Derek and I flew down to Bogota, Colombia over the Labor Day weekend to attend a wedding for one of Derek's childhood friends. Wow, quite the experience... Here's a quick(?) breakdown in activities:
We woke up Thursday morning (09/03/09) at 4:30am MST to catch our 7am flight to Orlando. After a 3 hour layover in Orlando, we flew down the 4 hours to Bogota and got in at 9:30pm CST. After going through Customs, which was a breeze for me (and not so much for Derek!), we found Derek's friend outside the airport and all hopped in a van to head to the hotel. We did a quick check-in, exchanged some money for Colombian peso's and headed out to meet everyone else at a local bar. Immediately upon walking to the bar, a homeless man ran up to Derek and started pleading with him (in Spanish of course) for spare change. Derek was wearing a flashy two-toned blue zip up coat, so perhaps this guy liked the color of the coat, who knows. Regardless, it was pretty funny because no one else got bothered except for Derek! The night ended at a bar with a couple "Club Colombians" (similar tasting to a PBR) and some shots of god knows what. I was EXHAUSTED since we got up so horribly early and we finally climbed into bed at 2am.
We woke up Friday morning (09/04/09) at 8am to get some breakfast down in the lobby before all hopping into a bus to go on a tour. Needless to say, I was NOT feeling the best that morning after getting such little sleep and drinking the night before. But I was a trooper, ate a couple pieces of fruit, stuffed some croissant thing in my purse and hopped on the bus - in the front row of course :) I hate the seats in the back of buses - too bumpy for my sensitive stomache!
The bus took us on a 60 min drive up to a Salt Mine which hosts the 10 stations of the cross and a cathedral complete with pews in it! It was very bizarre and unlike anything I had ever seen before. It kind of reminded me of being in a cave except, A) not nearly as cold, and B) all the construction down there. We stayed there for a couple hours - ate lunch in the plaza and watched some local rock climbers... Apparently this is the largest rock climbing wall in South America :) With all our rock climbing skills, I think Derek and I could've mastered it!! Hah!
After the Salt Mine, we were supposed to go see some Lagoon but apparently the road to get there was closed so we opted for a Milk Factory instead :) They had really good desserts there and we sat outside and enjoyed the nice weather.
That night was the rehearsal dinner held at the bride's Aunt's house. More traditional Colombian food and then.....a mariachi band showed up!!! They sang song after song to the bride and groom, and there were tears shed by many...unfortunately the songs were all in Spanish so I couldn't get too emotionally involved in the lyrics to shed a tear ;) After dinner and that band, more drinks at a local bar and another late night ;( I think we hit the hay at 1am that night.
Onto Saturday now :) You're not getting bored with my story yet, are you???? Okay, good! We woke up at 8:30am to meet everyone downstairs in the lobby again for breakfast. This time I was able to eat a little more since I wasn't as tired or hung-over ;) Then we walked around Bogota and did some souvenier shopping. Wow, talk about a dirty city. The streets are littered with crap and the sidewalks were full of holes and unsturdy concrete. I made the mistake of wearing flip flops that day and had to constantly watch my steps. I think everyone tripped at least once walking that day:)
That night was the big event - the whole reason for our trip....Kevin & Natalia's wedding!! Yay!!!! The event was a black-tie affair and the whole wedding party (including Derek as best man) looked marvelous!
The wedding was held at a beautiful Catholic Church in Bogota. The ceremony was spoken in Spanish so was a quite hard to understand! Although having been to Catholic services my whole life, I did recognize a few of the sayings and of course, the 'Our Father' prayer :)
After the 60 minute wedding ceremony we all bussed it over to the reception hall....that is where the real fun began! Derek gave a wonderful best man speech and the bride's sister, Lina, translated it in Spanish for everyone in attendance. They had a live band playing great Colombian salsa-type music and Derek and I tried to dance to as many as we could. When else can we say we went to a Colombian wedding and danced to Colombian music?! I'm sure we looked like idiots out there but we seriously had a really good time! The band would take a break and then they would play "American" music - techno, pop, etc. It was quite humorous!
Just when we thought the party was winding down (and probably at about 12:30am), these random Colombian dancers showed up!!!!
They came bearing gifts! They gave everyone these eye masks to wear!
These dancers really got the party going! Everyone was on the dance floor...they were playing this weird type of drum music, it was such a cool experience to witness!! Then some additional random dancers showed up...there was a guy dressed as an elephant (?!) and women wearing beautiful colorful gowns....
The reception went on until 1:40am!!! Even the bride and groom stayed for the whole thing! I don't know how they did that....cuz I was EXHAUSTED... so that means they had to be 5x more EXHAUSTED than I was! Impressive Kevin and Natalia, really impressive!!
When Derek and I finally got back to our hotel room, around 2am, we took a light nap before having to get up at 5:30am to catch our flight back to Orlando ;( Man, that next morning was NOT fun but somehow we made it to the airport, got through having our carry-on luggage checked 4x, and next thing we knew we were sitting on the plane :) There we took a nice 4 hour nap :)
A fun weekend all in all! Very action packed and tiring but well worth the adventure :) AND, to top it off, I caught the bouquet....guess that means I'm next to get married!!!
MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
