Bogota, Colombia, South America

Today wasn’t exactly what I had expected, but it ended up being a nice day. I spent the morning going through some lessons on Rosetta Stone, trying to prepare for my first Spanish class tomorrow. At about 2pm I went for a walk up to a group of three really nice malls that are all together called Atlantis, Retiro, and Andino. I met Melissa’s mom there at 2:30pm and we were supposed to go to a party at her Peruvian friend’s house for the day. It turned out that the friend got really sick, so the party was cancelled. Luz Mery said she was happy to go out for the day anyway, so we drove north to a town called Sopo.

We stopped for lunch at a place called De Casa Campo and had a huge plate of food. You go down the line and ask them to pile food up on your plate, so we started with the beef that was being cooked on a spit. Then we went down the line and got some corn on the cob, potatoes, arepas, pork scratchings, and homemade guacamole. The whole plate came to 45,000 pesos (£15), which was a great deal considering how much food there was. I think I was still full from dinner last night, so we couldn’t even finish the plate.

We drove down the road to a place called La Cabaí±a where all the food is by a company called Alpina. They are known for their yogurts, cheeses and desserts. The place was absolutely packed, and it took about 10 minutes just to find a parking space. Of course, the rain was pouring so everyone was trying to stay inside. The place was rammed, but we managed to get some desserts, and find a couple of seats. I had ariquipe with cheese, which is really strange, but good. It’s like a soft caramel that you eat with a spoon, and then some kind of white cheese, that doesn’t really taste of much on its own. Luz Mery had a canoli kind of thing filled with ariquipe. That looked pretty good too.

We started heading back into the city at about 5:30pm, but we hit some crazy traffic coming through the mountains in La Calera. It was cool to see a different part of the city, and to get a view of the city from on top of the mountain at night. Unfortunately the weather was still really bad, so I didn’t get the chance to take any pictures from up there.

I got back to the hotel around 7:30pm, and I’ve spent the night relaxing and getting ready for my class tomorrow morning. I haven’t actively tried to learn a new language in about 15 years, so this should be fun, or funny.