Colombia

We were up early and after another great hotel supplied breakfast we were ready to go.

"Our guy" Eduardo picked us up at 8:15 and took us the 30 minute drive to the airport. We arrived with three hours to spare (for the international flight). The COPA airlines people asked if we had the electronic entry form for Colombia which we didn't because the website kept going in a loop for me when I was trying to do things while still in Canada. I had given up on it.

The COPA lady was wonderful, even using her own phone, to help us get the $@*## forms completed. Even she had trouble.

So frustrating!

The flight was good and I think we had upgraded seats as we had lots of leg room.

There are farms at the tops of these mountains. Flying into Medellin we  went over this huge city before looping south and landing on the east side in the next valley over (I think).

Immigration was a disaster taking over an hour. Apparently this is a well known problem. One person in the line told us that in the past he has waited two hours to clear.

We had to get some Colombian pesos for the taxi so I went to the foreign exchange and royally raped by the exchange rate (8.5% loss in exchange-good thing I only wanted $40 USD worth of pesos)

The road going into the city goes through an eight kilometre long tunnel before exiting to a breathtaking view of the city. WOW. Unfortunately we didn't have our cell phones ready. Too bad!

Our hotel is nice and after getting settled in we asked the hotel people for some good Colombian style restaurants within walking distance (the hotel restaurant is Italian).

Before getting to the restaurant we stopped at a grocery store cash machine where I was able to get Colombian pesos from my ATB chequing account. Big relief on my part as I was getting worried that things might go wrong and we would be in trouble cash-wise

We are about 10 minutes walk from a huge restaurant and bar area and we went to the place recommneded to us. We ate a massive amount of food and couldn't finish it. We have decided that,while here, we will order one plate of food and order more if necessary.

Our friend Mary had said Colombia was inexpensive and so far it is. Tonights meal (including one beer and a sangria) was $C33. I can live with that!

We booked our flights to Santa Marta for Wednesday afternoon ($79 USD each).

We are going to stay in the city tomorrow instead of as full day tour to a place outside of the city as our stomachs are still not right yet.