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Published: July 18th 2011
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The last few months have been at pretty much the perfect pace. I've spent about the right amount of time in every country that I've travelled to. I've been through six countries in the last three months...Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru. And if I could do it all again, I don't think I'd do it differently. However me being me, my trip plan has a total of 17 countries in it and this now leaves me with 11 countries to do in the next 3 months which as you can imagine means I'm going to be whizzing through a lot of them. South America is a massive continent and although I've taken a few of flights, I've still managed to rack up 300 hours on buses which equates to a grand total of 12.5 days of my life!! At first I loved the down time on the bus, but I'm quickly going off them, especially when you're travelling on windy, bumpy roads.
After leaving the girls in Lima, I was a mission to get to Columbia as fast as possible to see the country I've heard so much about. Unfortunately, even though it's improved massively in the last 5-6
years, it is still very much tainted by its past and a lot of travellers don't make it this far, which means that there is very little information out there to work out how to do it. Before I set off, I did my research and it looked like I could make it from Lima to Bogotá in 3 days but unfortunately it turned out to be more like 5 in the end, on a bus!!!
The 26 hour bus ride from Lima, Peru to Guayaquil, Ecuador turned into 28hours, then the hostel I was meant to be staying at was fully booked so I ended up in some rather dodgy hotel near the bus station with massive holes in the toilet doors and no light in the shower. My next bus ride from Guayaquil to Quito (Capital of Ecuador) went from 8 hours to 12 hours after we go stuck in a road accident. I ended up arriving at 1am in the morning and I ended up with the only taxi driver in the world that couldn't read a map, which meant we drove around until we both got fed up and he dropped me off at a
4 star hotel. By this point I was so grateful to get away from him and to be able to speak English to someone, I checked myself in. And boy was it money well spent, it was so nice to have a hot shower, big beds, continental breakfast, spa and gym, helpful staff. I felt a million dollars by the time I left.
One of the hardest parts of this journey were the border crossing, the ones into and out of Ecuador are some of the most dangerous in South America. This was the first time I'd been travelling alone since I'd been away and being female I was naturally slightly apprehensive about what situation I might end up in. Fortunately though, if anything being alone and female actually seems to put you at an advantage. I didn't see a single traveller on any of the buses I went on but the locals insisted on taking care of me at every point. I always had someone chatting to me or directing me somewhere. It was amazing, everyone was so friendly and I felt completely safe. The best part was I hardly spoke a word of English for five days,
just Spanish!
I got a direct bus across the first border which is more expensive and safer but this wasn't possible for the second one so I had to do it like the locals. Another 6 hour bus journey from Quito to Tucan, a taxi, a massive queue on the Ecuadorian side and then with the help of newly found Ecuadorian friends we bribed the passport officers to jump the two hour long queue on the Columbian side. We had to go one at a time to not look too suspicious. It was well worth it for the experience. Only in Columbia!
We got another local bus to the nearest local town. From my experience so far most bus station are miles out of any city, so I promptly booked myself onto another 23 hour bus journey the following day to Bogotá (capital of Columbia) to save me another trip the next day. After another night in a dodgy hotel by the bus station and some interesting street food, I was ready to endure yet another bus journey. The buses were really nice, very comfy and had toilets but cold and blasted out movies and music for the
duration, which meant even my ear plugs couldn't get me to sleep. Some buses in south America have food included and others don't and this one was the latter. Although my ticket said that it included service we only got one stop in 23 hours and by which point I was so hungry I thought I was going to eat my arm off! I was so happy when we finally arrived in Bogotá, sheer god damn determination was the only thing that got me through 5 days of a numb bum and lack of sleep. I guess that's why they call it travelling, not a holiday. Certainly not for the faint hearted. Definitely a moment of growth rather than greatness!
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