After checking out the safety section in our guidebook, it was pretty clear in the instructions “Do not travel between towns anywhere by road at night.” So, we booked the night bus from Armenia to Bogota (after all, the guidebooks aren’t always correct). The plan was to take the 10:30 pm bus which would take about nine hours…getting into town at a nice civilized 7:30 am (according to our highly knowledgeable hostel owner)..
When we had arrived at the bus station at 8:00 pm, we found out that the trip is only 6 ½ hours and the bus was leaving at 8:30 pm, putting us into wonderful Bogota at a questionable 3:00 am…
Well, we arrived in Bogota at 3:10 am, and to our pleasure, and slight surprise, everything worked out well. We got a taxi immediately, we didn’t get high-jacked (I tipped the taxi driver big for not robbing us), and someone was actually at the front desk of our fine one-star hotel in downtown Bogota at 3:30 am. In checking on the “safe” times for our area, our hotel clerk stated
that ideally we should be back in our room by 8:00 pm, and most definitely never outside past 10:00 pm… another bullet dodged.The Gold Museum the next day was great. The workmanship in these gold pieces from 1000 years ago was unbelievable. Another example of “the book” correctly identifying a “must see”. This definitely was a highlight.
In the afternoon, we started strolling around the main core of the city, making sure that we didn’t stray too far from the city centre. Window shopping in the warm sun was a good way to finish off the afternoon. Suddenly Andrea screamed. Turning to see that she was okay, I then turned to see a guy running away through traffic. He had torn Andrea’s small gold chain right off her neck in the middle of the day on a very busy corner of the city. Other than a red mark on her neck, Andrea was fine… one bullet not dodged…but a valuable lesson learned.
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