Ipapashiwe: 02.12.2017
The day today can be summed up in one word: shitty!
Before breakfast at the local "Bäckerei Siener", we treated our jungle clothes with insect repellent. It went well because we had a very big room and could spread out all the stuff.
After that, we took the village bus to the next transfer train station in Armenia. Then we got on the long-distance freezer bus to Bogotá. And that's when it started: delayed departure, then for some inexplicable reason we stood around for an hour somewhere. The drive went through countless serpentines through the Colombian Andes. All at a snail's pace 🐌 . Every now and then the bus overtook one of the hundreds of trucks that struggle through the passes here. Constant braking and starting again, so we couldn't sleep or read. And we couldn't take decent photos either because the windows were constantly fogged up.
If you want to find one positive thing about the tour, it was the mountain world. Mountains densely covered with vegetation between 2,000 and 3,000 meters in height, all totally lush green - it looks crazy. And incredibly steep slopes and canyons, occasionally with a burnt-out coach lying in them 👍
The drive was supposed to take 7 hours, in the end it took 10. And mind you, for a ridiculous 270 km. To make matters worse, there was a long break. The already overweight bus driver ate 3 (!) portions of chorizo con papas.
We arrived in Bogotá, of course, it was pitch black - not so great in a city with about 8 million inhabitants, without any plan. At least 1,400 murders still happen here every year - but it's comforting that in 1990 there were still 7,000 😕
So into the taxi to the reserved hostel. Well, according to the navigation system, we could only get to 200 meters away from the destination. Then there was a staircase - and the shed should be somewhere up there. Even I wasn't comfortable with the area, and I'm usually pretty tough. No streetlights, no lights in the windows, and pitch black. A perfect disguise for the equally pitch-black guys hanging around here. The taxi driver even said: You shouldn't dawdle here - Thanks for the tip! We got out of the taxi, up the stairs, didn't find the hostel immediately, quick decision: "Fuck the reservation, get out of here!"
Fortunately, the taxi driver was still there and took us to some other accommodation. It didn't matter anyway, we just wanted to sleep.
After Julia spent 20 minutes arguing with the night porter about the definition of cold, lukewarm, warm, and hot - it had to do with the water in the shower - we could finally sleep. The water didn't get any warmer, but at least Julia was able to negotiate the room price 😂