For me, Bogota was not that impressive but I have to admit I wasn’t there very long and I mostly went out of the city. There was the wonderful graffiti though.

I arrived in the airport late on a Sunday and the bus I was going to take was not running at that point so I had to take the taxi. I’m glad I did, even though it cost me a lot more than I wanted (30,000), because the streets were deserted and I would have had to walk through the deserted streets. This would not have been a problem in any other city but I later found out the streets were not so safe.

The hostel Destino Nomado, where I was staying, was not as good as I was expecting, or as good as the reviews. It had a cramped, uncomfortable vibe about it and the breakfast was only corn flakes, plain toast and hot chocolate. The staff were nice though. They helped me with directions and even upgraded me to a private room at no extra cost because the dorm was full. The facilities were great too.

The following day we went to the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquira outside of the city. It was an easy journey. We got a bus to Porto Norte (although you do need to buy a travel card to do this), and then got a bus to Zipaqira,which was 5,000.

When you get off the bus, there is a sign showing the direction to the Cathedral but after that you need to keep asking people for directions. In Spanish it is Catedral de Sal. If you want the basic tour it costs 50,000, which also includes a light show ( I wasn’t impressed) and a video (which I didn’t watch). The general tour around the Cathedral was very good though and the cathedral is very impressive.

I also bought the extra miners tour for an extra 6,000, in which they showed us what the life of a miner had been like.

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The first part of the miners tour was to go through the dark with only a rope to guide us. We then got to try and mine some salt with pickaxes and they showed us how they would have used the explosives; of course, it was a fake explosion. – 11 years previously on their last use of dynamite, gas had been released after the explosion and 8 people had died, so they had changed to fracking (dissolving the salt and then evaporating the water off)- We next took another trip in the dark, but this time one hand was on the wall while the other hand was on the left shoulder of the person in front. The person in front guided us along, informing us what to expect. At the very end of the tour we got given a chunk of salt.

After the Salt Cathedral we had lunch in the square before heading back to Bogota.