I'm not sure how we'll cope with one fewer day in New Zealand - the schedule is so packed, I'm not sure what we should give up! Hopefully it's not the scuba diving or dolphin swimming - I'm really looking forward to both of those in the next few days.
It's a bit of a sad end to an otherwise fantastic trip to Colombia. I'm very lucky to get sent there with work. This has been my second fortnight-long trip, but on the last one I was working too hard and ate too much room service. This time was a bit more relaxed and I made sure I had the opportunity to sample the wide range of restaurants and night-life out there.
Bogota is a fantastic city, and I'm really enjoying working out there. The client is great, and might even want me to spend another 2 weeks out there on my way back to the UK. I find Colombians extremely welcoming, and they're all keen to show you the best of their town. They're also keenly aware of, and frustrated by, their clichéd reputation for drugs and danger. I understand that things were different a decade ago, but I've not once felt threatened or in danger in my time here, and I walk from place-to-place regularly.
Having last weekend by myself (without my UK colleagues) a number of people from the team here made sure I couldn't get bored and kept me entertained for most of the weekend. On Friday, Nicolas from Deloitte Colombia took me to a swanky (free!) bar overlooking Park 93 (one of the night-spots in Bogota), and then on to a bar with live music (I thought it was Spanish R 'n' B, but I'm informed its called Rigaton).
That's one thing I find most frustrating here... Outside of the business world and hotel receptions, there seems to be very little English spoken. This annoys Carlos, another Deloitte Colombia colleague, because he believes its important to help attract more tourism to the country, but I'm frustrated because I've not managed to learn enough Spanish to be understood. (The other thing it helps to learn before you get here is Salsa dancing - certainly if you like your nightlife, you'll get plenty of opportunity to use it.)
On Saturday - after nursing a hang-over caused by the local variant on Greek Ouzo - the senior client took me to an exhibition centre where there were artisan crafts from all around Colombia on sale. In fact there were enough crafts to fill eight buildings and to keep shoppers busy until 8pm. He also topped the evening off by taking me to 'the best Peruvian restaurant in Colombia' where I ate very very well, including beautifully cooked octopus meat.
On Sunday, Carlos dragged me away from my good work intentions, and showed me some new parts of the city. To start with, we went to a small district further North of Bogota called Usaquén, where there was a small flea market. The items were nothing like the quality of those at the special exhibition, but that didn't make it any less fun to wander around in the sunshine. Next we went up the funicular to the monastery, Monserrate, which sits on one of the mountains 
overlooking the central city. With such a Catholic country, and so close to Christmas, the place was packed with Colombians, but the views out over downtown Bogota and over the flat plain were great. Bogota is similar in population to London (around 7 million) but whilst you can go to the top of Parliament Hill in central London and see the different towns, but interspersed with parks and blocked by hills that have been subsumed into the city in a haphazard way, from the top of Monserrate, you can see the houses and houses just stretch away from the edge of the city out across the plain in an unbroken pattern as far as the eye can see.
For a slightly different perspective we drove downtime (just as another of Bogota's torrential 5-minute downpour hit - it is the rainy season after all) and parked to head up the Corpatric Tower - at 48 floors, the tallest skyscraper in Bogota - and presumably pretty close in height to Canary Wharf. To be honest, the view over the plain is pretty similar to from nearby Monserrate, but you get to see a unique view of downtown, and some good sight-lines along some of the major roads through the city.
Lastly, we headed back to Usaquén where we started far in the North, where we went for dinner at a very good Italian restaurant. In this small area, there are about 5 or 6 gourmet restaurants - think something like Dulwich! Sorry to keep banging on about the food, but it keeps on surprising me just how much good food you can get here - and of course how cheap it is! You get the feeling that if you threw an empanada (from many a street corner) you'd have a very high chance of hitting an excellent restaurant
Well, hopefully I'll get the opportunity to come back here in January. I've already done a bit of sight-seeing last weekend, but there's still some more places I want to go - like the gold museum! It's pretty unlikely I'll be there long enough to fly off to the beaches of the Pacific or the Caribbean though, but they're supposed to be the highlight of Colombia. Places like Cartagena are apparently bigger salsa and party towns than Bogota, and would be great places for Pamela and I to spend the weekend, if the opportunity arises.
Right, that's probably enough banging on about Colombia - well done for reading this far. And I hope I haven't set unrealistic expectations - I'm not sure I can sustain this length for every post!
Matt
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