We had a couple of nights in Bogota before the flight that we’d booked to Quito, Ecuador. We got back to our hotel and the staff were all pleased to see us. In many ways it is the closest to a homecoming that we’ll get in the next 6 months so it was nice to back somewhere that we knew. Having had a brief taste of home with our Indian food in Salento and still craving spice, we had dinner that evening at an Indian in Usaquen. Although it was not a cheap meal it was as good as a curry back home and a welcome change!
Hi all, the below happened about three weeks ago. In the intervening time we’ve made it to Ecuador, walked the Quilotoa loop and started our four week Spanish course. Unfortunately a combination of poor Internet and a lack of time have made getting things published quite difficult. I’m actually writing this now from a hammock in the middle of the Ecuadorian rainforest where the nearest internet access is a 4km walk away in the nearest town! Anyway hopefully I’ll be able to publish this soon as I have a huge post on the Quilotoa loop nearly ready to publish after this one! In the meantime the story continues with us leaving Cartagena in Colombia…
The flight to Pereira was delayed by an hour but otherwise uneventful. Once we arrived in Pereira we had to decide whether to catch a taxi straight to Salento or to get a taxi to the bus station followed by a local bus. There were only three buses a day and every source of bus times had contradicted each other so we knew that there may be a long wait for a bus. We were just debating what to do when an English couple, looking equally confused asked us if we wanted to share a taxi to the bus station. We mentioned that we were considering a direct taxi and they immediately jumped at the chance, cutting our cost in half! We’d pre-booked a hostel, El Ciudad de Segorbe, for our stay in Salento but the other guys hadn’t so once we arrived they headed off to look at the options. Twenty minutes later they arrived at our place and checked in after us. The guy who checked us in spoke perfect English and quickly gave us a full brief on what we should do in Salento.
Our journey to Cartagena was on a tourist transfer bus that picked us up from La Brisa Loca, made a couple of quick stops then headed to Cartagena. Looking out of our windows on the journey we saw our first taste of poor rural Colombia. There were miles and miles of simple, often unfinished, terracotta brick or concrete box houses with corrugated tin roofs on small, sometimes rubbish strewn, plots opening onto unpaved roads. Some of these were more elaborate, plastered and painted at the front, with additional sections, front walls and gardens, but many were basic 5m by 3m boxes that had obviously been put up purely to provide a roof over the owners heads.
The view from Castillo San Felipe de Barajas
In many ways rural Colombia reminded me of Africa, and shows that in a country that in many ways seems very developed that there is still a population living in very real poverty and a high level of wealth inequality between the cities and the countryside. At the other end of the spectrum Colombia’s cities have been a surprise, offering a similar variety of quality products and services that you would find in any European city. From the food we’ve eaten, especially in the more locally orientated restaurants in Bogota, it is clear that Colombia has a large and culturally astute middle class. On one of our first days in Bogota an old Colombian lady had told us (when we told her where we came from) that Europe was the first world and that Colombia was a third world country. We were puzzled by this comment at the time but while we still don’t necessarily agree with her, we can at least start to see where she was coming from.
We arrived in Cartagena from the east which took us past the airport and pretty much straight into the historic centre. We were dropped off at El Genoves, our hostel for the first night.
