In Bogotá

So Christmas pictures are on hold until I can upload the pictures to MY OWN computer, and since we should be moving into our house on Wednesday, it shouldn't be too long. Till then, more Colombia pictures. Anyway, above is a picture of a church that's up on the mountain in Bogota. I wanted to hike up there, but I didn't want to try to drag my two kids up the mountainside as well.

These were some random pictures around Bogota. The horse carts are illegal, but you see them everywhere anyway. And there's little fruit stores like that on every corner. You also see guards with AK47's pretty frequently too.

Here's some more pictures around Bogota, the red bus is pretty typical of all the buses there. Some of them are so short that I had to hunch over when there were no seats and I had to stand. Most of these pictures are around the Candelaria section of Bogota. It's the old part of the city that is a couple hundred years old. Very pretty. Really the only pretty part of Bogota.

These are all from that are too. But I lied, the part of the city up by the Universidad de los Andes is also really pretty.

I really like obleas. We've found them here in the states in Florida, but in the little street vendor carts they have all these toppings...yum! My kids really enjoyed them.

This was at the military museum. We went to this museum because it was close and it was free. It was interesting. I liked looking at all the old uniforms.

The kids (and Leo) liked climbing all over the military

equipment they had. They didn't want to leave that part actually.

This was in the Plaza de Bolivar. It's the central plaza in Bogota. It's a big tourist area, where you can buy llama rides, as you can see. Also, there are tons of pigeons, or rats with wings as Leo and I refer to them.

Here's more pictures of the Plaza, here you can see all the buildings around it. There's the Palacio de Justicia, and one's the Casa de Narino or President's house (like the White House), and the Casa de 20 de Julio where their Declaration of Independence was signed, and a really old Cathedral.

And just for a bit of a history lesson, here's another tidbit:

The Palace of Justice siege (Toma del Palacio de Justicia in Spanish) was a 1985 attack against the Supreme Court of Colombia, in which members of the M-19 guerrilla group took over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, Colombia, and held the Supreme Court hostage, intending to hold a trial against President Belisario Betancur. Hours later, after a military raid, the incident left all the rebels and 11 of the 25 Supreme Court Justices dead.

Crazy, eh?