9th December – Tuesday

This hotel does free coffee in the morning in the smallest cups possible, they are the size of a large shot glass, two slurps and it was gone. I hope they don’t charge for the second cup I desperately needed and had. Once showered and dressed I went to the cafe on the corner opposite and had a decent sized coffee and tamales for breakfast, so delicious, and considering how near and cheap they were they will be seeing me tomorrow and Thursday.

After food I dropped my laundry in at a place around the corner, the woman said to me 7000 but when I later inspected the receipt it is 70,000 – FFS, that’s £13, just over double what I would normally pay. I have a good mind to write her a negative G maps review, let’s see how I am feeling tomorrow. From there I had a walk into the centre. Bucaramange has over 160 parks and I passed through 3 of them on my way. They were not very nice parks, in fact I wouldn’t call them parks, I’d call them squares. I diverted off my route and found myself in an amazing market, it was clean compared to many I have seen but just as busy with amazing fruit and veg stalls, alongside meat and fish stalls. There was one guy rolling, what looked like cheese dough, into balls and deep frying it. I took a photo and I could see from his expression and the tone of his voice when he spoke to his customers that he was not happy. So I showed him the photo and he was happy again as I had not included his face, I also showed it to his customers and they all smiled and one tapped me on the back. Later I took a photo of a guy selling fish, I asked first and he was more than happy and even posed for me – lol.

Bucaramange is a very busy place, almost manic, it was quite overwhelming to begin with and took a little while to settle into the pace of it. I walked down a road that I could have stayed in, it was full of haberdasheries, selling the most amazing materials, sequins and every colour of cotton you could imagine. Obviously the women here love their sewing. I also went down a road that was full of book stalls, new and old, it was fantastic. Finally I found myself at Parque Principal Garcia Rovira de Bucaramange. Which was quite beautiful even though there was very little grass. Around the park is the Church of San Laureano, the city hall and the court house and it has amazingly tall palm trees. I got a coffee and sat there for quite a while before exploring the surrounding streets. I went into the El Libro Total, which is a beautiful white colonial building that houses the TAX office. It is also a cultural centre with a lot of local art on display and I read that they often host cultural events, but there was nothing on today. The courtyard was very beautiful and there were a lot of people just hanging out there, considering it is a TAX office it was great little visit. Not far from there, I went to Museo Casa de Bolivar. Simon Bolivar, a Venezuelan military officer, was known as the liberator and was a key leader in the emancipation of Spanish America from the Spanish Empire. All of the displays were in Spanish, so I didn’t really learn that much but it was still very interesting and the museum had a very beautiful garden.

On my way back I bought a couple of drinks and some nuts in the hope of sitting on the balcony/terrace that the hotels advertises it has. Uhm, it’s a sofa in the corridor! Very disappointing. They do have a room with a balcony and the cleaner asked at reception if I could use that but the manager refused, so I sat in my room and planned and booked my next destination. I am also a little concerned that Medellin and Cali will become fully booked for the Christmas and new year period so thought about booking hostels in those two locations as well. But I didn’t. I’m not sure what dates to tie myself to, I need to think it through a little bit more and chose places with free cancellations just in case I change my mind. You just never know what can happen between now and then.

This evening I took a stroll down the road to a restaurant called El Humero and had the most amazing burger. The meat was cooked to perfection and it was just so juicy and even had ‘proper’ bacon. I have read