I’d had Colombia on the list of places to visit for a long while. We’d now booked, the dates were in the diary and preparations were being made.
We were unaware that not all was going to plan behind the scenes and the plan would fall apart altogether before we were home.
So – FlyBe ceased trading a couple of days before they were due to take us to Paris for our onward flight to Bogota. At least this was a problem for the tour company and not me. They found us a flight via Amsterdam but it was a day earlier than the Paris flight – “did we mind going early if they paid for the extra night/day in Bogota?” they said – certainly not!
So, we’d already arranged for a “free” day on arrival in Bogota to relax from the flight and to get used to the altitude – and now we had two days!
Bogota proved to be a great place to wander around. Lots of parks to explore – we found these dog-walking people in all the parks. Museums too with exhibitions of colonial times and older.
Everyone seemed friendly and we usually received what we thought we’d asked for in the cafes and ice cream parlours.
We’d booked a Colombian group tour but we’d spotted an area in the South of Colombia with several archaeological sites that weren’t in the itinerary and arranged to visit these prior to the main tour. It was to prove the only area that we’d visit. The pictures below show some of the natural and archaeological features we visited.
We were lucky to have Axel as our guide and at the archaeological sites local expert guides joined us too. Axel, from Dusseldorf, is widely travelled and now lives in Colombia. He earned a Gold Star from us when he mentioned that he lived for three years in Holmfirth – of Last of the Summer Wine Fame.
So – our idyllic journey was about to end. We received a message from the travel agency that they had cancelled the main tour as they couldn’t bring the other travellers over from England due to COVID.
We’d a return flight booked that was over two weeks away and we were at the wrong end of the country. What followed was an intense series of messages between us, the UK Tour Company and the Colombian Tour Company.
| Monday 16th March | Visit San Augustin Archaeological Park in the morning – a tour highlight |
| Back to the hotel for lunch. Learn that the Archaeological park had been closed shortly after we left. Hotel told to keep tourists inside hotel – our planned afternoon horse ride in the countryside is cancelled. We hear that our main Colombia tour has been cancelled. Lots of calls & messages trying to arrange route home. We were told we could avoid all the hassle – we just needed to pay £2000 each for a new flight home! We obviously said No! we’d rather you sort it please? To give them credit, they did. Spend the rest of the day in the hotel. | |
| Tuesday 17th | Spend morning in the hotel Transfer to Pitalito airport for flight to Bogota |
| Arrive in Bogota mid-afternoon and transfer to hotel for overnight stay. Plan comes together for a flight back to the UK tomorrow midnight. Venture out of the hotel a couple of times to get food, most cafes in the food court we’d used before are closed. Increasingly uneasy about being out and return to hotel. Our last night in a bed for a while. | |
| Weds 18th | Breakfast at the hotel is an “order off the menu” rather than the usual buffet due to lack of guests. I think we ended up with about five courses! It kept us going during the day. We did go out looking for food and bought some pasties at a local shop plus crisps and bananas – our staple go-to food when in doubt. We returned to the hotel to be safe – we didn’t see any other tourists around the streets. A long day in the hotel – government closes all tourist sites. 8pm – set off for the airport for a flight at 5 minutes past midnight to Paris. Not sure at this stage if we’re confirmed on the Birmingham flight but there are options from Paris. |
| Thursday 19th | Leave Bogota at 00:05 for Paris Not many people on the flight Arrive Paris at 16:25 – we didn’t manage to sleep on the flight. We should have left for Birmingham at 18:55 but that flight had been cancelled – queue with many others to see what happens now. Overnight in Paris transit area. All the shops and cafes are closed – spend the night on a couple of seats, with everyone trying to space out, and 3 vending machines for company and sustenance. There is a flight tomorrow morning to Birmingham – only another 14hrs to wait. |
| Friday 20th | No sleep overnight. More crisps, snacks and coffee from the vending machines. Left Paris and arrived in Birmingham 07:20 – shame our cases didn’t! Received a text at the luggage carousel to say they’d found our cases – but not in Birmingham! (Cases delivered to home 2 days later.) Pass through Birmingham Airport – no questions or checks at all about where we’ve been, our health or COVID. 9 am arrived home. A cup of tea and then bed for a while. |