Here we are in Bogota!

The last few days have been great. Saturday morning Vicky took us to the once-a-month art and craft market in the city. It was awesome. Never mind the Black Market this is so much better. It is chock full of stalls for jewellery (hand made by weird hippy/rock chick/goth people) and hand bags and all sorts of stuff. I spent every cent I had and could have bought twice as much but I had to draw a line. As it was we have bought two new small suitcases (one to replace mum's onboard bag - sorry mum it fell apart after the first flight - and one new one). So we are now travelling with SEVEN suitcases and one stroller. Total weight: 130 kg. AWESOME! I can tell you we had some fun packing last night and this morning. It was sad having our last meals at the hotel this morning. There were a few people we were very sad to say goodbye to. Especially one waitress, Andrea, who really took a shine to Mariana and would talk to her for ages each morning at breakfast (I can tell you she would have got her butt kicked big time on "My Restaurant Rules" but in Colombia service is a little more relaxed). Everything went well at the airport. It took a while to check in and for Vicky to convince them not to charge us for excess baggage. We were booked into economy (sheeeesh!) so our luggage was limited (certainly not 130kg). When we got on the plane we were upgraded to Business Class anyway - obviously they realised we were not the sort of people who flew cattle class!!! Mariana was an angel (as always). She flirted with the man next to me, then drank some of her bottle and promptly went to sleep. Since we were only in the air for a total of 25 minutes she only managed a short nap. When we arrived the poor porter (who was tiny) had to cart around all our luggage (Jay gave him a generous tip) and we were met by Mauricio (a very cute young man who works for Las Palmas) who whisked us - and our mountain of luggage - away in his van (lucky that!). So we arrived, checked our comfy room (Will loves his "little" bed) and we met the other families here. Two American families, a few Scandanavian families and our old German friends from the Intercontinental. We've just enjoyed a very homey dinner and the children are playing beautifully. Tomorrow Mauricio is taking us to the British Embassy first thing and then to ICBF to get our compliance certificate. So we may be finished with "official" business tomorrow (unless there is some hiccup) and then we'll have 2.5 days to check out Bogota and - dare I say - do some more shopping!