It's
starting to scare me a little that danger seems to keep following me
everywhere. It started in the Amazon, when a poisonous snake slithered
in between my legs, then I was held up by men with guns in Guayaquil,
then the neighbours of the house I was staying in (in Guayaquil
also) were robbed by men with guns, and then finally I was in a bus
crash in Quito the other day. The driver accidently fell asleep and
smashed into the median strip, ripping off one fifth of the bus' shell.
I wasn't hurt, but it was strange how the bus was full of people one
minute, and then, when I was the only passenger left, it crashes!!
I
had left Guayaquil for Quito, which cost me $9 and took 7 hours. I was
staying with a guy named Filipe, who is friends with Kahyda (the
woman I stayed with in Guayaquil). When I first met him at her house
a few weeks ago, he was heading off to some sort of political meeting.
I ended up finding out that the meeting consisted of all the
ex-presidents from around Latin America! Filipe was kind enough to show
me around Quito before I took off for Colombia.
Yesterday morning I went to the main terminal to get a $4.50 bus to Tulcan, which is near the Colombian border. I was so happy and quite proud of my Spanish skills after one man in the terminal thought I was from Chile!! The
young guy sitting next to me was really nice, and once we got off the
bus, he helped me exchange money and get a cheap bus across the boarder
instead of a taxi. The line for Colombian immigration was ridiculously
long, but finally I made it into the country. I caught another bus that
was supposed to take me to Cali, but as the guy on the previous
bus warned me, I may not be able to enter Cali after 8pm because of
indigenous protests.
It took
about 8 hours to get to Popayan, and here, everyone on the bus was told
that Cali was blocked and that we wouldn't be able to enter until the
next day. It was about 10pm at night, and so most of the people just
stayed in the bus and slept. Luckily, I had made friends with two
Colombian people named Neyla and Gustavo, who invited me to stay
in Neyla's cousin's house for the night. Everyone was so nice and
welcoming, and I ended up getting a pretty good night's sleep
before the three of us hopped onto another bus the next morning, which
took us to Cali within two hours. In total, the buses from Quito to
Cali cost me 33,000 pesos, which is about $14 USD.
Neyla
and Gustavo, after inviting me to their houses near Cali, helped me to
get in contact with the girl I had arranged to stay with (Yuly), and
told me where to get off the bus to wait for Yuly's mother, who was
going to pick me up. It looked a bit dangerous where I was supposed to
wait, so Gustavo spoke to a group of police officers, and asked them if
I could wait with them for a bit. So there I was, on the side of the
road with a bunch of cops, with no idea where I was, waiting for
someone I didn't know to come and pick me up.
Yuly's
mum arrived with a friend after about 10 minutes of me telling silly
jokes to the police officers, which I had learnt from a friend in
Guayaquil. She took me to her huge house that is near the mountains,
and is surrounded by trees, rivers, and guarding police. I feel totally
safe. Her maid cooked us some lunch, and later, I cuddled with her
black Labrador dog and Siamese cat for a while.
The
house is extremely beautiful here, is filled with interesting and
brightly coloured flowers, and is full of Yuly's mothers paintings. The
floral smell hit me as soon as I walked through the door. Yuly finally
came to the house and was as friendly as ever. She told me a bit about
her life as a phsycologist for children, which was very interesting.
The
next day Yuly showed me around the city of Cali, in which I found quite
a few things very interesting. There are stars painted on the roads
from where pedestrians have been run over and have died... this is a
campaign to remind the people here to be careful when crossing the
roads or when driving. There were young kids at the traffic lights
wacking car tires with wood to check the air levels for money from the
drivers, and I noticed that motor bike riders not only had their
numbers on their bike's plates, but also on the back of their jackets
and helmets.
