Bogota, Colombia, South America

I had a great day with Melissa today! I got a taxi over to her house for about 11:30am and we headed off toward a town called Guatavita. We stopped for lunch at a fast food restaurant called El Corral where I had a massive burger. It was a place I’ve wanted to try since I got here, but mainly because of the rumors I heard of what they make the burgers from. I was told that they were made of guinea pigs instead of beef, so of course I wanted to try one. Who the heck makes burgers out of little guinea pigs?? Well, it turns out that El Corral do not. All of their burgers are made of beef. Not as exotic as a guinea pig, but it was an excellent burger.

We continued on to Guatavita, in the rain, but as soon as we arrived, the rain stopped. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when we got there, but it was absolutely beautiful. We walked through the forest with a group of about twenty people and a tour guide, who only spoke spanish. Lucky for me, Melissa is an excellent translator and filled me in on everything he was saying. We had a nice hike up through the forest and got to the top of a hill where we could see the lagoon. This was where the indigenous people, the Muiscas, used to mine for gold, and sacrifice gold and emeralds to the gods. The gold and emeralds were all taken out by the conquerers.

It was a beautiful spot, and I had a great time with Melissa. We had a really long drive home, because the traffic in Bogota is just ridiculous. Luckily Melissa’s car has bluetooth, so we were able to listen to music from my phone and have a pretty good singalong session on the road back to the city. Unfortunately, Melissa was supposed to be at a friend’s house by 7pm to rehearse, but we didn’t actually get to the city until about 8:15pm. I went with her to a friend’s house while she rehearsed for about an hour, and then we went out to a supermarket to grab a quick bite to eat. Melissa was nice enough to drop me off at my hotel and now I’m getting ready for my class tomorrow. Only two more to go before I head out of Bogota.