Thursday, March 16, 2006

Yesterday was our last day in Cartagena. I was a little sad to leave it because I felt like we knew so many people there, though they're all gone now. It was always pretty hot, but yesterday was oustandingly hot. It's ridiculous how hot it was. I looked forward to a nice air-conditioned bus.

We had decided to take an overnight bus to Medellin, and the nice man at the Holiday Hotel had a timetable behind the front desk. For various reasons, we decided to go with the 5:45 p.m. bus. Somehow we got sidetracked eating empanadas and didn't realize how late it was getting. We also discovered and devoured some "papas rellenas" which are deep fried potatoes stuffed with shredded chicken and hard boiled egg and other yummy things. Very, very nice. Bravo.

The empanadas were absolutely delicious but the whole time I was afraid I'd find a mouse dropping. Yes, I'm aware that's unfair, but it's not a logical fear, its a visceral one. Anyway, I didn't find any mouse droppings, but I did find the corner of a plastic bag. I'm always finding stuff in my food, because I'm always looking. Seek and ye shall find, I guess.

I think I started examining my food so closely after the time in Barcelona when I discovered that at some point in my life I had apparently eaten a nine-inch piece of twine. I don't know if it's better to know about all the gross stuff you almost ate, or to be blissfully unaware of the gross stuff you did eat.

Right, so anyway, at 4:30 we leapt up from the remains of our delicious fried snacks and got our bags at the hotel and grabbed a taxi. It was a really long ride to the bus station through parts of Cartagena that we hadn't seen before. There was one busy intersection where an army of vendors wound through the cars selling anything one might want in a car ride: water, snacks, gum, fruit.

I eyed some guy's peanuts as he walked by, which was not a good idea, because then he thought I wanted to buy them and he seemed kind of mad that he'd stopped for nothing. All the vendors seemed really focused and desperate. A kid squeegeed our taxi's windshield and the driver gave him a couple of coins.

There were a few horse-drawn wagons competing for roadspace with the jauntily-painted city busses, taxis, and private cars. The horses seemed very calm. Our driver fiddled with the radio until he came upon a song with the refrain, "Hoy es la noche de sexo, la noche de sexo, la noche de SEXO!" sung in a breathy, faux-sexy man's voice. I found it very embarrassing. Plus, "today is the night of sex" is just sloppy writing. Or maybe I misheard.

So finally we arrived at the terminal. It was shortly after five, so I felt confident that we had plenty of time to catch the 5:45 bus. Unfortunately, when we found the Brasilia window - there are at least a dozen windows for competing bus companies - the woman dragged herself from her cell phone conversation long enough to inform us that there was a bus at 5:00 p.m. and we'd missed it. The next one was at 8:00.

We didn't feel like sitting around for three hours, so we did some looking, and lucked into a Rapido Ochoa bus that was leaving at 5:30. It was a very, very fancy Gleaming Behemoth. There were leg rests that were so fancy that it took me forever to figure out how to use them.

It's a good thing the bus was so nice and fluffy, because the road was incredibly bumpy and would have been a nightmare in a more rickety bus. The scenery was pretty, and then after the sun set we got to watch Jean-Claude Van Damme and the little girl from Growing Pains in Lionheart. What a stupid movie.

The air-conditioning, which had been such a welcome relief from Cartagena's heat, turned maniacal as the hours passed. I was wearing my fleece, which I'll never get on a bus without, and was still shivering. Poor Michael, who'd insisted he'd be fine, was not fine. When we finally had a rest stop, he had to get the ayudante to open the luggage hold and let him pull his Capilene shirt out of his backpack.

There was complimentary tinto available at the rest stop, courtesy of Ochoa. Tinto is a Colombian thing - teeny cups of black coffee. Much as I'm moved by the word "free," and on that rolling icicle, by the word "hot," I had to decline. Black coffee is the last thing I want at the beginning of an overnight bus ride. I might as well have had it though, because despite the extreme comfort of the bus, it was so cold that we couldn't fully relax.

And it wasn't just us. I'm used to being the only cold one in a room and I just shrug and put on a sweater. But it was chilly outside and the poor Colombians on the bus were freezing too. Those who were lucky enough to have jackets were wearing them and everyone else had draped themselves with whatever they had in their bags. Extra shirts, towels, whatever. The old woman behind me was the only comfortable one. She came prepared with a pillow and thick blanket and had her feet wedged firmly into my back. But everyone else was freezing.

Between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. we didn't move. I have no idea why we didn't move, or where we were. Everyone had their curtains closed except Michael and me. The partition and door between the passenger part of the bus and the driver's cabin blocked our view of the windshield. So I could only see out our one window, which gave a closeup view of a banana tree with a light shining on it; not very helpful in determining what was going on.

The lack of bumping around and sliding all over the seats should have made it easier for me to sleep, but I kept wondering why we were stopped and when we'd get going again. Plus I read that if you're in the early stages of hypothermia, you shouldn't go to sleep or you'll freeze to death.

Michael said later that when we started moving again, he caught a glimpse of a curve in the road and saw that we were part of a caravan of at least fifty busses. So who knows what that was about. The guy who sold us the tickets said it was a twelve hour bus ride but it turned out to be a fifteen hour ride. So probably the stop wasn't scheduled? I really don't know.

Finally we arrived in Medellin. It was a cool morning, but warmer than the bus had been. I was glad to be in Medellin, if only because I love to say the word. Meh-deh-yeen, it sounds so pretty. Michael and I had a frustrating half-hour trying to negotiate with each other whether we'd stop for coffee and a pastry at one of the bus station's many eateries before heading into town, and if so where, and then finding that our chosen spot only sold empanadas and nothing sweet and should we try the other place, but that place is so dark, but we don't know if this place has real coffee, and then Michael proclaimed that the whole idea was dead, so we got in a cab.

Medellin's cabs have meters, the first we've seen on the entire trip. Theoretically the taxi meter is a great idea. It's not so great when the driver doesn't understand where you want to go and you can't show him a map because your map is a useless crappy photocopy that you're still irritated about.

We had a real communication problem with our driver. He was perfectly nice and seemed to want to accommodate us, but we couldn't understand a word he was saying, and he didn't seem to be able to understand us either. I think Colombian Spanish is a bit different from what we know. Which sucks because we've been making such great progress in speaking and now it's like we're back in Tijuana again.

We got out at the Parque Bolivar because the meter was ticking and we didn't want to drive in circles forever. We couldn't find the hotel we wanted, but a newspaper seller noted our backpacks and woeful looks and recommended the Hotel Plaza, right across the street from the park. His repeated assurances that it was very nice made us afraid it would be pricey, but a room with bathroom, cable TV, a view of the park, and a weirdly small double bed cost us $17,000 Colombian pesos, or $7 USD. Thanks, newspaper guy.

HOURS ON THE BUS: 204

 

Post a comment:

Name:
Email:
URL:
A cow says:
Comment: (HTML is allowed)

We passed this army tank thingie on our way to the centro in Medellin.

Motorcycle to Medellin.

Medellin bus.

Medellin.

Streets of Medellin, Colombia.

This is a photo of our pillows (sans cases) from back in Cartagena. Not since Charlotte have we slept on a decent pillow. Just a little mini-rant. I love traveling. (I took this photo, btw. Michael is tired of shooting gum and pillows and things for me.)