Bogota: Getting Started

After our crazy day of travel to Colombia, we started out with low expectations of the first week. Our goals for the the first few days were getting adjusted, learning the ropes, and tying up some lose ends from our task list.

Here’s what our first few days looked like:

Wednesday:

We expected to wake up excited and thrilled that our trip had started, and we were both a little surprised at our feelings. Both Adam and I had slight feelings of … what the heck are we doing? I distinctly remember looking out the windows of our apartment and feeling so far from home. Thankfully, the moment was fleeting – but in chatting in the afternoon, it’s interesting that we had parallel feelings of…this is crazy, people don’t do this… why are we?? Maybe it was feelings of a lack of control?

At the time neither of us really shared our feelings, and got on with our day. After sleeping in, goal numero uno was internet. We were having trouble connecting in our AirBnB (wrong password), so we set out to explore the great world around us.

First stop: Juan Valdez. If there’s a Starbucks on every corner in the US, there is a Juan Valdez on every corner in Colombia. We swung in, grabbed some amazing coffee, free internet, and were successful in reaching our host to straighten out the internet.

“Our” Juan Valdez. Super close to our apartment!

After letting our families know we had arrived safely, we set out on goal numero dos: groceries. Adam downloaded the map of Bogota to Google Maps before leaving the US, so we are able to easily navigate the city with or without internet. However, our grocery store didn’t take much navigating, as it was right around the corner. Score. We grabbed some basics at the store and successfully paid. It’s amazing how accomplished we felt after successfully completing those two tasks.

The rest of Wednesday we spent unpacking our bags and nesting into our new apartment, working out, and making some food at home. By the evening the nervous thoughts from the morning were long gone and we were already feeling more settled and excited.

Thursday:

A major accomplishment of Thursday was successfully signing up for and taking a spin class. It was super close to our apartment, so we figured we should give it a try!

The cycling studio close to our apartment!

We both survived and after walking around to cool down, we came to the conclusion that we liked it. We’ll share more about our new favorite cycling studio in a future post.

The rest of Thursday it rained most of the afternoon, so we went to work knocking out some of our remaining To Do list in the apartment. It made for a relaxing day, and after a successful cycling class we felt incredibly accomplished!

Thursday night we went out to dinner in an AMAZING dinner/dancing place to start showing Adam some typical food. We went super early, so it was pretty chill, but it was a great start to “getting out” at Andres DC.

At Andres D.C. Our drinks in front of us: Lulada (from the fruit Lulo) and Limonada (lemonade). YUM!

After dinner we walked around a nearby park with lots of cute restaurants, Parque 93. It was dark at that point and the Christmas lights were all aglow and it was lovely.

Hanging out in the center of Parque 93. Palm trees all lit up!

This interesting sign in the park. Safety is very important – Bogotanians really want foreigners to have a great experience.

On the walk to and from Parque 93 – beautiful lights all around.

Friday:

We were all settled in in our own neighborhood, so Friday we spread our wings and spent time in the historic downtown district of Colombia. We did two incredible tours that you can read about here. After a full day walking around (14,000 steps, baby!), we made our way home and had a chill evening.

Saturday:

We slept in and signed ourselves up for more punishment at the cycling studio. We survived! Victorious!

I also ventured out for my first haircut of the trip. It wasn’t a major failure, but definitely not my favorite haircut. A bit asymmetric for my liking, but I survived. I’ll plan on getting another trim to tidy it up in Australia. When your husband is wearing athletic sandals, you’re both wearing only a bag’s worth of clothes, and you’re foreigners, you just have to let go of vanity.

This is what I asked for…

…and this is what I got.

We spent the rest of Saturday working on tying up some lose ends for the rest of our trip and resting up for our big evening activity: Salsa! We signed up for a salsa tour we found on trip advisor as a way to get ourselves introduced to Bogota nightlife. The evening started at 8pm (not an uncommon bedtime for us), so we made a couple coffees right before heading out.

Getting ready to go our for our Salsa night!

Our tour included three different stops to see different styles of salsa in the city. The first stop was a small place with a class (of local folks). Adam and I jumped right in, and found it to be somewhat advanced for our first go, but we hung in there. At the end of the class, we were dripping sweat. It was more like an aerobics or rumba class than a partner-style salsa class. Our tour included a family from Argentina, so we had fun together sharing stories of our experiences and learning together.

Out at the first place with the Argentinian family, also on our tour.

Our tour came with the typical drink that we all tried, Aguardiente.

We loved our second stop, which was more of a medium sized place and we stayed there awhile dancing the night away.

Dancing with our tour guide.

Our final stop was a place with an eight piece live band. It was packed and an incredible environment. But holy moly, was it LOUD.

The amazing live band! And PACKED dance floor.

So many instruments – it was incredible!

It was so packed that people made a dance floor anywhere between tables.

We danced, people-watched, and had a great time hanging out. When we finally got home, we crashed. A super active day for us!

Sunday:

After a busy couple days we took it pretty easy on Sunday. We took our Spanish placement test for classes that started the next day; we worked on tidying up the apartment, doing some trip planning, and talking to family. It was a restful day to gear us up for our routine change with daily Spanish classes.

By the time Sunday rolled around we were feeling settled, rested, and excited for the next phase of our time in Bogota!

– Kelly