Bogota, Colombia, South America

I checked out of my hostel at 11am today, and got a taxi over to my new (and really nice) hotel. The people at Hotel Egina remembered me from when I stayed here on Christmas, and they were able to get me into my room by 11:15am. This was a very nice surprise because I wasn’t supposed to check in until 3pm. I left the hotel at noon and got a taxi to Melissa’s office and had to sit through some ridiculous traffic that Bogota is so famous for. I only ended up being a few minutes late, but that still annoyed me.

We went out for lunch at this really good Italian place around the corner from her office. The lunch was excellent, and exactly what I needed because I didn’t have breakfast the morning, and didn’t really have dinner last night, so I was starving. We went out to another little cafe for dessert and I had a chocolate cake that was just awesome.

I got a taxi back to the hotel after lunch, and then went down the road to do my laundry at Lavasport. This was a place I knew from when I was here in August, and they were excellent again. It was really cheap, only took about an hour and a half, and I got to sit there and work on my computer the whole time. I went back to the hotel and enjoyed just how nice it was compared to my last hostel, especially for only a few dollars more per night.

At 7pm we went over to Unicentro Mall and met a couple of Melissa’s friends to go bowling. Juan Felipe (who I met when I was in Lima), and Paula came and we all had some nachos, a few drinks, and played a couple strings of bowling. The first string we had teams of JF and Paula, against Melissa and me. We lost. Badly. I’m not going to mention whose fault it was on our team (but it wasn’t mine). For the second string, Vanessa showed up and she joined us. Melissa and I still lost. It wasn’t pretty, but it was really fun. I haven’t bowled in years, so it was fun to try that again.

Now I’m back at my hotel and it is so nice not to have to take taxis anywhere. It was literally a four minute walk to get to the hotel, and Melissa can stay here and just go home in the morning to get ready for work. It’s perfect. I’m going to like staying here.