Cranky Croc…Part 1

ok, this is the place where I will make my home(not intentionally) for the next 3 months… I was so excited when I finally managed to get bed-space, the beds are so comfy, and it`s the little things like reading lights on all the beds that make the difference…

Chris and Collette arrive from Salento, and we have an absolute monster of a weekend, they are a wicked couple and they tell me about about a 10-day electro festival that is starting in a week or 2(Bogotrax…look it up!) There is a rave in a warehouse-type building the following weekend, which is absolutely crazy! Me and Collette end up meeting this girl called Jackie, who left UK 7 years ago to live in Bogotà. This chance meeting ends up providing me with some serious luck!

The Bogotrax festival is amazing, it is a yearly event that looks to cement together art, music and other creative outlets in one massive festival, and its free! There are DJs all over the world who participate in the various different performances, and I am lucky enough to meet one of the organisers, that`s the thing with Bogotà, it is so creative and experimental, but the scene is also small, so you find everyone knows everyone else if you stay long enough….I meet Jackie again and she tells me she has work and can give me advice on finding an apartment etc, so I feel really fortunate that I met her(although she is also completely insane…but none of that here….)

I have met also a couple called Jim and Gen, he from England(Essex) and her from South Africa, they are really cool and will form the backbone of my social activities for the next 6 weeks-2 months….One thing you find fairly quickly with Bogotà is that it is really hard to leave!(As I write this I am still here…25th of May and I intended to leave in March….) The next few weeks are basically a haze of finding work, partying, sleeping in and looking for an apartment….

I find a job, which I will start when I return from Carnival in Barranquilla at the beginning of March, so all is working out. When I leave Bogotà to go to Carnival I go with 5 others…Ali, from Sheffield, Jordan from Nottingham, Steve from New Zealand, Phil from Newcastle and Felicity from…somewhere! We take off for Barranquilla on an overnight bus, and head for the `second biggest carnival in South America`How exciting!