Beginning of the journey: Bogotá

Hi, here I am, starting my journey through South America.
I arrived on the 19th of June in the city of Bogotá where I had a room booked in the historical centre which is also the touristic hub of the city. There I met with many travellers and had a few beers then went to bed really early as I was still jet-lagged.
The next day when I woke I had a message from a French friend who has lived in Bogotá for a year, saying: "call Barbara a friend she should have a couch and beers in her fridge" I had no idea of who was Barbara, but I gave it a try. Barbara answered and happened to be French. She told me, yes you can come crash at mine there is a hamoc or a couch. So after hiking to the top of Monserrate, the church that overlooks the city of Bogotá I went to find her flat.

Hiking to Monserrate

Bogota from the track to Monserrate

As I was struggling to find her flat some Colombians who saw me sweating with my two big bags invited me to join them for a very refreshing Margarita in their flat. It was nice to meet all these really friendly colombians who all gave me tips for my travels.
After my drink I finally went to meet Barbara and her boyfriend Luis. They stayed in a lovely flat and welcomed me very warmthly. As we were having a discussion about Colombia, Luis was pouring me drinks of different really good alcools from latin americ including Pisco and a delicious Guatemalan Rum. 10 minutes later I was facing 6 glasses of different delicious beverages. Then we joined a flat party and ended up in a club dancing funk salsa and rock. It was a lot of fun. The Colombian girls even said I could dance salsa, I think they were polite, but still took the compliment with pleasure.
The next day Barbara and Luis showed me around Bogota. We went througfh all the big avenues that are closed to circulation on the Sunday and amongst other things bet on a Guinea Pig race in the street.

During the next few days I explored Bogota on my own and tried to find a way to go paragliding. The weather was not the best so I went for a grafiti tour. The tour was great and was taking us through many of the really impressive murals of the Candelaria area; giving background on the artists and the street art movement in Bogota and Colombia. Basically all the buildings in this neighbourhood are painted and you tend to forget it when you are just walking through the street. Here we took time to enjoy each painting and sculpture.

Seeing the weather and the days passing I decided to take a plane ticket to Santa Marta to spend the next month discovering the Caribean coast. When I mentionned that to Luis he told me that his mother had a place in Palomino, a really nice village on the coast and that she could host me over there for one or maybe more days. What a chance!

On my last day in Bogota, I treated myself with some nice market food near the Nacional Museum that had been recommended to me by Barbara. Going out of the market, I took one of the back streets and almost instantly saw a strange guy following me. I thought "oww" this one is for me and it was the case. The guy ran to me and grabbed me by the chest pretending to pull a gun from his trousers. I have not been able to retain an "OHH FUCK" and started to run in the opposite direction. After a few hundred meters I was back in the safe zone, on the main street. The story ended well but was a good reminder that in the big cities you always have to be careful.
After that it was time to get some sun and chilled out time. So I took my plane to the sun soaked beaches of the north.
I want to thank Barabara Luis and their flatmate Lina for hosting me for these 3 nights and make the start of my journey super nice.

Bonus: