“No rules” were the words our friendly taxi
driver Giovanni used to describe traffic in Colombia. We were on our
way from the hotel to the bus terminal yesterday, and even in
non-rush-hour traffic driving was a challenge. I wish I had had a
camera to capture the moment when three vehicles – one of them our
taxi – were locked in a battle to determine who would get to thread
into the flow of traffic first. It seems that it will always fall to
the most reckless, inconsiderate of the drivers.
Giovanni, who is employed by “Hotel
Aloft”, spoke excellent English and took pride in advertising his
city and his country (and probably overcharged us heftily). He, at
least, knew where to find the bus terminal: the employees at the
hotel had no idea where it was, nor why anyone would choose to go
from Bogotá to Quito by
bus if they could go by plane. “Good luck”, the bartender had
wished us the night before, rubbing his behind.
'Good luck' – those words echoed in
our minds, not reassuringly, when we got back to our room and looked
at the available options one more time. Some of the contributions in
the travel forums we had consulted were hair-raising, definitely
warning against embarking on this trip. We started to doubt the
wisdom of our decision, knowing we still could take
the easy way out and book a flight. But then I found another
set of contributions, these written as recently as last year,
compared to the dark, ominous ones from 2007 and 2008. Newer reviews
left no doubt that the situation has
improved enormously, and a similar sentiment is expressed in the
Lonely Planet, who calls Colombia the “Comeback Kid” in its
newest edition, safer than its neighbouring countries. Well, then, we
would do what we had set out to do, with the one precaution of
avoiding to travel the stretch from Popayan to Pasto by night.
Giovanni
had dropped us off at the entrance to the part of the terminal that
serves southern Colombian destinations, but we were unsure which bus
company to approach and decided to enquire at the 'Tourist
Information' in the terminal. We found a very eager employee who did,
however, not speak a word of English. He dropped everything he was
doing and waved us to follow him, making sure that we landed in front
of the right window at the 'Bolivariano' bus company. Here, too, we
had to dig into our rudimentary Spanish, but managed to get across
what we wanted: two tickets to Pasto, mid-afternoon. For both of us
together it cost 192,000 Colombian Pesos – just over $50 per person
for a 22-hour ride.
We
checked our heavy backpack – containing all of our clothes and a
few other essentials – at a luggage storage service, to be unencumbered for
the three remaining hours before the departure of the bus, and went
for a stroll in the surroundings of the terminal. It is not the most
beautiful part of town – bus terminals rarely can be found there –
but the business district was close by, and business buildings and
shopping centres didn't look much different than at home. We walked
slowly, noticing once again a slight impediment from the altitude
which dissipated soon enough.
Hungry,
we had started to look for a restaurant, not quite sure what we
wanted to eat. We had waved off one guy already who had wanted to
entice us to come to a small restaurant, and had stopped in front of
another, where we tried to make sense of the menu. The manager must
have noticed our indecision, came out and told us that the meal of the day was a
Colombian specialty: Sopa de Mondongo. Soup
– that sounded good. What else did the meal entail? Oh, rice, fried
plantain, avocado, and a fruit juice. Sure, we'd try it: we wanted
to get to know Colombia, after all, and its food is most certainly a part of it.
The
restaurant was tiny, four tables along the wall with two chairs
facing each other, with hardly enough room to use fork and knife, and
a few seats at the counter. Our soup arrived right away, nice and
hot, but with, we thought, a slight burnt smell to it. Johann tried
first: yes, it tasted a bit burnt, too – didn't I think so as well?
Hmmm, yes, it did. There were potatoes, peas, carrots, and something
we couldn't quite identify at first, not looking like anything either
of us had ever eaten before. Bravely, we dug in, sticking with the
parts of the soup we knew, carefully tasting a piece of the unknown
thin, pale slices that had a slightly ridged appearance. When the
waitress came by to bring us the rest of the meal I asked her about
the meat. I could see that she tried to suppress a smile. All I
understood was 'vaca' – cow – and her gesture, pointing to her
stomach. Great! We were eating tripe soup on the very first day of
our stay, about to embark on a 22 hour bus ride! Not convinced of the
fact that this was indeed a delicacy we ate as much of the rest of
the soup as we could, leaving most of the sliced cow stomach behind.
Maybe one has to grow up with it to truly appreciate it. The rice,
avocado, fried plantain and arepas (fried
corn cakes) were just fine, and the juice – mango with watermelon,
as far as we could determine – was delicious.
It's
hard to imagine that anything will make us sick now after this
experience, and while we will use the necessary precautions like
washing our hands frequently and not drinking tap water (though it's
deemed to be safe in the big cities in Colombia) we will not be
paranoid – but neither will we eat Morongo soup again!
After
21 hours on the bus we are now in Pasto and will leave for Ipiales
tomorrow morning. From there it is only a short distance to the
border to Ecuador, and we hope to be in Quito by tomorrow night.
The
bus ride, so far, has been the adventure it promised to be, and I
will write about it once we have arrived in Quito.
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