Luckily we didn’t have to say goodbye to everyone that morning, Tineke and Jose came along for the road trip with us to Bogota. We took the scenic route (oops) out of Villa de Leyva an dof course along the way we cracked the suspension bar…again. The road wasn’t terrible but was littered with potholes disguised as puddles and one of them was just too deep for Peggy. Being the trooper she is we carried on just with a stomach churning knocking going on beneath us. ONce off the scenic route the roads were a breeze and we soon made it to Zipacura to visit the Salt Cathedral as an on route tourist stop.
The underground cathedral was HUGE and hauntingly beautiful.
“The cathedral was born from an old salt mine, dug straight into a mountain outside the town…the mines still contain vast reserves that will last another 500 years.”

The tunel into the cathedral is lit with ever changing bands of coloured light and filled with people licking the walls…just to check it really IS salt they can se coating the tunnel.
Once inside the dark cathedral spookily lit by coloured up lighters in tiny nooks and crannies. My first thought is of how perfect the place would be a for a gothic style wedding or an enormous Halloween party. The cathedral can hold 8400 people!! It would also be a great place to film a vampire movie. We enjoyed the walk around and trying to set up some fun pictures in the eerie light with Tinele and Jose and I would definitely recommend it for a visit if only for its total strangeness!

We soon covered the last leg of the journey into Bogota and followed our map given to us by Juan.
This is where the trip CAN get a little confusing so I will explain…
Before Alex and I set off on our adventure we applied for Australian citizenship. It took 3 years to get the paperwork together, apply and recieve a response, and that response was a YES! We have been accepted and have received permission to live in Australia for 5 years to become a citizenship! Hoorahhh…the long and short of it is that once accepted you are given 6 months to make a first entry into Australia as a sign that you ARE going to move to Australia.
When we recieved notification (in Calgary…here’s the blog) we made a plan to be in Chile by May an fly directly from there to make our first entry. It was still going to be awkward and an expense we could do without but after lots of money and 3 years applying we couln’t risk not going and being turned away when we do eventually arrive!…HOWEVER, as you know….it is May and we are still in Colombia! We are having such a great time and the damn continent is a little bigger than we anticipated so we are very far behind scedule…BUT we still had to go to Australia.

We searched and searched the internet while in Villa de Leyva and found the cheapest way to go was from Bogota to LA and then onto Melbourne so, that was our plan.
Our flight was 2 days after the Colombian wedding and on telling Juan our plan he kindly offered us a parking spot where Peggy would be safe for the 2 weeks we would be out of COlombia! This is just another example of the kindness shown here in Colombia, as if this guy hadn’t already done enough for us by coming and shooting one of our weddings!!

So back to the story…we followed his map to his parents house and after a little confusion…(we arrived earlier than expected) we met Jaime, Juans brother who welcomed us into his home, got us parked up, made us ice tea and offered us some dinner. We thanked him profusely but we were all so tired and worn out from our long days drive and din’t want to cause him any more trouble so we asked him if he could call us a cab to a hostel in town. We packed our bags in a hurry (for AUstralia for 2 weeks!!!) and when we went back to the house Jaime told us he would drive us to the hostel! Amazing act of kindness number ‘I have lost count’.

We tried to talk him out of it to no avail and we set off to a hostel we had in mind. Of course it was miles and miles to town and took about 40 minutes to get there! I felt so bad that we had dragged him out to drive us all over the city and then to make matters worse, the hostel was full!! We had no back up plan so Jaime asked around and we set off to hostel attempt number 2. We drove up and down the tiny one way streets looking for the hostel and before 2 minutes we saw blue flashing lights and we had been pulled by the police! We had unknowingly gone the wrong way down a one way street and he was threatening to ticket Jaime. We told the cop it was our fault we were lost etc and tried to talk him out of it and of course, then came the famous line, it will cost you. We paid the bribe happy to get Jaime out of a ticket but frustrated with the corrupt cops.

