Moments from the week:
Settling back into city life
Getting off the typical tourist trail
My favourite places this week:
It’s the start of a new week here in Colombia and this was just the change I needed. I realised Central America just isn’t really my vibe, it’s cool, and I’d recommend it if you’re interested but after while, it’s all very similar and I don’t have any interest in staying in party hostels or lugging all of my equipment across half a continent in 30 year-old buses. If I was travelling without work on the mind, it might’ve been a different story.
Anywho, nothing mega on the agenda for Monday, I started the morning by heading up Cerro de Montserrat with my friend from the weekend, and it was a beast of a climb, something we were told would be a breezy 40 minutes (maybe if you don’t stop to catch your breath), but it took about an hour to climb 3K with about 500m of elevation, peaking at 3,000masl, difficult stuff! After that, headed back to my accom for a Spanish lesson and tried poke for the first time. I know, sushi last week, poke this week. Look at me.
However, in the interest of transparency: I had a massive wobble today, I’m really enjoying being on the road and exploring all these new places— it’s exciting to see where my future home could be— but that’s also the sole source of all my anxiety at the moment. I don’t know where that is and it could all go wrong and it could all go up in flames and then I could die and you’ll die and we’ll all die… you get where I’m going right? The next few months I really need to figure out a “home base” plan, as I fear I’m going to pop under the anxiety of it all.
Tuesday and I’m out of this hostel and moving to my Airbnb until Saturday. I think that’s me done with hostels now, I’ve tried them a few times and they’re just not suitable for nomadding. I love them, I’ve stayed in loads and I’ll use them again for my next holiday, but for this time, it’s Airbnbs for me. Today I sat down and carved out the next six weeks in Colombia, starting with two weeks in Bucaramanga, two in Medellín and then two in Manizales. The Colombia visa grants up to two years residency, so I’m scouting out places for a longer return a little later down the line. I also visited Colombia’s gold museum, Museo del Oro which was only £1 to enter and well worth a visit if you ever find yourself here.
After a lazy couple of days, for Wednesday I’ve packed in a load of activities for the day: I visited the planetarium, walked through some parks, had tamale at one of Colombia’s oldest restaurants, visited Museo Nacional de Colombia and then headed home.
I wondered the streets of Zona G, my new favourite part of Bogota, bought some freshly ground Colombian coffee and then got stuck into some work and made some updates to my portfolio.
Thursday and I’m following the same strategy again today, taking the morning to explore and the afternoon to work. I headed to a really nice part of Bogotá called Park Way, which is a mile long avenue with a dog park down the middle of it, I was in my element obviously. Visited a local food market and then went to a highly recommended restaurant for lunch… which turned into a seven course experiential tasting menu (including wagyu steak), one of the best meals I’ve ever had and it only cost £50!
Finished the day with a Spanish lesson and wrote a marketing article and I was in bed by 8pm. Rock and roll baby.
As we hit Friday, I followed a similar pattern again, explored a bit more of Bogotá and had a cracking breakfast (check out Masa if you’re ever in the neighbourhood).
After some exploring, I headed back to my apartment, and nose-dived into about 8-hours of work without a break, not even sure how it happened to be honest… 😅
Finished up the evening with packing my bags because I’m off to Bucaramanga tomorrow!
Saturday and I’m leaving Bogotá for Bucaramanga. This is one of the cities on my shortlist for living, my hopes are high but hopefully not too high.
I headed to Bogotá’s main bus terminal and boarded my ten hour bus to Bucaramanga. For about £15 I was in a little VIP cabin of this double-decker bus with a large reclining leather armchair, a TV, power and functioning WiFi. Jackpot.
The bus ended up taking 12.5h which was certainly trying but we got there in the end.
Got to my apartment at about 10pm and hit the hay, I’ll explore tomorrow.
Sunday and day one in Bucaramanga and wow, this place has surpassed the hype. So many green spaces, so clean and peaceful. And one thing I’m so happy about? To be off “the gringo trail”. I was getting so bored of meeting all the same people “discovering themselves” on their way to some bloody gentrified yoga retreat 😂🙄 I spent most of the day walking around the city, finding some nice cafés, parks and co-working spots. I’m really going to like it here.
See you next week 👋
