A Series of Unfortunate Events Part 1

It's been 4 years since I last wrote an entry here but so much happened on my latest trip to Columbia and Peru that I couldn't resist coming back for a quick bit of story time with Tristan, so here goes.
 

Gav and I decided we wanted to trek up Macchu Picchu for no real reason, and the flights worked out that we could spend a long weekend in Bogota and sample the nightlife on our way.
 

The day of our flight came and that was delayed from 11pm until 8.40am the next day. No one told us, I just checked online. At 1am we call the airline because Google said the flight is now cancelled. Eventually get through to some moron and he says "still on of 840am". I went to sleep and woke up 5am and Google still says cancelled but the airline website says 10.30am now. I call them back up and I get through to a child, she has to have been a child.
 

"What times the flight?"
 

"8.40am"
 

"Are you sure because your website says different"
 

"Let me check another system"
 

**why is there more than one system???**
 

"Hi, yeah the flight is at 7am, so you'd best get down the airport"
 

"....erm, you what?"
 

"Yep"
 

"Your website says that the aeroplane is still in the air, how do you expect to turn it around? Is the flight at 7, 8.40 or 10.30?"
 

"Not sure, you should go down to the airport and find out wants going on"
 

"Why can't you tell me what's going on?"
 

"I can only tell you what the system tells me"
 

"Which system?"
 

"What?"
 

"Never mind, I don't believe you bye"
 

I called back and got her again. Hung up immediately.
 

I got in a cab and stupidly told the taxi driver of the situation hoping he would go faster, all that happened was I received free legal advice from an expert. Got to the airport, flight is at 10.30am. Fucking amateurs. The airline is Avianca by the way.
 

We get on the plane, and by the time it takes off its 12pm, which meant that went they came to serve BREAKFAST there were a few issues. For example they couldn't fathom why everyone wanted the hot food, so they ran out by the time it reached us, out of principle to declined the second option which Gav took, cornflakes with no milk. Such a bunch of prats.
 

When breakfast was gone it was time to get on the beers, they ran out of those too. Aviwanker are completely useless. This lack of beer would server as a recurring theme for the whole trip, an omen.

We eventually get to Bogota and we say to ourselves "we are not going to let a few set backs put us off. It's Saturday night, let's get on it." We get to the hotel, quick shower and head out, we get to a bar at 5.50pm - we are very excited to see what South America is all about. We walk in and in a movie style stroll up the bar raise two fingers and say "dos cervezas" whilst wearing big smiles and twinkles in our eyes, then the bar maid says...
 

"No!"
 

"Huh?"
 

"There is a referendum tomorrow so all drinking is banned tonight"
 

"From when?"
 

"6pm until 6am on Monday morning"
 

This conversation happened in Spanish and didn't know how to say "you're having a fucking laugh!" So I just said it in English whilst shrugging shoulders and waving my arms aggresively. We flew out on Monday evening so this was a big fuck up.
 

She sold us some road beers and we wondered the street hoping that we were part of an elaborate prank but depressingly we weren't. Even the shops had comedy gaffer tape across the booze shelf with LEY SECA (dry law) written across it.
 

The next day we did all of the sights, every single one, by about 10am. The only one we missed was the gold museum but that was also closed because of the referendum (why?). We decided to take a trip out to another town where there was a salt mine that had been converted into a cathedral, was pretty decent to be fair. And after we ate some capybara which was delicious, a delicious giant rat.
 

They even served us beers, the waiter said that the vote had closed so fair game. We were so sad when we got back to Bogota and they weren't so liberal.
 

Our final day in Bogota and we did the sights again, except of course the gold museum, that's shut on a Monday - we couldn't even go and do the shit that we didn't even want to do. We were pretty keen to leave Columbia behind us and just get on to Cusco and start the trek, we could party after we had completed that.
 

We had further flight issues which included Gav being checked in and me on standby and befriending a woman who we were sure was a pornstar or something due to a number of clues; could have ben a mid-priced escort also. But we got to cusco, sleeping in Lima airport and renting boots for the trek. Last thing to do before the final nights rest was to eat a gorgeous looking local dish of cold potato tuna, egg and cream made to look like cake, what could go wrong.
 

To be continued ...