I thought that 80000 pesos (about 40 USD/2250 INR) was quite expensive for a bus ride. I reasoned that if I could find a flight for not much more than that figure, I would be better off flying. So I searched for an internet centre and checked the air fares. When I saw that none of the flights were below 200 USD, I knew that I had no choice but to go by bus. By the time I went back to the Espreso Brasilia counter, I was told that I had missed the 7.30 pm bus by only a few minutes. Tough luck, I thought and bought a ticket on the 8.30 pm bus, and killed the next 1 hour just hanging around the bus terminal.

At about 7.30 am the next morning, our bus stopped and I alighted to take a leak. I was taken aback by a long line of vehicles in front of our bus, stretching out on the road to as far as I could see. I learnt from people around that there had been a major accident up ahead, and that we would be stuck here for a few more hours at least. Just then, I ran into Thom, the Australian guy once again. He was also travelling in the same bus as I was!

Talking to people around, we gathered that there had been a head-on collision between a bus going to Santa Marta and a truck coming in the opposite direction. Both vehicles had caught fire instantaneously and 14 people had been killed on the spot. What sent a chill down my spine was that the bus that met with the accident was the 7.30 pm Espreso Brasilia bus that I had missed the previous evening because I had decided to search for cheap flights.

It is in moments such as this, that one realises how insignificant one really is. One begins to question just how much one really is in control of one’s life. You have no idea how a choice that you make today will affect the future course of events in your life. Looking back, I saw it quite clearly. If I had decided not to have a beer with some of the guys in the hostel, I would not have heard about the Pablo Escobar tour. If I hadn’t gone on the tour, I wouldn’t have spent too much money to bother about cooking lunch myself. If I hadn’t cooked lunch, I wouldn’t need to wash dishes. If I were not washing dishes, I would not have seen that someone else had ignored washing their plates after using them. If I hadn’t spent the extra time washing those plates, I would have reached the bus station well in time to look for cheaper options, and then ultimately taken the ill-fated 7.30 pm bus.
There is a short clip in the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, that beautifully illustrates this, way better than I ever could in a thousand words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvrzATr4gaQ

If I had been among the unfortunate people who did not make it that day; what’s the worst that could happen? Maybe 10 or 20 people would have been very sad, another 50 would have shown their sympathy, and a few hundred would have felt sorry in front of their computer screens. But in the large scheme of things, it would have been an utterly insignificant event. Billions of people have lived and died, and billions more will continue to live and die and the world will still go on. So don’t we owe it to ourselves to live as fully as we possibly can while we can, and to pursue what we desire the most?
I was not on that bus, I was alive, and I was ever more inspired to do what I wanted to do the most – go and experience the world as much as I could!!

Clearing out all the dead bodies (most burnt beyond any hope of recognition) and getting the accident vehicles out of the way would easily take a few more hours. Since there was nothing else to do, I decided to walk ahead and take a look myself. So I took my small bag and started walking. It took me about 20 minutes just to get to the police barricade, which was about 200 metres before the accident spot. Then I got down into the adjoining field and walked past the police line (when you’re a tourist, and you don’t speak the local language, you can take a few liberties and get away with it). The accident had indeed been really horrific. The bus was totally burnt and all that remained of it was the charred skeleton. If I didn’t know it already, it would have been hard for me to guess that the other twisted, melted mass of metal was once the cabin of a truck. Smoke still billowed from the two unfortunate vehicles, and there was the distinct smell of burning rubber and burning flesh.

At the police barricade

All that remained of the ill-fated bus

The still smoldering remains of what was once a truck

After clicking a few pictures, I started walking back to my bus. People from neighbouring villages were making a killing by selling food and drinks to the stranded passengers at obscenely high prices (and why not?). When I got back to where I had started from, I saw that something was amiss. At first I thought I was at a wrong spot, but on closer inspection I realised that the spot was correct – just that my bus was gone, and with it, my entire backpack!

Peaceful countryside

I asked some people around where my bus was, and they gaily informed me that it had turned around and left. I stood there gaping at them, while they found my predicament rather amusing and couldn’t stop grinning from ear-to-ear. It took me a while to gather my thoughts and take stock of the situation. I patted myself for having had the sense to take my small bag along – the one that contained my netbook and my passport. Then I went to another Espreso Brasilia bus and told its driver of my problem. Fortunately, he understood and made a few phone calls. Then he asked me to board his bus, and 3 hours later dropped me off at the bus terminal in Santa Marta. He said that my original bus was on its way, and I had to wait for it exactly at that spot.

