the wheels on the bus...

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Hey gang, the theme of todays entry is bus rides.

Officialy last day in Colombia! In the last ten days we have wandered our way through the Andes, stopping at the cities of Medellin, Bogota and Popayan. Bus rides in South America are to say the least, very interesting... after standing inline behind a man and his chicken, we boarded a bus from Cartegena to Medellin. Looking on the map, you would give a conservative figure of 8 hours or so... reading into it you realize your in for a 15 hour marathon.. when it comes to reality it turned into an almost 20 hour marathon, which halfway through one of the windows decided to shatter and leave me feeling as if i had just cannon balled into a lake, a cold one resting at 4000 meters above sea level at that.
Finally arriving at medellin Jess took the executive decision and decided to check into a hotel for our stay, at a bank busting $13 beans a night (we even got a cassete player in our room). Time in medellin was successfully spent haggling at markets, getting a taste for local cuisine and making a complete recovery from my Digestiveskin issues! We spent easter in Medellin... a crazy thing to do when 90 percent of the population is christian... needless to say on many occasions our day was postponed to marching military, crowd surfing Jesus. Aswell on easter, Jess and I decided to talk a mid afternoon stroll and soak in some culture, the stroll ended up in being held at knife (glass shard) and robbed... it wasn,t as traumatic as that sounds... Jess was oblivious to what even happened and was pissed off at me for giving what she thought was a begger money, but yah robbed on easter. Needless to say we were a little on edge for the next couple days, but definitley realised it was a somewhat rare incident, and we´ve spent $10 on worse things (plus it makes for a great story later on in life).
Another 9 hours bus ride through the Andes, and we found ourselves in the thick of things in Colombias capital city, Bogota. To be honest fairly unimpressed, the best thing about the city was our hostel. We met up with some really interesting people, and on our last night went out for some good eats and cold Cervezas aith two Dutch and an Isralie.
Once again cathing up to speed brings us to the City of Popayan. A favorite of mine thus far. Stunning streets, and old town.. which is very untouched by tourism as most people opt our for the near by and much more modern Cali. We have done the usual city walking tours, and on our second day decided to make a trek up nearby Volcano Purace. this involved yet another bus ride (of which we were tossed on the wrong bus, heading the oppostie direction for two hours, where we then caught a ride in a jeep packed to the tits of locals, none spoke english) After finally arriving at the starting point for our trek, it was to late to start so we stayed in the national park headquarters with the nicest family. The next morning we started our trek up the Valcano. The path was non existent at points, having to hunt out yellow painted rocks in order to keep our line. The trail has affirmed in our minds we have really seen colombia.. taking us through multi colored farmers field, rolling hills, mind bending valleys and rocky mountain tops. 5 hours later we found ourselves 100M from the top, soaking wet in cold rain, and mountain top winds, where we decided enough was enough and turned around for our decent. We hadn{t seen a sole in the 5 hours and didn't feel like pulling a les stroud and Fight of hypothermia ontop a Colombian Volcano.
For the most part that should catch you all up to speed, t-minus 1 hour to the start of another 10-18 hour bus ride.

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