problem for me to check in. She doesn’t speak any english, so I had to try and understand the whole rundown of the hotel in spanish. I think I understood most of it, but we’ll see tomorrow! For now I’m pretty exhausted and I can feel a cold coming on. I’m thinking it’s from being on the plane. That tends to happen to me, which is pretty annoying, but what can you do?