Montserrate, Bogotá

My compulsion to familiarize myself with the lay of the land in any new place I go is a lifelong trait. Fortunately for me, Bogotá made it easy. Towering over the west side of downtown Bogotá is the eminence of Montserrate, with a cable car and funicular to the church perched on top. A stroll up the hill out of the city center took me and my couchsurfing friends past some lovely colonial architecture and to the base of the cable car. Unfortunately the funicular wasn't running, although our view of its terrifyingly steep tracks disappearing into an ominous tunnel halfway up the mountain assuaged my disappointment. At the top, clouds obscured the megalopolis and revealed it again in a mesmerizing show and the twilight silhouetted trees on the wild forested slopes to the east, opposite the city's broad valley. Lay of the land: seen. Adventure: begun.