B O G O T Á - C O L O M B I A
been there twice already. arrived in the city a month ago, taxi from the airport to the candelaria - hostel sue. reunion with the lovely sherri (my canadian friend I traveled central with last year) - brought a bottle of flor de caña duty free from san jose airport. homemade dinner and a weekend of house party, museo del oro (inspired to take some jewelry courses), donación botero, zigzagging the stairs to monserrate, cable car down, local bars, introduction to aguardiente, wandering the city. second time around wandered, lots of movietime (rain was raining on my parade), MAMBO (museo del arte moderno bogota), transmilenio experience to the huge mall, another house party. it was all good in the hood but after a total of 16 days in the city needed to get the F out of there. bogota - I will return in some weeks. but I escaped to the bus terminal in an overpriced taxi to wait two hours to board my 24 hour bus ride to the border town of ipiales. one $1500COP colectivo ride later, smooth frontera crossing with an extensive search of everything I have with me by the policia of ecuador (things of concern: my film canister of spice, my sleeping pills, and an animated gesture when he came across my pocket knife) another colectivo (we’re in dollars now - $.75) to the bus terminal, a supposed to be five but ended up six hour bus ride ($4.50) to quito, another overpriced taxi to la mariscal (gringolandia) and here I am - quito! back to the buses - the scenery was incredible as we inched toward ecuador - narrow roads carved out of the side of mountains with incredible valleys and canyons (?) below, clouds hovering above and below us - breathtaking - 35 hours of overland travel? completely worth it.