Waiting for my bag to arrive

About 45 minutes later, an Espreso Brasilia bus pulled up next to me. It wasn’t the bus I was in earlier, but it had all the passengers of my original bus including Thom. I learnt from them that our bus had turned around and gone to the closest town where everyone was asked to move their luggage to another bus. Thom had been nice enough to move my backpack also, but overlooked another bag that contained gifts I had bought for some of my friends. After the events of the day, the loss of the gifts bag seemed altogether trivial.

Thom & I had made reservations in hostels in different parts of the town, so we said goodbye, and I proceeded towards La Luna hostel. La Luna turned out to be a comfortable and quiet hostel, a welcome change from the noisy party hostels that I’d been staying in, the past few weeks.

p.s: to get an idea of the insignificance of a human being from a size perspective, try this: http://htwins.net/scale2/scale2.swf?bordercolor=white
(might take a while to load on slow connections, but trust me, its worth the wait!)

(This post has been submitted to the Indiblogger “Incredible Stories” contest sponsored by: http://www.mahindraxuv500.com)

A metro station in Medellin

The two backpackers, Ian & Jusgen, were from Canada (and I thought Jusgen bore a strong resemblance to Brendan Fraser). As we were negotiating the taxi fares, a local man came up to us and said that our hostel was within walking distance. Since all of us were in the mood for a morning workout, we thought we’d just walk the alleged 10 minutes to get there. But the walk turned out to be way longer and on a way steeper road than we had anticipated, and even before we got halfway there, the three of us were covered in sweat. To add to our misery, we were led in wrong directions by helpful passers-by with totally good intentions, but totally no clue about the hostel’s whereabouts. Nevertheless, after a really long and tiring walk, we did find it, and settled into our bunks.

Ian & Jusgen just wanted to relax, but I wanted to check out the city a little so I started walking by myself. Before long, a yellow & blue bus caught my attention, so I went up to it to see what it was. It was a bus that would take tourists on a guided tour of the major attractions of Medellin. Since I had nothing better to do, I paid the 10000 pesos and hopped on. The tour began with a round of introductions, and there was an audible collective gasp when I introduced myself as a solo traveller from India.

The Colourful Turibus

The tour was quite good and we saw many nice places all around Medellin. After describing things to the other tourists in Spanish, the tour guide would separately repeat it to me in English, and for that I was very grateful to him. There were also a group of older tourists from Venezuela, who asked me about Sonia Gandhi and whether there were still Maharajas who ruled the country.

One Of Botero's sculptures

I stumbled upon an Indian vegetarian restaurant

Random road in Medellin

Whispering shells

Inside one of the numerous churches

After the city tour, I found a nice cafe that offered free wi-fi, so I got myself a coffee and prepared myself for a long evening of blogging. About 2 productive hours later, one of the staff of the cafe approached me and said something. I didn’t understand her that well, but I assumed that she probably meant that it was time for me to bugger off as I had overstayed my welcome there. So I wrapped up my things, and left. I hadn’t even walked ten paces from the shop, when a man came running up to me, and stopped me. He spoke some English and said that they didn’t want me to leave. They only wanted me to sit at another table as they were preparing the place for some live music. He added that the staff of the cafe were feeling very bad because I might have felt offended. I assured the man that I was planning on going anyway, and I did not mind the reminder at all

Lambretta!!

Casa Kiwi is an awesome hostel (but they could do with friendlier staff), which not only has great outdoor areas where you can hangout with other travellers, but also secluded spots where you can “disappear” if you’d prefer to have some time by yourself. I was exploring it in the evening, when somebody called out, “Googie”. I was pleasantly surprised to see Shastra who I had met in San Agustin about 2 weeks back. We were soon joined by her partner Stuart, and we chatted for a bit. Another old acquaintance I met at Casa Kiwi was Thom, the Aussie traveller who I had met at my hostel in Quito and with whom I had initially made plans of crossing the border into Colombia.

The lobby of Casa Kiwi

The next day I joined Jusgen for the famed Pablo Escobar tour, one of the popular touristy things to do in Medellin (for the uninitiated, Pablo Escobar was a Colombian druglord, one of the most notorious gangsters in history and widely regarded as the richest criminal ever). The tour van picked us up from our hostel, and took us to various places around the city that were frequented by Escobar and his gang members. The tour guide seemed to know quite a bit about the famous gangster, but he couldn’t explain it in English so well. Moreover, instead of just stating the facts, he would introduce his own opinions and judgements. What I found amusing was that he would pepper all his sentences with an English swear word used to accuse a person of copulating with his/her own female parent. When spoken in his Colombian accent, it had a funny poetic quality to it All in all, I thought that the Pablo Escobar tour was just an expensive waste of time.

