Yesterday's Coach Trip from Medellin to Bogota, Columbia (January 2014)

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Coach Trip Medellin to Bogota

We woke at 4:30 and got a taxi to the North Bus Station for our day long coach journey to Bogota. We had reconnoitred the bus station two days ago to ensure we were familiar and comfortable with the set up. Bus and coach travel is the only form of long distance public transport (with the obvious exception of air travel which is quite expensive here). The North bus station is massive, with buses and coaches going in all directions, from local buses to the hillside favelas to long distance coaches to Brazil. There are three companies who ply the Medellin-Bogata route, each with 6 to 10 coaches per day. We had done a little bit of web research and prepared our hoped-for itinerary in writing. We stopped first at Empressa Arauca and presented our request: 2^nd January, first bus, to Bogota, two persons, accept credit cards? The attendant there confimed: yes, 7am, 130,000 Colombian Pesos for two (about 60 US Dollars), yes on credit cards. We went to the next window, Coonorte, and received the reply: yes, 6 am, 130k, cash only. The third company, Boliviariana, quoted: yes, 11:30 am, 140k, accept credit cards. Boliviariana was Joan’s choice before finding out its first bus was too late so we went back to the Empressa window and asked to make a reservation and were told it was not necessary, just turn up at 6 am with you suitcases and credit card.

And we were at the bus station at 5:30. The Empressa booth was empty and its scrolling neon sign flashed: Next Bus to Bogota at 10:30 pm! At Coonorte, the 6am bus was sold out and when we tried to ask about a subsequent bus we were waved away. Luckily, Boliviariana had a bus departing for Bogota at 6:40 am, so we paid our money and got the tickets. While waiting for the attendant to process the payment and print the tickets, a young Colombian man waiting behind me said that he spoke English and could translate for me if I needed assistance. I told him of our experience that I have just described above and asked him if this was normal in Colombia: sadly he nodded his head and said that it was.

After he purchased his own ticket he sat down opposite us and we had a chat. He was from a small town on the Caribbean coast in northern Colombia and had just disembarked from a 10 hour journey from his home to Medellin, and he was catching another bus for another 10 hour trip to Bogota to attend an interview at the American Embassy to obtain a visa to enter the States. His English was excellent and I asked him where he learned it as so few young people here have any English. He said about 4 years ago his aunt was dating and engaged to marry an American from California. The Californian came to live in Colombia for a year and our new friend became his interpreter. Previous to this, he had only read and listened to radio and television in English and in a year he became fluent. His aunt and the Californian did not marry, but he received an invitation from the Californian to visit him in America, thus the 20 hour plus journey to the embassy to apply for a visa!

The journey was long, and winding, and bumpy, and twisting ... and took over 13 hours. The scenery, however, was spectacular! Verdant and plush vegetation covered every square inch of every hillside and mountain. The bus trundled up and down and around and over the mountains. There didn’t seem to be any stretch of more than 100 yards that was straight. Every few miles we would pass through a cluster of roadside houses, mostly built of concrete blocks or bricks or those Spanish bricks that are ridged and hollow. The houses had roofs of patchwork corrugated tin. These clusters also usually supported a small shop or roadside stall or auto repair shop. The views over the valleys were magnificent, but I got to take no photos because this wasn’t a tourist bus stopping at scenic view points; it was the local commuter bus and we were the only westerners on it. The ravines were steep and the road narrow in places and cars were passing our bus on blind corners on a regular basis. We stopped twice enroute: once for an hour because of an accident ahead of us, and then about halfway at a restaurant catering for the long distance coaches. When we arrived in Bogota we were exhausted and took a taxi to our apartment in the downtown area of the city, met Flo after a few nervous moments outside the building as she wasn’t answering the doorbell. The taxi driver would not leave us unattended outside the building and summoned a security guard from a neighboring building who telephoned Flo for us. All the locals we meet are very protective of us. Flo was waiting for us and came down to let us in. The doorbell wasn’t working and we couldn’t get through on Joan’s phone. We went upstairs and met Calypso, her kitten, had a brief chat and went immediately to bed, wrecked!

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