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Buenas!,
Don´t worry parents - we have left Colombia... with no kidnappings or
drug busts! We´re now spending our third day in Ecuador...
Colombia was amazing, with great people and scenery. We flew from
Santa Marta to Bogota, the capital city. Bogota is a very cool, buzzy
city. Where we were staying there was a big student population, and
in the centre was the first time in a while that we´d seen a lot of
people in suits. Very busy city with lots going on. But it was
cold! Like England cold, which we didn´t like, especially after forty
degrees on the Caribbean coast. Bogota is also the third highest
capital city in the world (and Sar´s just told me that the city we´re
in at the moment, Quito, comes in second place) so getting to Bogota
the day after diving 12m under water kinda messed my ears up a bit.
Like the rest of our tour of Colombia we only had a couple of days in
Bogota as we are trying to get down to Peru to start a teaching job
for May. We managed to take a cable car to get a spectacular view of
the city and then we made our way to Medellin by bus. At the bus
station there are touts trying to sell you their company´s services..
and they get very excited and kind of aggressive, and two of them got
a bit too excited and had a punch up in the middle of the terminal!
Very funny, and slightly alarming. We were only in Medellin for a day
so unfortunately we didn´t have much time to party, which is the main
reason people go there. While in the hostel we over heard people
saying they hadn´t actually left the hostel in a week other than to go
to bars. From Medellin we took another bus to the coffee zone, and a
city called Manizales. Here we took a coffee tour as it is a major
coffee place. Sarah LOVES coffee, and walking around with her was
like watching someone at Disneyland! The area was gorgeous, set in
the Andes so surrounded by mountains and coffee-filled countryside...
From there we took a bus through the Andes to a city called Cali
which apparently is the plastic surgery capital of the world and a
salsa mecca... We spent some time in the salsa bars, checking out the
surgery crowd (very amusing) and then took a salsa class which was
sweaty but really fun! We met a couple of Irish guys in the hostel
who were heading towards Ecuador too, so we embarked together on a 2
day bus ride from hell....
The first day we took a bus from Cali to Ipiales, a border town. The
bus ride was 11 hours long, plus the hour that we spent sat in a
petrol station waiting for the tires to be changed! The scenery along
the way was stunning, all Andes mountains and valleys, very cool.
Ipiales was cold and deserted so we spent the night in a dodgy hotel
then hopped on a bus to the border the next day. Once we got into
Ecuador we got on a bus to Quito... allegedly a 4 hour trip... seven
hours later (on a bus with no toilet) we arrived at our
destination...very hungry and cold and in need of a cerveza!
Quito is the capital of Ecuador, set in the Andes so quite beautiful
and very hilly! Yesterday we climbed to the top of the Basillica towers
and got a stunning view of the whole city...
Today we visited the equator... Was an interesting day, there are 2 places which claim to be the ´middle of the Earth´...so we went to both and took pics on the line. We also saw a shrunken human head....very very strange and amazing. Apparently a tribe in the Ecuadorian rainforest still shrinks heads! Weird.
We are now in Quito waiting for our flight to the Galapagos Islands on Tuesday... VERY EXCITING!!!!
Keep a look out for lots of pics being uploaded soon....
Hasta luego,
Davy & Sar
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