Bogota

In the fall of 2020, we flew to the Dominican Republic for the winter.
It was not easy, but also not difficult: you just have to be confident enough.

For two months there we got bored with a beach holiday, sand all over the house, and ants in food, so we decided to explore South America.
Now is the right time for this because most of the countries are closed, and here you can get almost everywhere if you follow the rules.

We decided to begin with...Peru.

The flight there was with a connection in Colombia.

"This is scary but we should try to see Bogota. Maybe we won't leave the hotel for the whole week there hiding behind the walls, at least we have to give it a chance!" — we thought.

Answering the question "How do you imagine Colombia?" we both said "It's creepy and full of drugs".
We really expected it to be the most criminal country in Latin America.

Getting ready for the trip we started to search for bloggers who have been there (there were not many).
The information was a little calming but we still had a strong feeling that as soon as we leave the plane we'll get robbed.

Then we began to look through the architecture in Colombia and this got a little more exciting. It turned out that Bogota is a contemporary city with a lot of fascinating buildings and good infrastructure.

Then we learned that one of our acquaintances has a Colombian friend who lives in Bogota. We were not certain if we've chosen a safe place to stay, so we asked her a dozen of questions (which now sounds crazy because it's actually safe almost everywhere in Colombia).

After that...

On the way from the airport, our perspective started to change.

"It's not that creepy, it's actually cool" — we thought.

When we came to the hotel we were surprised how civilized, beautiful and contemporary this space is. With bright common spaces, coworking, kitchen, and the bar.
The price was $110 per night, and the name of the hotel was "Selina Chapinero".

Later we learned that Chapinero is one of the best neighborhoods where there are cafes, modern restaurants, shops, and where most of the young people gather at night.

There are three neighborhoods like that in Bogota: Chapinero, Usaquen, and Santa Fe.
By the way, the old name of the city was Santa Fe de Bogota, which means "Saint Faith" — the city was founded by Spains in honor of the Catholic Holiday.

On the first evening, we went to explore our area and it surprisingly felt like Europe (maybe it was also the contrast to Dominican Rep. which feels like a huge village with a central square in Santo Domingo).

Being outside after the sunset which is strongly NOT recommended by all possible guides we still felt safe. No one looked suspicious except for the poor people who asked for money.

Summing up our experience on the very first day we understood that Colombia was going to be much more interesting than we expected which gave us the enthusiasm to examine it deeper.

To be continued ✌