Seven Girls in Colombia: Day 5 – Bogotá – Gondola. Oro, and Aeroporte

On our last day in Bogota we had a lot to cover since the rain had slowed us down the day before. We started off the morning with a trip to Cerro de Moserrate. We took the funicular up the hillside 10,340 ft to the top of the mountain to see the sprawling city of Bogota. On the top of the mountain we visited the Basilica del Senor de Moserrate which is a destination for pilgrims and religious people. We had great sunny weather and toured around the local shops until afternoon when the gondola started up. We walked up and down the mountain trying to find the gondola ticket counter until we discovered tickets were sold at the cafeteria. We hopped onto a gondola and slowly moved down the mountain. A few hurks and jerks shock up the group a little bit but we avoided all melt down and made it successfully down the mountain. We hopped into cabs to go to the Museo de Oro or the gold museum. The gold museum was amazing and filled with lots of history of Colombia’s rich past. Thank goodness we did the Moserrate in the morning and the museum in the afternoon since we had another thunder and lightening storm while we toured around the museum. After the museum we headed back to our hotel to get our luggage and then go the airport. Lauren had reserved two vans to take us the airport one with Jenn and Katie and all the luggage and the other with the rest of the girls. On the way to airport our taxi driver decided to drive through the median to avoid traffic. Since all of you know it has been raining pretty hard in Bogota for the last couple days can guess what happened, we got stuck. All the girls wondering what he was doing since there were already two cars stuck in the mud asked our driver what was going on and how were we going to get to our flight. Our driver continued to spin the wheels of the van digging us further and further into the mud giving us no suggestions on fixing the issue. Lauren and I decided since we were wearing rain boots we would get out lessening the load in the van and try and do something since we had a flight to catch. Lauren quickly realized the van was going no where and we came up with a plan to hail taxi cabs. Only in Colombia can you hail taxis on the side of the freeway. Once I had gotten two cabs on my side of the road, Lauren yelled to the other girls to get out of the van and jump in the cabs. We got everyone into cabs and headed off to the airport. At the airport I found Katie and Jenn with all the luggage overly excited to see us. Katie told me that their driver did a few hand motions that looked like we had fallen into the earth and where no longer in our cab. Thinking we had gotten into an accident she was overjoyed to see all of us laughing at the situation that had unfolded. We were all alive and with one more story to add to our public transportation book we checked into our flight and headed to Cartagena. Once we reached Categena we met up with the other group, Krishna, Sarah, and Lucy and Allen. That night we explored the old town and head our own dance party at a local club!