We finally found the hostel and said our thank you’s to Jaime and arranged to catch up with him when we got back to Bogota. We explained Peggy’s eccentricities in case he should need to move her while we were away and waved as he drove away. We booked into the hostel and the four of us went out for a burger…the worlds worst burger but we were so hungry we sat and ate our incorrect orders in near silence and then back at the hostel crashed after talking about how blown away we have been by Colombian hospitality.
THe next morning Tineke and Jose slept on as we snuck out into Bogota for breakfast. We had a long few days ahead of us so got stuck into a typica breakfast of meat soup, a fried egg and lulo liquados. Then I went and bought a muffin from Dunkin Donuts for the wait in the airport for our flight to LA. Back at the hostel we found Tineke and Jose and said our goodbyes and jumped in a taxi to the airport and began our painfully long journey to our potential future home!

We were on our flight to Fort Lauderdale in plenty of time but it left late and although it was a reasonable flight as we were sat in an exit row we knew the fun would end as we rushed to make our connection. On landing we ran from the flight, collected our luggage and stood in the worlds LONGEST queue to check our bags again onto our connecting flight to LA. Everyone was in the same boat, the smell of panic was in the air and people shoved and pushed and became irrate as the customs officers seemed to do their best to do anything but rush. We eventually made it to the front of the line with minutes to spare and were called aside by a customs officer. He began with where do you end your trip? Australia was our reply. Why would you go there?? We have applied for citizenship and have to make our first entry. But you are flying from Colombia, do you live there? No, we are travelling and then moving to Australia. But what will you do when you get to Australia for a job???? AAAARRRGGGHHHHH IS THIS ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS?!!! IS what I wanted to reply as time flew by and we were stood having a nice little chit chat with customs! Eventually after the Spanish inquisition he let us go and we ran with out luggage to try to check it. The check desk took one look at us and told us to take it with us on the flight. We awkwardly ran to the flight with our 10 tonne bag (we had packed only one as it was $35 per bag each way) and were the last on the plane. The flight was probably the worst I have been on, we were cramped in like battery hens and starved the whole way there as the flight was right over dinner. The fun did not end there when we landed in LA we were worn to a frazzle after travelling for ??????? hours and had yet another day of travel to follow the next night. We had booked into a cheap airport hotel and tried to call them for a pick up. Of course we only had Australian notes and all of the payphones took cards. We tried with a credit card, tried to get some change with no joy and eventually appealed to an info desk ladies sympathy and she called them for us…with no answer! We gave up and stood and waited at the shuttle stop for a pick up.

We JUST moved and it whizzed past us. We waited for it to come back around and after half an hour we managed to flag it down. The driver greeted us with a torrent of swear words and abuse about other shuttle drivers and set off at break neck speed around the airport. He was so terrible at his job that we abused it and asked him to stop at McDonalds on the way to the hotel. He happily obliged and tore there at a thousand miles an hour! Alex went in to order us some food and the bus driver followed suit. He ordered his food and then disappeared with a prostitute for 10 minutes while we sat and waited in the bus happily eating our burgers. The hostel was actually nice, clean and had a comfy bed but the service was the most appaling I have ever encountered. As we sat the next day waiting for our late flight we watched in awe as the reception staff shouted at guests like naughty children, took someones belongings out of their room and threw them onto the floor in the reception area and had full on shouting matches with each other over the radio including some of the most explicit language I have ever heard!
We happily left with yet another idiot driver to the airport and breathed a sigh of relief when we arrived alive!

We ate dinner at the airport and checked in for our Quantas flight to Melbourne via Sydney. We were say seperatley at check in but as we boarded asked to be moved and were sat in great seats together. The flight was brilliant, the food was good, the wine was good and the service was great. We wathced movies and even managed to get some sleep. The change over in Sydney was a breeze and we read our books for the last few hours to Melbourne!
We had 9 days to have a mini Australian adveture! We couldn’t believe it, 2 days travelling and we were on the opposite side of the world!

Find out what happens next on our travelling wedding adventure!