A rendezvous with columbia

I knew from way back that I had a rendezvous with columbia. How right I was. It is amazing here. I liked venezuela, but I like columbia more...it´s crazier yet more fun...well the main thing is the women are amazingly beautiful, it´s all true what they told me. I was not at all disappointed, but quite gratified. And it´s true what the columbian girls told me in panama city, they like americans, and americans like them!

So, I met up with a few british guys and we decided to travel together. It´s great travelling with them, takes some of the stress and madness off. For a while I was getting worn down and thinking of quitting this trip, now I believe I may be able to stick it thru, all the way to you guys in Rio! What´s up down there! It´s a long way, I reckon 4-6 months I´ll be there. THen I can chill a while, which will be nice after all this moving. After that I´ll hit uruguay and argentina. I´m going to go, ecuador, peru, bolivia, paraguay, brazil. That´s the hope.

I got my columbia passport stamp...it´s actually not that cool, it´s just printed from a ghetto machine. What´d you expect?

On the bus to the border, we got a mini bus. Every check where there were guards or police, our bus stopped and the assistant guy on it would bribe the officials. Pretty soon, we were to 3 bribes. Wow, this is something else, we thought. But after a while, we lost count, it was well over 10. They needed more and more pollo, or chicken as they called the bribes I think. The bribes got up to 10000 20000, which is about ten bucks. They got higher and higher. Us gringos weren´t paying them. It was a family that was trying to get across illegally, I believe. So, at one point, that is customs, we dropped off people, they get in this other car, and we take off without them on the bus. Later we picked them up on the other side. It was classic. The ten people other than us on the bus were pretty much sneaking in!

Finally we cross the border. My first view of columbia was a brown field of multicolored plastic bags, all covering it. Then, driving along the road, tons of these bags. Also, many goats along the side of the road. Plus, these dirt roads that went off who knows where! And then little dirt foot paths going off into some scrubby trees...hello columbia. Then we arrived, and were all quite astounded by the girls.

We pretty much chilled out because we hadn´´t slept much on the overnight bus. We had a nap. First, a nice meal with a columbian beer. AH! Our plan was to go and celebrate our first day in columbia. We had a nap, then met for dinner. I got a huge plate of chicken breasts, fries, and rice. I was stuffed! Then, we saw these three columbian girls enter. They were very beautiful, and I think my friends were a bit intimidated...but I just started talking to them. We all joined them, and had a chat for a while. They told us the best club, and said maybe we´ll meet them there.

Later we went to the club, and it was just like a big house party. I started dancing with a columbian girl, and we danced a lot. It was so hot in there, I got all sweaty. I saw a few old friends from honduras and belize that I hadn´t seen for ages. It was a real good time. I hadn´t had that much fun going out for a while...

Anyway, here I am in columbia. I´m really happy that I made it, and I think it will give me strength to travel on and complete my trip. I hope so.

Peace!
Colin

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