I must be physic !!!!!!!! Like a Clairvoyant, I knew last night that $12-50 per person sounds too good to be true. But our Half-Swiss-Half-Portugese-Half-Spanish-Speaking member was assigned with inspecting last nights rooms, and he was happy with the cleanliness and size of the rooms, so we trusted him, but he had a serious loss of concentration, very un-like him, and missed completely the position of the rooms, all street facing on the 1st floor, plus no air-con, so you could not close the windows, and the noise from the street was deafening throughout the night. At 1st it was just the traffic, then later that slowed down and you now had the “Street Racers” (minus their exhausts) racing past on the open road, this was followed by a period of ambulances and police shouting over their loud-hailers, and that was followed by the arguing prostitutes which at 4h00 opened the stage to the hobos fighting for the best place to sleep, which turned out was right under my window. But if this was the worst of my nights “rest” I would be a happy man, the killer for me was when I did my signature little “twist-and-turn” move with the blankets and I managed to wrap the sheets and blankets around me and rotate, taking the bottom sheet with me, and when my body hit the mattress I discovered that I had exposed the plastic-covered-matress-cover and I landed on the sticky cold plastic. Later during the night I tried to turn again but by now I had sweated myself onto the plastic cover and when I did my little twist I gave myself a carper burn from the mattress. And then your mind also starts asking questions through a haze of noise from the street and the comfortable homely purring coming from Peens next to me, “why would the mattress be covered with plastic,” no bed-wetters staying at this hotel????????
But this hotel was in the Party Side of town and we went out last night for a few small starters at different spots, very small trendy restaurants, non on one floor level but lots of stairs and different sections of the restaurants at different levels, all looked like spare space that was converted to restaurant spaces.
So this morning very early we were all up and downstairs in the little foyer, on the internet searching for new accommodation for tonight, which we found next to the airport, a real fancy spot with cushions on the couches depicting some of the local tribes on them which we just checked into so that we will be close to our bikes tomorrow morning.
But let me tell you about the rest of our day:
We walked the streets this morning in search of some coffee and then sat and watched the city wake up. lots of cyclists going past but also lots of police riding un small motorbikes, two cops per bike, waking up the hobos and those who went to big last night who were taking a nap on the lawn of the parks. The other hobos were setting up their own flea-market selling their stuff to people coming into the city for lunch or breakfast.
Then it was back to more Admin, our Agent was asking for reference numbers we would have received by email from the Customs department. That is when we discovered that Rocky and Tex’s bikes were still in Panama and did not make it on the same flight as our bikes. We also discovered that Peens’s email address does not work and Pie, made in charge of the admin was not having a great morning with all the admin gremlins. Then Rockies phone got angry with him for pushing the wrong button and he was told by his phone that he should sit in the naughty corner for 24 hours and the phone was not going to switch-off, or work, or come on, or do anything until 24 hours had passed.
Then the only sold, reliable and happy thing in our lives arrived, our driver, and he wisked us off from our nightmare to take us to church.
The church was on the mountain and we needed to get there with a Cob-Rail, or Funicular. There were two old monasteries on the mountain and Pie who is Catholic was shocked to find out I was going straight to hell as I knew nothing of the “14 Stations of the Cross” and that in the old days the Spanish who brought the religion to South America would have shot a heathen like me, I was too far gone to be saved. But sadly I was not spared the pain of his sermon in explaining this very serious Catholic part of their religion and I had to endure the pain step by step, all the way as we climbed up to the church.
Then we and half of Bogota and their dogs drove out of Bogota, we drove for an hour and a half in heavy traffic to a little town to visit the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquira where we walked down 200m into a Salt mine. We bought our tickets and did some shopping at the Tourist Shops:
The 14 Stations of the Cross was once again depicted along the way walking down into the mine and was chiseled out of the Salt Rock, once again I found myself next to Pie and once again my ear was bent as he once again explained it to the heathen.
There were also many other sculptures sculptures to of salt.
Salt Crystal Chandeliers:
There was a 3D Movie of the history and then a projection of lights and a movie onto the big cross at the back of a real life cathedral where sermons are help, lots of sculptures and lights changing colours. Then we reached 180m underground, turned around and caught the train out.
Then we went to one of the local Meat Braai Restaurants where we shared a few cuts of meat and listened to some local music. The restaurant was in a big shed and the owner’s mother obviously had a second hand shop as all the walls were filled by old stuffs no one would want, but placed nicely and sort of sorted by type of stuff it pretended to look very arty.
We don’t know what to expect tomorrow at 9h00 when we arrive at the Agent’s Office, but the only thing I am sure of is that tonight I will sleep well even though we have rooms with two little single beds in them.
Keep well you all
Fleisch
Watse vleis snitte is daai, en dit lekker?