What was once Escobar's office

The shrine where Escobar's men used to pray

The house where Escobar spent his last days

The roof on which he was shot

Wreckage of old planes used by Escobar to smuggle drugs

Escobar's grave

Botero's depiction of Escobar's killing

In the evening, I said a hasty goodbye to all my new friends at Casa Kiwi and hurried to the bus terminal. I wanted to take the 7.30 pm bus to Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

The Monserrate that towers over Bogota

We took the funicular to the top of the mountain, from where we got spectacular views of the vast city. After clicking pictures and checking out the immaculately clean church and its surroundings, we took a cable car ride back to the bottom.

Taking the funicular to the top

On the way to the church

Flower

Standing over Bogota

The interior of the church

Another mini-church on the lower level

One of the stained glasses inside

The vast city of Bogota from the Monserrate

Church bell

Taking the cable car on the way down

After lunch, I went to check out the Museo del Oro (The Gold Museum) while Barbara went elsewhere. The Museo del Oro contains the largest pre-Hispanic goldwork collection in the world, and after a while one gets overwhelmed by all that gold.

While walking through the museum I spotted a dark room that others were also looking at, but no one was entering. So I did the first thing that came to my mind – I entered it. Others behind me followed, and when about 5 of us were inside the door closed automatically behind us. Before the door had shut completely, I had seen that it was a circular room. But since I had already wandered around a bit, and since it was pitch black inside now, I had no clue where the door was anymore.

For about 15 seconds, nothing happened and I could sense that the two girls who had followed me into the dark room were getting a little panicky. Then suddenly the walls were lit. There was gold everywhere and all of us realised that we were in the middle of a light and sound show! The show was really good, and we enjoyed it for the next 15 minutes or so.

Later in the evening, I met Barbara again and we went to the Bogota weekly couchsurfing meeting. With at least 60 to 70 people, it was easily the biggest crowd I had seen at a weekly CS meeting. Normally in Bangalore, if we get about 30 people, we consider it a good turnout. When I commented on this, the Bogotans said that getting so many people each week was very common!

Couchsurfing weekly meeting

Couchsurfing weekly meeting

After spending a couple of hours with them, I said goodbye to Adriana, Luis and the other friendly Bogotan couchsurfers, and also bade farewell to Barbara. All of them had made my stay in Bogota fun and memorable, but it was time to move on. My next destination was Medellin, a city I was looking forward to visit because of all the great things I had heard about it.

(Many of the pictures in this blog post are courtesy of Barbara)

In my still shaken state, I went to the weekly couchsurfing English language practice meeting and met a lot of the local couchsurfing members, but Barbara was nowhere to be seen. I asked the other guys if she had already left before I came, but nobody remembered seeing any Polish girl. After spending a few hours talking English (finally!), I came back to my hostel and slept.

The next morning, Barbara came to my hostel and found me ordering my things in my dormitory. When I first saw her, my jaw almost dropped to the floor, because she bore a striking resemblance to Jana (later I discovered that it was only from certain angles).

From the hostel, we walked to a crowded corner where her friend from her hostel, a guy called Jose from Argentina, was selling photographs. He was a talented photographer and had travelled to quite a few countries in Latin America clicking pictures. We browsed through some of his stuff, and I promised to buy at least one snap from him. After that, Barbara & I walked around the historical centre of Bogota; spending a lot of time feeding pigeons at the Bolivar square.

With Jose and his photographs

Random street in Bogota

Feeding pigeons in Bolivar Square

After a cheap but tasty lunch of pizza, we walked to the Botero museum, which houses Colombian artist Fernando Botero’s personal collection of work that he presented to the city of Bogota in 2004. Botero has a distinctive style of making everyone and everything obese in his paintings and sculptures.

The large hand that greets you as soon as you step into the Botero museum

One of Botero's "fat people" paintings

Botero's Adam and Eve sculpture

Adriana, an active couchsurfer from Bogota joined us in the museum. Later, we met a few other couchsurfers – Aga from Poland, and Oscar & Luis from Bogota itself. The local guys took us travelers to some really cool secluded parts of the city walking through narrow cobbled streets to a small place that was famous for the local drink chicha. Over bowlfuls of chicha they told us that it is actually illegal to brew this drink, and that the big beer brands have used their clout to have this ban imposed.

Walking around in Bogota

Through narrow, hidden alleyways

Chicha

Later still, we went to Barbara’s hostel to meet Jose the photographer. After talking to him for a bit, I bought some of his pictures, and we went to get a dinner of Arepas. The next plan was to go dancing at some famous nightclub, but since I was quite tired, I said goodbye to them and asked them to carry on.

