On Our Own Path

Written by Bessie on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 in Colombia
Tags: travel philosophy
Feelin' thoughtful

We've been meandering through Latin America for 300 days now, and the time has gone faster than I can believe.  I've had a few different inspirations for a 300th day "reflection", but really, rolling through the day itself is the best snapshot of our recent travel lifestyle.

Bahh, is the Sun up Yet?!?
Unlike most days, we set a pretty aggressive travel schedule for ourselves to visit a town and relocate to another, so, we begrudgingly rolled out of bed at 5:45 am.  We enjoyed a rare bowl of american import cereal, Honey Bunches of Oats, which was also our dinner the night before.  Yumm.  Before 6:30 am, we'd eaten, paid for our room, locked our packs in a storage closet at the hostel, and were headed out the door for the bus station in a light rain.


Well, I Guess We'll Just Sit and Wait.
Not unlike most days, our travel lifestyle often involves a lot of observation.  It's one of the richest (& cheapest) ways to enjoy time in a foreign place: sitting and watching like a fly on the wall. 

Although, today was a bit annoying, as we'd gotten up super early to catch what we thought was a 7am bus, only to get there and find out it left, as usual, about 20 minutes earlier.  So to pass the next hour and a half until the next bus left, I tried not thinking of still being in our warm bed, and we watched the parade of travelers kneel and pray to the statue of Mary near us. 

Who knew Mary in the bus station would recieve so much love?  She's definitely one popular lady with candles and flowers.


Like I Never Imagined.
We got up early in the morning to take an 1.5 hour bus ride to a place that's sort of hard to remember exists with all the modernity in life.  Nestled in the mountains, every Tuesday morning there's a market that indigenous people flock to with their traditional dress and fresh grown vegetables.  (more about the market)


Traveling opens up a magical sort of world that makes $200,000 inauguration day tickets and designer purses seem unimaginable.  It offers a glimpse into different lifestyles and priorities, that I can't help but wonder how different my life would be if I were botn here, instead of midwest USA.  Men wearing skirts might be normal, or perhaps I'd be riding a horse to work everyday instead of the train.  So often, I have my priorities challenged or have reminders to appreciate the life I've been given.


Riding the Waves, or rather, Mountain Roads.
Traveling is full of its extremes: excitement, frustration, adventure, motion sickness.  Our morning trip was further extended when we once again were told the wrong bus time, and left about 2 hours later than we liked, but the market detour was well worth it.  We headed back to our previous night's hostel in a taxi, and had the driver wait out front while we grabbed our packs, then headed back to the bus terminal. 

We were headed 5 hours south to the small city of Pasto, Colombia.  We're headed soon to Ecuador & rather than take a 10+ hour trip at one time, we'd split it up with a stopover town.  We have our tricks of Ginger Tablets & 7UP for traveling on these mountain roads, but there's no real victory over the centrifical forces that be.  I give myself the peptalk that staring out the window is enjoyable, and Kyle and I share the iPod headphones listening to npr podcasts like This American Life and Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me to distract our minds and uneasy stomachs.


Settling into our Next "Home".
Out of habit, I still call the places we stay "home", it's sort of like a blind person saying "See you later", but you know, it works.  We take a taxi from the bus terminal in Pasto to an Australian hostel.  We settle in to a room with 3 queen-sized beds, probably our largest room so far on this trip, and it's bigger than our last apartment in Chicago.  Even with cable tv and private bathroom with hot water, we pay about US$15 a night.


We make friends with the Colombian employee and explain to him what "try out for" means in English.  He's teaching himself english from a book.  He points us towards a  pizza place nearby, and we watch telenovelas at dinner.  We settle in later that night, Kyle reading the 5th Harry Potter and me a David Sedaris books, talking in passing about the next day's adventure.

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