I can hardly imagine that only three days ago I was drinking cold lemonade de coco in a beach club in Bogota… Well, I’ve came back home just a few hours ago and till I have all the wonderful memories on my mind I want to share it with you and thought I’m quite sleepy I’ll try to write as much as possible about the last journey to this crazy, colourful and sometimes quite dangerous country Columbia.

So, I spent 4 weeks in this incredible place and most of the time time I was hanging-out in Bogota – the capital. It must be said that the country is very cheap for tourists and the local people are wildly worm, open and family! They are also very helpful and nice but watch out, there are also many gangsters that are just waiting for your distraction to use you! Even Colombian consider their own country as a agglomeration of the best and the worst people! Well, I was lucky to meet only those first ones ;). I was couch-surfing at many places during the trip throughout Colombia and encountered many different accommodation conditions, but most of my hosts provided me with quite “normal” standards. There was only one place that I really wanted to run away from! It’s not about insects because they are totally usual appearance in Colombia. The thing that was disturbing us so much was the neighbourhood which was really dangerous! The people we were living with were awesome! Nice, warm, kind and super-helpful people we would love to stay with but the neighbourhood was alright only till the sun goes down. After that they barred us from going out saying that too many gangs members skulk nearby. We decided to be careful and stay at home every evening, well after all we stayed there only 3 days. But let’s get to the point. Colombia is mostly considered to be only jungles, prowling partizans, drug manufactories and Indian cities ruins…

The part of the country I visited turned out to be quite different! It may be said that Bogota is kinda different then the whole rest of Colombia. The city has many traits that are totally dissimilar to other parts of the country. At the beginning I found it pretty hard breathing there! I’m not kidding! It may seem that such “nature” country should be clean and clear but it isn’t indeed. Not only is the air very cold there, it is also dirty! Moreover, Bogota is located very high in the mountains so I guess some people need a lot of time to get used to such the pressure. However, I have this funny ability of quick accommodation (I travel a lot – I am case-harden ;)), so after two days I felt like home ;). Thought the whole country is kind of hot throughout the year, the capital is a cold city. The average temperature doesn’t exceed 14 degrees centigrade. Another curiosity – I suppose You had the same image of Bogota as me – quite, cal city inhabited by calm, relaxed people… If you did, You were wrong.

Bogota is a busy city of businessmen. In the morning, rather then people drinking coffee calmly in a cafe you may see those crazy people chasing something or somewhere. Well, maybe this is just because Bogota is one of Colombia industry centres but yes, people in Bogota seem to be always in rush.  Regarding Bogota to be the national filmmaking centre I had suspected to see a rich city full of splendour and glamour so the more was I surprised with the poverty that I’ve found there. Indeed, the capital of Colombia consists of rich north and poor south. The difference between paupers and silk stockings is enormous and the worst is that the gap is bigger and bigger. Guess the local gangs have a great contribution to the state of affairs.

Check out my photo gallery from the trip to Colombia.