The young guy was surprised and excited to meet me, the only Indian he had ever seen. Within the limitations of my Spanish, we managed to talk about a few things while waiting for my bus. There were 2 other “touristy” looking people also waiting there, so I asked them if they were going in the same direction as me. It turned out that they were, so the 3 of us decided to share a taxi. I thanked the young policeman, and gave him a 10 Rupee note, which he gladly accepted.

Graffiti somewhere along the way

My companions in the taxi were a girl from France and a local Colombian man. The guy was a theatre artist who came to Bogota often to perform in theatre shows. He was a nice man and voluntarily gave both of us his phone number and asked us to call him if we ran into any trouble while in Bogota. We parted ways in the historical centre of Bogota and I carried on towards my hostel.

The Bajaj Pulsar is one of the most popular motorcycles in Colombia

After checking into my hostel and keeping my bags, I went in search of wi-fi and discovered a cosy little cafe with friendly staff and a really nice ambience. I had been in touch with a girl from Poland called Barbara who was reaching Bogota around the same time as I was. It turned out that she had arrived the previous day and we agreed to meet later in the evening at the weekly couchsurfing language practice meeting.

Traffic in Bogota

The first place looked quite professional, and as usual they were surprised to hear that I was from India. When I showed them my design, they said it was do-able and gave me a quote of 250,000 Colombian pesos along with a 10% off discount coupon.

The second place was much smaller, and had a single artist called Alvaro Calle who had been in the tattooing business for the last 16 years. The guys here were super excited when I showed them my design; and gave me a lot of suggestions on how it could be improved. I was also invited to watch the tattoo that was currently being made. They quoted 300,000 Colombian pesos to make my tattoo. Although this was a much higher price, I decided to get my tattoo made here as I liked these guys.

My design was that of a Buddha, but the head was from one picture and the body was from another. So the next day, the guys at the tattoo shop spent more than an hour simply resizing the head to match the body. When they were happy, they started the tattooing process.

I wanted the head on the left to go on the body on the right

I had heard that getting a tattoo could be a painful process, so I grit my teeth and prepared for the first prick of the needle. But I hardly felt it. However over the next few hours, as Alvaro dug into the skin of my back to put the ink in there and constantly rubbed it to wipe the blood off, the pain increased. Also it hurt in some portions more than in others, but the pain was seldom unbearable. Once in a while, Alvaro would say “cinco minutos” (five minutes), go outside and stand in the middle of the road blinking his eyes. At other times, he would take his bicycle and go for a ride around the block. After close to 7 hours, the tattoo was finally complete.

The final product

I thanked them, paid the money, bought some of the things that were needed to take care of the tattoo and walked back to the hostel. Since I could not easily reach the whole tattoo, Pedro said he would help me rub the moisturizer onto it for the next few days. How long the tattoo will continue to look good will mainly depend on how well I look after it for the next few weeks.

That evening we went to a place called Tin Tin Deo, because we had heard that it really comes alive on Thursday nights. That piece of information was spot-on. Tin Tin Deo was exactly the kind of place I had pictured in my mind when I first thought of a nightclub in South America. There were mostly locals in there, and boy, did they know how to dance!!! I was happy to simply let myself be mesmerised by the incredible leading skills of the guys, and the superbly graceful movements of the ladies.

When all my attempts of finding a replacement adaptor for my laptop were going nowhere, I was getting really worried. After all, what would I do post Cali when even Sarah’s adaptor wouldn’t be there In desperation, I called my hostel in Popayan, and surprise surprise, they had found a laptop power supply, and agreed to send it through some tourist coming to Cali.
(To Vanessa who brought my adaptor from Popayan to Cali: I’m sorry I couldn’t thank you in person, but if you ever read this, please know that I really really appreciate it.)

Although I was there for a week; I did not see the city of Cali at all. All through the day we would be sleeping, and all through the night we would be dancing At other times, we would either be watching football, playing shithead or making a barbecue.

Few things beat lying in a hammock in a garden with a computer

The hostel lobby

After a week, I was ready to leave Cali, but I regret not having had a chance to say goodbye to Pedro when he left. I don’t know when we’ll bump into each other next, hopefully during the 2014 football world cup in Brazil

The hard-to-spot hostel Iguana

Later at night, when the battery of my netbook was running low and I needed to charge, I could not find the power adaptor. I looked everywhere for it, but it was nowhere to be found, and I was beginning to get a little worried. Just then I spotted the exact same model of netbook, and asked its owner – a girl called Sarah from the UK, who had been in Cali for more than 3 weeks already – if I could borrow her adaptor to charge. Not only did she agree, but was also nice enough to keep her adaptor out in the lobby of the hostel so that I could use it for charging whenever I wanted.

