I had deliberately left Colombia as my "last" South American country to visit as everyone I knew that had been couldn't stop raving about how it was their favourite country.
For me, Colombia´s countryside had always been synonymous with every film Id seen growing up based in "South America" - everything from the 1980s classic Romancing the Stone to the 1990s Harrison Ford film Clear and Present Danger and finally the more recent Russell Crowe film Proof of Life. I was therefore über excited to be going to this huge film set which I had seen so much of.
Our journey there began from Quito in Ecuador where we paid $5 (why isn't England this cheap when it comes to travelling?) for a bus to travel the five hours to the Colombian border. Crossing the border was actually relatively straightforward, although Im glad I was travelling with two guys as we had to take a couple of taxis and as much as I am happy travelling solo I think I would have been an easy target with my human sized backpack.
The scenery before and after the border crossing was immense. Luscious green massive rolling hills shrouded in mist that were like a super sized jumped up version of Greendale where the Children's TV character Postman Pat lives. There wasn't one hill that hadn't been cultivated to grow crops which made the view resemble a giant patchwork quilt.
During our journey our bus was stopped a total of three times by the local police - a regular occurrence we later found out. Each time they would search the luggage compartment of the bus and check our passports. One time they even went so far as taking our passports off us which we were not pleased about. It turned out that the policeman who took them was a rookie and couldn't see the Colombian visa stamp in our passports so had to show his boss?! He must have been blind as the stamps were clearly visible to all...
Our first stop in Colombia was a town called Pasto which for some reason I could never remember the name of - I kept calling it Paxo, Patso, Pasty etc. The town itself was pretty non de script but seeing as it was just a stop over we didn't mind.
The next morning, we were woken up by a loud smash outside out hotel window. Two cars had crashed into each other. I wouldn't have minded but it seemed to have set the tone for the day as our taxi to the bus terminal was also involved in a near miss. Basically a bus pulled out just as our taxi was passing and literally missed my side of the car by inches. I got out the car shaking but it certainly did the trick of waking me up!
Our bus journey to our next destination Cali was also fraught with near misses due to our driver having a death wish. He was overtaking at every corner which as we were sat at the front of the bus was a view none of us wanted to see! This reckless driving combined with the fact that a lot of the journey was along roads that mirrored the death roads in Bolivia (vertiginous sheer drops with no barriers) meant it wasn't the most pleasant of journeys. Thankfully (?) we had the drivers choice of music - power ballads - to calm our nerves (Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart being a favourite amongst us...).
Arriving in Cali was a relief for all of us, not least because it meant our epic bus journey was over but also because the temperature had suddenly jumped up to 30 degrees - it was positively tropiCali! :D The town itself wasn't really much to write home about (hence the lack of piccies) but the area we were in (Barrio San Antonio) was pleasant and we had a cool bar with a roof terrace overlooking the city just up the hill from our hostel. Unfortunately the park opposite, whilst also sharing the panoramic views of the city, didn't leave the greatest impression as we all got bitten by some random insects whilst sat on the grass :(
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| I found this wall more interesting than most of the other parts of Cali |
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| Insect ridden grass in the park |
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| View from the park of Cali |
There was a cinema in the shopping mall, given that none of us had been to the cinema for a fair few months we got a little over excited to see that they were showing films in English! We ended up watching a film called The Hunger Games which I have to say is OK but quite a teen film (Im guessing a bit like the series Twilight but I cant be certain as I have never seen or read the books...) and appeared to attract that type of crowd as throughout the entire film all we heard were "ooohs" and "ahhhs" every time anything remotely scary or romantic happened - Colombian teenagers it would seem are just like every other teenager around the world!
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