End of Bogota, Salento

Thursday night after my last post we had somewhat decided to take it moderately easy but that didn´t last for long. We went to the cheap bar where all the local college kids were hanging out and ended up having mountains of tequila and cerveza...I ended up breaking two shot glasses...and we ate hardboiled eggs. Then we blacked out. Both of us. That´s saying alot...I black out pretty easy but when I ask Anton questions and he doesn´t remember either then you know we were FUCKED up.

Friday I actually felt pretty okay...we kicked our butts out of the hotel and went to an Argentina steakhouse and got a big meat platter and afterwards around 5 we managed to find the cable car thing. It was SO BAD ASS. It went up the side of this super steep mountain and there was an amazing view of the entire city (which is retardedly massive, like 7.5 million people live there) and a huge pretty church on the top (it was called Passion del Cristo, or something along those lines. Baha) and we wandered and I took a million pictures and yeah, it was probably one of the coolest views I´ve ever seen.

After we did that we went to find the internet so I could call Trevor for his BDAY and on the way Anton saw a food cart thing that had two giant pig heads filled with pork and rice and stuff so he got some of that and I tried a bite pretending that I just hadn´t seen an entire roasted head. It was pretty good, admittedly. Then we found the internet and I called and got to talk to Trevor and Tim and Chuck, (3 for the price of 1!) which was happy and then we went to a little underground burger joint and I had a delicious burger.

We had to wake up early and leave Saturday morning and...well....we failed. We were supposed to wake up at 6 but slept until like noon (what else is new) and went to a Waffle and Crepes place and had Crepes (which are good, never had them) and coffee and it took forever and the people were half retarded but the food was good, so whatever.

Outside our hotel a little Chinese man tried to ask Anton for money and instead of responding he just started doing this really amusing dance and the look on the guys face was pretty amazing.

We got to the bus terminal and decided to take an overnight bus as it didn´t really make sense to leave in the afternoon because we would have been stranded in a middle town we didn´t want to be in (Armenia, we wanted to be in Salento but the buses don´t run late enough and yadda yadda yadda) so we hung out in the bus station and read and drank some beers until our bus left at 11:45. Sweet 8 hours chilling in the station.

A very funny point is that in the bus terminal there was a bathroom and they charged $600 pesos for it, which is like 30 cents. That may fly in America, in some parts. Buttttttt, imagine for a moment, the fact that it COST EXTRA FOR TOILET PAPER. Are you fucking kidding me!?! $200 pesos extra...yeah, fuck you. We just stole napkins.

The overnight bus was definitely the most wild bus we´ve been on so far. The road was really curvey and the driver was going so fast around these blind turns and it was pretty hard to sleep, but we were exhausted and managed to get like 5 hours or so. At one point the bus driver actually pulled over and napped for a couple hours. Ridiculous.

We arrived in Salento Sunday morning. Salento is a small town in the mountains, it´s super gorgeous and everything is close together and the streets are so hilly. We were planning on napping in our hotel but we wanted to rent horses for a few hours and take them to the coffee plantation and that only is available on the weekends so we got some sandwiches and crepes and manned up and went to rent horses. It was sooooo fun. I love horse back riding. The views were spectacular too...we were gone for about 2 and a half hours with our guide and I think the poor horse Anton was riding nearly croaked. He was drenched in sweat. The guide was a nice guy even though we couldn´t communicate very well...when we went by this one farm we spotted a baby pig and the guy got the owners to come over and we held the pig and then the lady showed us her other pigs which were MASSIVE and it was exciting. Anton likes pigs.

2 and a half hours on a horse is a long time and we were pretty pooped afterwards. We had a couple beers and this homelessy guy selling bracelets tried to sell us some and he was wearing a Slayer shirt and then he showed us his shitty tattoo. It was very amusing.

We went back to the hotel and showered and napped for a few hours and then ventured out and ate chicken on a stick and hot dog and got wasted at a locals bar. It was good times, we ended up with this group of about 6 or 7 locals and yelled and stumbled around for a couple hours. Two of the people were older, and then a couple of their kids, and then some other random punks that Anton bought (the best so far) cocaine from. It was definitely the easiest communication so far, they actually realized the necessity of speaking slow and pronouncing dramatically so we were all on the same page. It was rad.

We slept yesterday (Monday) until 4PM. Hahaha. Well I was up around 2:30...but Anton was even sleepier. It was impressive. I got lots of reading done though, I´m reading the book City of Joy which is about the slums in Calcutta and is SO DEPRESSING but really good too. Good book to read traveling, it makes the bums here look like royalty.

We tried to go to the only ATM in town and it was, of course, broken, so we found a restaurant that took cards and got some fish and sausage with fries and a steak guy and drank a few beers. We took some beers back to the hotel and sat on the curb and drank them. We tried to get stray dogs to drink but they weren´t interested, and I tried to get the obese orange cat at the hotel to hang out but he wasn´t interested. He was so fat, even bigger than crooky bear. We also watched some young kids play a kick the can like game and the littlest one had an infaltable hammer and was beating all the other kids with it. Sweet, I used to have a hammer like that. It made me nostalgic for it.

This morning we woke up at 5:15 and caught a bus back to Armenia and then a minivan like shuttle thing to Cali. Goin back, back, to Cali, Cali! It was only a couple hours which was nice...we found a decent hotel for like 18 bucks and then went and ate at a yummy Mexican food restaurant. Anton had a burrito the size of his head and I had a taco and we shared some nachos. Pretty good, but expensive. Another of Lonely Planets fuck ups...which have been numerous.

Now we´re at the internet. There is a cool zoo here we want to go to but I think that´ll be tomorrow since it´s already 2 and we think the zoo closes at 5. Tomorrow night we´re taking a 12 hour bus to the border of Ecuador and then Thursday morning we´ll be arriving in Quito, which is like a 5 hour ride from the border. We´re going to party it up Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Quito and then take a THIRTY HOUR bus ride to Lima, Peru on Sunday. Should be hardcore. I guess Quito is really high up so it should be cold again...Salento was perfect weather but it´s a little hot here. Time for more freckle explosions.

In other news, the diarrhea has been very relentless the past week. There have been many near sharts and close calls. It´s very attractive...and smells of roses.

Oh, and one other funny story that I wanted to remember that happened in Nicaragua was when this military guy was searching my bag after we left the Corn Islands and he opened a pocket that was full of tampons and was pulling them out all confused and examining them and showing his other military friend and they couldn´t figure out what it was. I almost burst out laughing but didn´t want to get machine gun whipped, so I was like...uhh...for girls...uhh...and they just kinda shrugged and must have figured it wasn´t cocaine because they let me go. Sweet Central America, Pads as far as the eye can see!