Sunday nights in Bogota are quiet. The density of the city dissipates and the streets take on an eerie silence. It was our last night on our trip to Colombia, and my best friend and I were walking through the historic center, La Candelaria, to buy bottled water.
Most storefronts were closed after 7:30PM, so we were relieved to walk by a 24/7 convenience store, OXXO. After scanning the aisles and price tags, we looked at each other and burst out laughing. We couldn’t afford a bottle of water. The only item under 500 Colombian pesos (17 cents) was a small bag of sour gummies. That was all the cash we had left and both of our ATM cards were blocked after our banks had notified us of fraudulent activity.
On our first day in Bogota, we had been scammed by a taxi driver (who we still believe was a magician) and were left with a limited supply of cash for the remainder of the trip. The driver also convinced us to try paying for our fare by card. After all of our cards were declined and heated accusations of fake currency and bad math, my best friend and I left the taxi rattled—and having given away most of our cash! That night, I received several emails from my bank alerting me that my card was now blocked after ATM withdrawals which I had not made.
None of this wouldn’t have been such an issue except for the fact that on our last day in Bogota, we took a bike tour of the city and fell in love with our guide. To show our appreciation, we tipped him generously. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Standing in the middle of OXXO, we counted our change and realized we had 17 cents for our last night.
“The tap water is fine, right?” we asked each other as we walked back to our AirBnB.
My best friend and I had fantasized about traveling to South America for years. So when cheap flights appeared on our flight watch app months ago, we jumped on the opportunity and booked our tickets to Colombia. Without much planning, we decided to make the most of five days and split our time between the capital, Bogota, and the coastal city of Cartagena.
You could say our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. In five days, we took six flights and slept about four hours a night—if that. It was not the R&R people expect to hear about over Labor Day weekend, but knowing us, we wouldn’t have had it any other way. The intensity of our trip was fueled by the vibrancy of each city we visited.
The natural and manmade beauty in Colombia was breathtaking. Climbing to the top of Montserrate in Bogota, we saw a sprawling cityscape from the highest point of the city. In Cartagena, we walked along saturated murals of the old city, pausing to notice how vines and flowers took on a life of their own, bursting from doorways and window frames.
Along the way, we did our best to learn about the politics and culture of Colombia but recognized that we would only get a glimpse of these complexities in the limited time we had there. Yet whether it was through graffiti, colonial architecture, or neighborhood divides, we saw tangible ways that history left its mark.
In just five short days, we went from standing at 2,600 meters above sea level in the fourth highest capital city of the world, to snorkeling in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea; we indulged in thick stews in the mountainous capital and cooled off with tropical juices by the beach. While we just scratched the surface of Bogota and Cartagena, we got a taste and were left wanting more. I’ll definitely be going back—and I’m determined not to be swindled again!