Colombia Ecuador and Galapagos

We left Bogota early but headed into very heavy traffic and it took ages to get out of the city.    It is Saturday and everyone wants to get out of Bogota.  We are heading to Villa de Leyva, via Guatavita Lake. Our first stop today was at Lake Guatavita.   It took about 3 hours due to the traffic in Bogota and to the insanely small narrow country lanes leading to the lake that our 52 seater bus had to negotiate along with cars, lorries and minibuses coming the other way.        Colombia really is not geared up to mass tourism yet but they are working on it.   Lake Guatavita is a small circular lake in a scenic, forest lined crater and it was a sacred site of the Muisca indigenous tribe.   When the Spanish invaded they thought that they had found El Dorado – the city of gold and forced entry by blowing up one side of the mountain.   This reduced the water level in the lake to what it is today.   To get to the crater above the lake we had a long, steep climb up steps

It was a beautiful sunny day when we started our tour of the city and stayed that way. The Andes mountain range run from Chile in the South right up through the western Latin American countries.  When they reach Colombia, they fan out into 3 ranges.  Bogota is situated on a high plateau between 2 of these mountain ranges. In the heavy traffic we noticed a high number of electric scooters on the roads.  Many people of all ages use them to get through the heavy traffic.  We saw men in suit and tie speeding along on one of these. Scooter on Bogotas roads We first were taken up into the mountains.  After a high climb in the coach we then took an extremely steep funicular railway up to Monserrate mountain where we had spectacular views all over Bogota. The original funicular car View of 2 largest tower blocks in Bogota and colourful university student buildings taken from the funicular Exiting the tunnel Path at top of Monserrate View to the south o

We said a sad goodbye to the San Carlos Lodge in Periera.   While waiting for the bus to collect us I had a walk around the grounds and saw lots of birds and also a Tapir.   At first I thought it was a small pig running along the perimeter fence.   It was very quick so I only managed to get a photo of its head. Grounds of San Carlos Lodge Grounds of San Carlos Lodge Tapir Bird of Paradise Flower We flew to Bogota, the 3 rd highest capital city in South America after La Paz and Quito and 4 th highest in the world (with Thimphu, Bhutan taking 3 rd place).   It is 2644m above sea level so considerably cooler than Medellin and Periera. We were taken to our hotel where we will spend the next 2 nights.  It was pouring with rain so we decided to have a rest before going out to explore the area.   On the way to the hotel we were told that there is no metro system in Bogota but there is a network of buses that run in their own lanes and have desi