After breakfast, we walked to the plaza in Barichara and boarded a bus bound for San Gil. Kathleen and I tried to guess how many times the bus would stop in town to take on and drop off people, and then how many times the bus would stop between Barichara and San Gil. Surprisingly, the bus didn’t stop all that many times in either case.
We arrived in San Gil and went to the main terminal just outside of town. We bought tickets to Bucaramanga. The terminal was nearly empty and we placed our packs and helmets on the seats. I went to an internet shop to see if we had any word from Richi about our arrival. I went into the internet shop and was besieged with a salvo of questions. All I wanted to do was use a computer. I was not able to comprehend the inquisition and extracted myself from the shop. As I walked over to Kathleen she was having a verbal altercation with a little man who was apparently upset over something we had done. As I arrived, the scruffy looking man had a hand truck and was gesturing to Kathleen about our luggage and saying something to Kathleen in an angry tone. Kathleen thought he was saying something about our packs being on the seats and other people wouldn’t be able to sit. Upon further terse discussion the little man looked at our packs and his hand truck and again had a verbal exchange with Kathleen before looking at me and walking off. Within a minute he was standing nearby glaring at Kathleen. I walked toward him and stood between him and Kathleen, and looked menacing. I had about 90-pounds on him. The little man looked at me and made a gesture about drinking. What?! I continued to stare at him. He walked off never to be seen by us again. After mulling over the interaction, Kathleen concluded that he was upset that we didn’t have him use his hand truck to haul our packs from the taxi into the terminal. I also think that, coupled with the fact that he was none too happy having a woman talk back at him.
So, with that we soon found out that an accident either between San Gil and Bucaramanga, or Bogota and San Gil had delayed bus traffic. Indeed, the news channel, shown on the big screens in the bus terminal, were interviewing people who were being delayed, or had their luggage stolen from buses parked along the street terminals. Kathleen went and checked with our carrier and found our bus was delayed for two hours. Super! Hurry up! Let’s wait!
I went back to the internet shop. This time I was well prepared to handle the inquisition as I had Kathleen as backup. We entered the shop and instantly we were shown to a computer. A young boy offered up his chair to Kathleen. We sat down, and within a few minutes had completed our internet needs. What happened earlier?!
After an hour or so our bus arrived. We boarded and took off. Within a few miles of our trip we quickly concluded this bus driver was like none we’d had before. The road to Bucaramanga was twisty and frequently congested with traffic in both directions as most of the route is in to and out of Chicamocha Canyon – again, wider and deeper than Grand Canyon in the U.S. Our driver was heavy footed, often stood on the breaks, and attempted to accomplish many a curve on two wheels. At one point we rounded a curve as a Daihatsu sedan was trying to pass two on-coming trucks. Our driver broke hard and swerved as the driver of the sedan drove between the two trucks. Kathleen couldn’t see as she sat directly behind the driver and his coat blocked her forward view. Good thing, because if we were a quarter-second faster we would have struck the sedan on the driver’s side as he turned in between the trucks.
Interestingly, as we drove into Bucaramanga our driver was more sedate and less aggressive; actually driving slower than most of the surrounding traffic. And, hardly made any stops till we arrived at the central terminal.
We took a taxi to Kasa Guane which was one of Richi’s hostels. Our taxi driver tooled along almost overly cautious compared to previous cabbies. Bucaramanga was a more modern looking town than Bogota and Kathleen and I quickly concluded we liked this big city over Bogota.
We arrived at Kasa Guane and checked-in. We were shown to a room with double beds and we would share the bathroom. Our room had a fan. Great! I went up to the roof and sent a Spot message, before we set out to find a place to eat. We were approaching dinner time, so we knew that we would be served a slab of meat and a potato and that would be all. I can’t emphasize enough: The lunches are your better deal! El Tony was recommended to us, and sure enough, Kathleen had the slab of pork and I had the slab of beef. On the way back to the hostel we stopped at a market for some fruit and sundries. We were floored when we found some items from the U.S. and the cost to Colombians. The Welch’s here would be about $10 USD! We found a can of Old El Paso chili for $6 USD. Yowzer!!
As we settled in for the night, the pest control came on duty.
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