Another pleasant surprise was seeing Pedro again at the Iguana. Late at night, just past 1 am, Pedro, Sarah, a few other guys from the hostel and I went out to check out the nightlife in Cali. We didn’t really go to the best places in town but settled for a slightly downmarket option. But it was fun nevertheless, and after an early morning “dinner” at McDonalds, we were back in the hostel at around 6 am.

I was looking forward to a deep slumber late into the day, but some girl was already dozing on my bunk. Someone more adventurous than I may have seen this as an opportunity and cuddled up next to her, but despite being exhausted by sleeplessness I managed to find myself an alternative bed

Roots

Picturesque landscapes along the way

I had reserved a bed in Finco El Maco that Megan & Eddie had recommended, but the hike up to the hostel (which is about 4 kms from the center of town, and up a steep slope) with my backpack almost killed me. Moreover, the dormitory was rather ordinary. I was to learn later that the private rooms in the hostel were totally out-of-this-world; which probably was the reason why Megan & Eddie were raving about this place.

At the hostel, I met a Dutch couple, Cris & Kim and a Aussie-English couple Stuart & Shastra. During our conversations, we learned that Stuart & Shastra had met Ed & Tanya during one of their hikes in Peru, and Shastra was actually planning to volunteer at Katitawa in a few months’ time.

The next morning, Cris, Kim & I joined with a honeymooning Colombian couple for a day-long jeep tour of San Agustin and the surrounding areas. The tour was quite interesting and we checked out the lush countryside, the huge carved stone sculptures and a few waterfalls with a trip to a jaggery making workshop and had a traditional Colombian lunch.

The river Magdalena that gushes through this narrow gorge with tremendous force

Jeep trail

Jaggery making workshop

The jaggery being poured into bricks

One stone statue

Another stone statue

A whole bunch of stone statues

At least one other Indian had come to see the stone statues

With the Colombian couple, Cris and some local kids

I was ready to leave the next morning, and since the Dutch were also headed to Popayan we decided to travel together. But what we hadn’t anticipated was the lack of buses going our way, and that those that would go would be filled to capacity. So finally after a long wait, and some additional camioneta rides between the highway and the center of town, we finally managed to get 3 confirmed seats till Popayan.

Going back on the non-existent road and enduring the second 6 hour bumpy ride in 3 days took its toll on my body and I was quite sick with a slight temperature and a splitting headache by the time I was back in Popayan. But instead of directly hitting the sack, I decided to join a Spanish guy, an Australian girl and a German guy for dinner. This turned out to be a great decision because the wonderful dinner with the 3 other solo travelers (all headed in different directions the next day) did a lot to alleviate my illness.

Walking to the great church

The incredibly beautiful Sanctuario de Las Lajas

The facade of the church

The interior (notice how the mountain itself forms the back wall)

A much better picture of the church

(image courtesy: http://cache2.allpostersimages.com/LRG/20/2097/1CP2D00Z.jpg)

From Ipiales, I went to Pasto; and then the next morning to Popayan. Popayan turned out to be a laid-back town and I spent the whole day just walking around along with a short trek to the top of El Morro.

Youngsters practicing parkour in Popayan

What is parkour?

The statue on top of El Morro

Later in the evening, when I was walking back to my hostel, I heard someone shout “Googie”. I thought I must have misheard something else for “Googie”, for it was very unlikely that my notoriety had reached all the way to Popayan already. But it was “Googie” alright because out popped Pedro from an internet centre. It was really good to see him again, and we spent the next few hours catching up over dinner and a few beers.

Pedro told me about how spectacular it was to see the Tungurahua erupt, an event that I had missed only by a few days. He also told me about how Morgane got drugged in Quito, and was made to withdraw $200 from an ATM without her even realising what she was doing. When we decided to pay up and head back from the lounge bar we were at, we asked the girl behind the bar counter for the check. But she obviously didn’t hear us over the loud music, because in a flash she had opened two more bottles and replaced our empty ones. We assumed that providence wanted us to stay longer, so proceeded to down the two new arrivals.

The Tungurahua eruption that I missed by less than a week

(image courtesy: http://www.elcomercio.com/MediaFiles/ElComercio/a6/a65f4429-81a3-442c-b7e5-fc0c9abfbb40.jpg)

Later Pedro walked me back to my hostel, and we decided to meet up again in Cali if possible, and definitely in Bogota at the end of the month.

Popayan town square by night