Well we made it to Bogota on an overnight from Victoria, via Toronto, and mighty tired we were upon arrival. Not a big deal as we’re on vacation and can rest whenever we like so after strolling the Plaza de Bolivar, which had a musical event going on, we headed back to our hostel and crashed very early to get ready for the day. Bogota is huge and there are people everywhere on the streets! I really am a country bumpkin from Tidnish so it takes a little while to acclimatize myself to any city and this one has 7.4 million people in it and, it seems, just as many vehicles. Crossing the street here doesn’t seem to be as big a deal as it was in Asia but I keep an eye on the locals and cross when they do but have found out already that doesn’t always work. We found a neat little hostel on-line for our first night here and it’s worked out pretty good so think we’ll stay a couple of more nights. It’s in the La Candelaria district of Bogota which is the cobbled historic centre and during the day is bustling but at night extremely quiet and it is suggested that after dark, ie. 6pm you travel by taxi for safety reasons…..OK I’ll do that. Many students in this area and it’s just a ten minute walk from the Plaza de Bolivar, museums and pretty centrally located and recommended as one of the areas to be in. Guess we got spoiled by Asia prices last year as we’re finding it’s not as cheap as we thought here for accommodation but safety and cleanliness are our top two criteria and it meets those. The staff are also fabulous, all women, single parents and very courteous……lovely thus far. Today we headed out early to find an ATM, with directions from the hostel, but not much luck. The map we were given of the area was terrible which was quite stressful for Jim as anyone who has ever travelled with him is well aware (?Marilyn?). We wandered around in circles for quite some time and then I started asking for help which usually works. What I forgot, however, from our previous trip to South America(Peru) is that everyone is too polite to admit they don’t know and just smile and give you directions that never really work….and we listened and tried this for quite some time before we caught on and realized that we were on a wild goose chase. Finally I heard someone speaking ‘broken English’and asked again and we were just 50 meters away……the hostel will be paid! We went for an early supper and had forgotten our English to Spanish dictionary at the hostel so ordering from our cute little Spanish only waitress was a challenge. However we knew that ‘pollo’ means chicken so we decided on that but what came was a medley of rice, ribs, beans, beef and sausage……thank God we decided to split a meal. We decided just to go ahead and eat what came and then realized that when we pointed to our chicken dish on the menu the little waitress thought our fat fingers were pointing to the item above(ie. carne medley). Live and learn and one lesson learned from today was: Don’t walk/wander around looking at your map because you will either step into dog poop, step into a sidewalk hole(ankle breaking variety) or, more seriously, step in front of traffic. Fortunately for us today all that happened was walking into dog poop and that’s easily erased. Overall our first day in Bogota has been fabulous and tomorrow morning at 7a.m. Dawn and Yves arrive so we’re headed to bed early again tonight so we can be up early to greet them with coffee and get on with the day……stay tuned!