First Night - Bogota

First night in Bogota was fine, although we couldn’t change Visa traveler checks in the airport, which was pretty much the only thing my mom had, besides about $60 in cash… I cashed enough for both of us though, and the little taxi guy had a nice printed out sign with my mom’s name on it, so that was easy. There were a bunch of other taxi guys, who would hold up a mini yellow plastic license plate type sign that said “TAXI” in the outside window when they could see you were changing money. It’s too bad, because I’m sure some of them are just trying to earn some cash, but I wonder who uses them?

Anyway, it was a little frustrating in the cab ride, I THINK our driver was trying to ask when our flight left in the morning, and I couldn’t figure out how to explain that the flight left at 7:30, and we needed to leave the hotel in time to get to the airport by 6:30, and he didn’t speak any English. :P Of course I thought of something I could have said like 5 or 10 minutes later, but I was way too shy to just bust out with it in the middle of nothing. Sigh. But I WAS able to communicate quite a lot.

The hotel was really nice, we got there and both the bellhop and the concierge (I think) came out to greet us and take our bags. We were a bit confused about when to pay the driver, because apparently we could roll the taxi price into the hotel bill, and they would pay him! Nice, because we didn’t have much cash. We asked the desk clerk if he spoke English, and he said, “Yes.” With full confidence, and my mom and I broke into nervous, relieved laughter. After the experience in the taxi, we weren’t sure how we’d do trying to get our hotel room.

Luckily Gilberto called the hotel just as we were in the process of checking in, so I was able to ask him some stuff, like about how much to tip and all, and it also meant I didn’t have to try and figure out the phones to let him know we were there! It was kind of weird though, the desk clerk took the phone from one of his co-workers and then handed it to us – “It’s for you.” Was this part of the check in process?? Nope, just good timing!

The hotel room was pretty nice, 2 double beds and a cot. Had Night Cafe and Irises on the walls, and one other painting I didn’t recognize, but seemed to be an Impressionist type one. (that’s what I get working for an art company, I always pay attention to hotel art now. :D ) Had a fax machine and stereo - I think it was considered an “executive” room. The bathroom was all marble and stone, and had a bathtub! Hooray! I took a little bath, which was nice to relax after all the stress of the traveling. It was rather late, we weren’t super hungry and it was too intimidating to try and find food to eat, so we just pooled together our airplane snacks and had a few of the pistachios I brought as a present to his mom. I bought $15 worth, so there were a few to spare. :D

Hotel Dann Norte - Bogota, originally uploaded by Heather and Gilberto.

This is pretty much how I felt by the end of the day...