Bye Bye Locombia

Well, my wonderful time in Colombia has come to an end. Gotta keep moving. I believe my last actual post left off at my arrival to Bogota.... pronounced Bo-go-ta, not B-goat-ah. No, no, no, no.

Bogota, Bogota, Bogota... I didn't like you that much. Nope, not really! I think this might have been for a couple reasons. First of all, a few people had told me how much they enjoyed Bogota. I can't remember exactly what there reasons were, but I guess they felt pretty comfortable there. So I think my high expectations made the actual thing a little less than great. The other reason I didn't enjoy Bogota was the weather. It is bloody cold in Bogota, COLD! The hot showers were amazing, but the days were cold and grey, cloudy and often rainy too. A combination like that can bring a person down. One thing I did enjoy about Bogota were the Colombians I met. Fabio's friends in Bucamaranga had introduced me to some friends of theirs from Bogota and these friends were nice enough to take me in and show me around. So, I stayed in Bogota long enough to see the sights then I went on my merry way.

Bogota, what is there to see. Well, I think I actually started my stay in Bogota with a day trip out of the city! I went with an Israeli friend of mine to visit the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquira. Wow, this was more spectacular than I had imagined. It just went on and on and on, deeper and farther into the earth. Its hard to describe, I will definately have to post pictures. Basically, you walk for a while through this dark tunel lit by black lights stopping every once in a while to appreciate the displays set up for each Station of the Cross (this one represents Jesus, his mother, and Mary Magdalene). Each display was a beautiful combination of crosses carved from stone, pews to kneel in, and dramatic lighting. Eventually, after continuing down farther you reach what is The Cathedral. Equipt with an alter, pews, and all, this Cathedral holds a mass every Sunday. It was really stunning.

Bogota has lots of little things one can do to keep themselves occupied. For example, museusms. While I was there I visited the Botero Museum, Colombia's most famous artist (he likes to draw things fat), where I saw his paintings and several other paitings from Picasso, Monet, Matisse. It was nice. I also visited the famous Gold Museum. And that is exactly what it was, a museum filled with gold artifacts found around Colombia and some dating back to before the Inca. Hey Mum, you don't like my nose ring? What do you think about this one?

What else did I do? Like Quito, Bogota also has a Teleferico (cable car) going up the side of the mountain with a great view of the city. So, I did that. I did a lot of wandering around. I found a really nice university, wandered around it and even tried to sit in on one of their classes to evaluate my own spanish abilities. The class was something about Conflict and Peace in Colombia, interesting. Unfortunately, the classes were over and the students were into exams.

Ooh, the craziest thing. I met a kinda hippy artisan girl staying at the hostel next to mine and got talking to her about travelling around selling jewellry. Then, I thought I'd ask her where she was from. She said Canada and I said, "oh, me too." Then she asked me what part. I gave my standard response, "Near Toronto". To which she replied, "Hey, me too! Actually, I grew up in Toronto, but I've spent the last 8 years living in Collingwood". Weird. Anyone know a gal named Dev MacDonald? She's only about late 20s. Anyway, it was such a funny coincidence I had to buy something from the Collingwood girl in Bogota (a good way of rationalizing, I think). I also ran into about 7 other people in Bogota whom I had met previously in other parts of Colombia.

Friday morning, I got a 7am bus and headed to the Colombian "desert". A 9 hr bus ride got me down to the city of Neiva. Holy Moses! Was it EVER hot there, I think hotter maybe than Cartagena, at least drier. From Neiva I was crammed into a little van with my huge pack on my lap and driven 45 minutes to the little town of Villavieja. The desert is really just a small area on the outskirts of this town where the earth is a deep red and has been seriously eroded. Oh, and there are cactuses (or cacti), the official sign of desertness and thus the qualifying factor. I hired a really weird guide (we don't need to get into that) and got up at 5am to beat the heat and began my hours walk out to the desert. It was a long day, about 6 hrs of walking in all. We were nearly finished the tour at 9am when we went to his cousin's house (she lives in the desert) to have breakfast: fatty, chewy goat meat, rice, plantain, and beans.. oh, and hot chocolate. Mmmmm. Ew, I hate goat meat. Goat should never be consumed in any way at all.

That afternoon,I got a bus to San Agustin. As usual, the drive was gorgeous and San Agustin was quite nice too. I stayed in a hostel about 1km outside of the town, situated at the top of a canyon looking down (way down) to the Magdalena river. It was really beautiful. Anyway, San Agustin is an archeological town known for the mysterious statues found around the area. There really isn't very much known about the civilization who carved these stones, but they have been well preserved and there are tons of them. I spent a day wandering around having a look at them.

After a couple days in San Agustin, I hopped on another bus that would (eventually) take me back to my beginning point, the lovely city of Popayan. Man, was this ever a bus ride I could do without. This road is notorious for being rough, but I had never imagined the extent. The distance between the two towns is really not that far, but the primativeness of the route makes the trip 6hrs. Ok, so this was the worst part, I had to go pee. I'm sorry if you don't want to hear about it, but it was torturous so I have to tell someone. There were honestly several points were I said to myself, "ok, go and ask the driver to pull over so you can just go on the side of the road....now! Go now!!". Of course I couldn't do it. I had gone a couple times before leaving, but the bumping, up and down, seriously almost being thrown from my seat, vertibrae-fracturing kind of bumping, was too much. I felt like a pregnant woman riding a horse. Then, THEN, it started to rain and little streams of rain water painted my window, making the problem that much unbearable. And then of course we had to pass this huge waterfall. It was ridiculous. Anyway, this story ended happily, the end.
In conclusion, Colombia was fantastic and I can't wait to get back to do it all over again and more.

Here is a wee map of my Colombian circuit. Click on the map to enlarge it so you can actually read the names of places.

The blue and red shaded area is the "demilitarized zone", which basically means that there is not Colombian military or police presence there, purely guerrilla, purely off limits.

The little red and yellow *bam* above Medellin is a bit of news that I neglected to report at the time. You can read about it here. I was in Medellin when it happend. Another incident happened in Bogota while I was in Cali. I guess 23 people were injured when a car was exploded in the parking lot of a military base. Other than that, it was a pretty quiet time while I was there.

Popayan, Cali, Salento, Chinchina, and Manizales

Medellin and Medellin pictures

Parque Tayrona

Cartagena

Mud Volcano and Playa Blanca