Post 74: The Road to El Capital del Republica y Mas

Fellow adventurers,

We are here in Bogota, and the rain seems never-ending. We planned to come to the northern part of the continent first because of our hope to see Salto Angel at its finest, so I suppose we can not complain.

Yesterday was a long one, mostly spent on a bus. We made our way from Salento to Armenia, then caught another bus which was supposed to have us to the capital Bogota by sundown, but unfortunately we did not end up making it in until well after dark. The roads along the way were littered with delays due to mudslides. We sat for 2 hours along a mountainside road waiting for our turn to descend down. When we finally arrived at the bottom of the road, half of it had been washed away by the rain and mud. I have been told many of the people in the Andean regions of Colombia live in absolute fear during the rainy season, now I understand why.  Many of them live and sustain off the steep slopes.

Today we went to an early lunch with some Australians from our hostel who brought us to a local spot where they had eaten a meal for a measly 4K (2 bucks!). It was good enough to fill our stomachs after not having eaten a full meal in over a day. Afterwards we went up another cable car to the mountaintop overlooking the city, the Cerro de Monserrate. The view was nice, and we watched many clouds form and pour over the mountains towards us. As we departed, the rains picked up and we ended up waiting for a good while until it stopped before heading back through La Candalaria. We decided to stop and try some beer from a local brewery. What a treat.

We depart tomorrow afternoon around one in the afternoon for Quito, Ecuador. The third country of nine. We will only be spending about 10 days there, and are pretty unsure of what we will be doing after the sites around the capital. Our next objective after departing Quito is to make it to Piura, Peru by the 11th of December, but between then we haven't yet decided. Though I have really enjoyed Colombia, I am looking forward to moving on.

Gavin (y June)