I arrived in the country’s capital just after lunch on Sunday, and spent the afternoon wandering around the suburb of La Candelaria, stopping by the Botero and Gold Museums. La Candelaria is part of downtown Bogotá, and between the many dive bars, backpacker hostels and cafes, the walls are plastered with some fascinating street art, albeit surrounded by graffiti. Unfortunately, after sunset the area becomes pretty sketchy and whenever I was walking back to the hostel at night with friends we would always be approached by a couple of shady characters.

Monday was a public holiday in Colombia, and I quickly realised how frustrating public holidays are whilst travelling as almost everything worth seeing is closed. So, I took the opportunity to get some exercise in and took a run along one of the main roads which was closed for Ciclovia, a feature of Bogotá where people can run, bicycle or skate along many main or secondary roads in the city.

In the afternoon, Aaron, Satu and I joined up with the Graffiti City Walking Tour, where a guide walked us around La Candelaria, giving us a bit of a history lesson behind many of the impressive murals that surrounded us.

On Tuesday I began to wonder whether I am heavily addicted to caffeine, or just appreciate a good cup of coffee, as I went to the effort of taking the Transmilenio bus 25 minutes uptown just to sample some of Bogota’s best coffee at Azahar cafe, a sea container which has been transformed into a hipster coffee shop. Funnily enough after I’d had the coffee I stopped wondering.

Back in La Candelaria, we had now formed a small group of fellow solo travellers from around the world, so whilst Aaron stayed in bed recovering from a dodgy lunch the previous day, Satu, Maria and I had some beers at the Bogotá Brewing Company, and then embarked on a mini pub crawl, which ended with us sharing a bottle of tequila at the only pub open near our hostel and crawling into bed at just after 1 a.m.

The beds at the hostel didn’t lend themselves to a good night’s rest, so after about 5 hours sleep I hopped out of bed and went to the gym (I must have still been drunk). Later on that day, Aaron and I took the funicular (I had no idea what it was either), up Cerro de Monserrate to get a nice view of Bogotá.

We backed up the partying for another night, this time with Aaron joining us, and after several drinks at the hostel bar we found ourselves at the strippers. Satu had never been to the strippers before and well, I didn’t need any more convincing.

Sometimes, good company can just creep up and you and before you know it, you’ve spent the last couple of days with the same people and haven’t had an awkward silence, argument or even a disagreement on where to eat. The only odd thing was that it wasn’t til we were all sat around a table inside the strip club, and the stripper was in the middle of one of her impressively flexible routines, that it hit me (the thought, not the stripper). The fact that we all got along so well was what made the next day possible.

We met up at the hostel at around 11 a.m., all hungover and surprised at each other for making the previously agreed appointment of visiting the famous Salt Cathedral. Being a full day trip in itself, we caught two buses to the nearby town of Zipaquira and then walked up what was nearly too many stairs to explore the salt mines and visit the underground cathedral. On the way back we were caught in traffic, which added another hour to our journey, and in total we probably spent around 5 hours in transit, for about only 1 hour actually visiting the cathedral. Yet, the good company made an otherwise enduring day surprisingly enjoyable.

Unfortunately, the group was split up that night, as Aaron and Satu took the bus to Medellín, and I moved out of the hostel to the upscale neighbourhood of Quinta Camacho, which is much more approachable than La Candelaria, and full of nice restaurants, bars and cafes.

On my last day in Bogotá I met up with Lily, a Bogotá local (Rola) whom I met off Couchsurfing. We met in the neighbourhood of Usaquén, which feels kind of like a separate downtown for the surrounding upscale neighbourhoods. The streets are littered with bars, cafes, restaurants, and street markets. And unlike La Candelaria, you can let your guard down and soak up the atmosphere.

After a beer and some waffles, we headed to the popular Andrés Carne de Res, a mind-blowing multi story bar-pub-restaurant-nightclub rolled in to one, exploding with an in-your-face (yet not tacky) party atmosphere, all sorts of surreal decor and impressive shows. All the while maintaining a traditional Colombian feel. We had some empanadas, a few refajos (beer mixed with soda), and hit the dance floor where Lily taught me how to dance salsa and meringue. It could've been the tequila shots that Maria and her boyfriend ordered for us, but it was probably the least retarded I have ever felt while trying to salsa at a nightclub. Or maybe I'm just getting better.

Colombia is the gift that keeps on giving. I'm continually meeting incredibly interesting and generous people who are more than happy to give me a genuine into their country and culture, and each city I visit just reinforces that feeling. Bogotá didn't come as highly recommended as Medellín, but it's a place I will leave with many fond memories, and certainly a city I'd like to visit again.