By Bus from Bogota to Cali (January 2014)

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Again we woke early, this time to catch the 6:30am bus to Cali. The journey of nearly 500 kilometres was scheduled for 8 to 9 hours (in actually it took 12 hours). It wasn’t quite as bone-jarring as the bus from Medellin to Bogota – or perhaps are bones are getting used to the jarring! The scenery in the mountains was equally spectacular – long vistas of shades of green, beautiful mountains and very deep ravines, plantain and banana plantations stretching up the hillsides, fields of cocoa plants and sugar canes. Clusters of small houses, a few shops and usually a couple of places to eat. At the summit of one of the mountains a small hand-painted sign in front of a small house stated ‘Alaska’. Along one of the steepest and most-twisting of the mountain roads another hand-painted sign on a concrete balustrade offered what I translated as ‘automotive repair services’ with a phone number. We checked into the very funky Colours Hotel. It is located in a rundown area of factory buildings and is not very pleasant at night. The bed is comfortable but the pillow very lumpy. It didn’t matter – we slept like the proverbial logs.

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