I'd rather live my whole life knowing that I'm not perfect, than spending my life pretending to be. — Marilyn Monroe
Saturday, March 2, 2012 (DAY 363)
Waking up at 8am, this cold weather is a welcomed change from the consistent heat of San Juan and the first time in months that I am not covered in sheets drenched in sweat. Dreading a bone-chilling cold shower I am pleasantly surprised with the luxurious hot shower at Croc’s hostel. Since this is my first spa-like moment in months I enjoy every minute of water temperatures that are above 50 degrees. It’s funny how the simple things in life, regardless of travel, can make your day. Returning to the top floor of our dorm room and excited to hit the road it is a bit of a struggle to drag Char out of her top bunk and begin the arduous task of repacking our backpacks for the long 12-hour bus ride to Cali. Since we have a bit of time before our 2:15pm departure, we decide to grab some brekkie at a local bakery and take a short work through the winding cobblestone streets of both a country and a city that has a reputation of drug cartels and danger. We find neither, but quite the opposite. Smiles from local merchants and passerby’s on the narrow sidewalks, I’ve quickly come to find that Colombians are some of the friendliest people I have yet to experience.
Waking up at 8am, this cold weather is a welcomed change from the consistent heat of San Juan and the first time in months that I am not covered in sheets drenched in sweat. Dreading a bone-chilling cold shower I am pleasantly surprised with the luxurious hot shower at Croc’s hostel. Since this is my first spa-like moment in months I enjoy every minute of water temperatures that are above 50 degrees. It’s funny how the simple things in life, regardless of travel, can make your day. Returning to the top floor of our dorm room and excited to hit the road it is a bit of a struggle to drag Char out of her top bunk and begin the arduous task of repacking our backpacks for the long 12-hour bus ride to Cali. Since we have a bit of time before our 2:15pm departure, we decide to grab some brekkie at a local bakery and take a short work through the winding cobblestone streets of both a country and a city that has a reputation of drug cartels and danger. We find neither, but quite the opposite. Smiles from local merchants and passerby’s on the narrow sidewalks, I’ve quickly come to find that Colombians are some of the friendliest people I have yet to experience.
Boarding a large charter bus–equivalent to a Greyhound bus in the States, which is something entirely foreign to me from the old cramped school buses of Central America that I’ve become accustomed to for the past year, we quickly realize that only half of the bus is occupied. Since we have our choice of entire open rows of seats we begin by selecting seats across the aisle from one another. Settling in with the intention to get some sleep on my longest bus ride thus far, after about an hour we look at one another and realize this isn’t going to happen as the bus is winding back and forth through curved mountain roads as we descend to lower elevations. Moving to sit next to one another we began recounting our stories from Belize and I don’t think we stopped laughing for hours. This was by far one of the funniest bus rides either of us has experienced and I’m sure that since we were the only two backpackers on this practically empty bus we were the stereotypical annoying patrons.
462km (287 miles) and what should have been a 7-hour bus ride, I've continued to realize that specific times and schedules are irrelevant when it comes to transportation in Latin America. For me this just adds to the adventure and chaos. You can either laugh at the situation or become angry, which will get you no where. Just learn to embrace the fact that you are no longer in the States were time is money, but life is a journey, and often in these cases a journey with many detours. And while I am used to local buses that are no less than 10-hours to your destination typically in Central America, because of the enormity of South America I knew that even after 12-hours on the bus from Bogota to Cali we were still at least 14 hours to the border of Ecuador.
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