After a few teething problems with my flights in South America so far, you can imagine my surprise when I found myself not only making my connection in Bogota when en route from Quito to Medellin, but actually being EARLY.
(I also have to add one more whinge that it´s particularly galling that while every connection that I´ve missed has been magically, perfectly on time in departing, the resulting flight that I've been put on 4 hours later has always been a good 30 minutes late. Someone´s getting a laugh out of that.)
Anyway, back to my feeling of smugness at making my connecting flight for once.
Basically I congratulated myself too soon, I should have known that Bogota airport and it's ground staff would have the last laugh. I arrived in Medellin, my bag did not. Having consulted with the lost luggage office, they assured me that my bag had been put on the next flight and that I just needed to wait in the baggage hall for 40 minutes for the next flight from Bogota to arrive. So I waited. The next flight arrived, happy smiling travellers collected their luggage. I didn't.
Another 45 minutes of sitting on the floor (quite literally cold and alone) and the next flight arrived WITH my backpack, thank god. I really wasn't about to leave the airport and just "trust" that my backpack would be delivered to the hostel (at least not before I left Medellin the following week anyway).
OK rant over. Luckily Medellin is a beautiful city, great climate, beautiful parks and efficient infrastructure - quite probably thanks to Pablo Escobar and the millions in 'charitable donations' he made, either through building sports stadiums, improving the public transport or sponsoring childrens sports teams. He's still seen as a bit of a Robin Hood figure, despite the multiple kidnappings, murders and general reign of terror that was Medellin in the 1980's to early 90's.
Part of the efficient infrastructure of Medellin is the huge cable car track that goes from the city way up into the mountains, giving amazing views over the city. The fact that it's just an extension of the Metro and not actually a tourist attraction makes it all the more brilliant. It was built to give the poorer residents of Medellin who live up in the mountains a quick and easy way to get into the city. I perhaps didn't do quite enough research on this beforehand though, as myself and an Australian girl that I met in the hostel decided to get out at the top, and after a short steep descent we thought we might as well just walk down to the next cable car stop (too lazy to walk back up, basically).
Well it turns out we were walking through the favelas, the poorest area in Medellin and we got a LOT of stares as we wound our way down keeping the cable car firmly in sight at all times, hoping to not get lost. The lively conversation we had been having slowly tapered off until we were both so nervous that we just stopped talking to each other.....it was all a bit tense and probably NOT the wisest thing I've done so far (sorry Mum, but as you said, you like reading about these things AFTER they happen, as then you know I've survived them!)
The walk down to the next stop probably only took 15 minutes in total but it felt like a loooong time, especially when you are wondering if the reason everyone is staring at you is purely due to curiosity because you are clearly out of place OR because they are sizing you up as a potential target and just deciding which of the stupid white girls to rob/kidnap/(insert undesirable fate here) first......The relief that we both felt when we turned around the corner to see the cable car station was fairly overwhelming! Oops, lesson learned...
