Eating Big Ass ants, again walking around Bogota visiting a fellow student from Trondheim, looking at 1000 year old indian statues and graves and almost getting lost in the amazon while playing around in waterfalls.. before travelling several days in bus to reach Bolivia.

My last two weeks:

After having walked around in the main park in San Gil that evening when I wrote the last time, buying lovely Colombian sweets (they are famous for sweets in Colombia) and some "Hormigas Culonas" (literally Big-Ass ants) I said goodbye to San Gil. I had been hoping that the level 5 river would be open for rafting, but as the rain again started in the afternoon I realized that there was no chance of it being rafteable in the morning, so I said screw it and got on the first bus to Bogota, saturday night, 29th of oct. Normal snacks in the Santander region:Big Ass Ants.

Arrived early, early morning at Bogotas huge busterminal. Together with a couple of english guys I took a taxi into town when the sun rised, but it took some time because this very sunday there was an election in Colombia so a lot of the streets were shut down. We found our way though, through the empty sunday morning streets of Bogota. I again checked in at the Musicology hostel which I stayed at the last time. Walked around down on the 7th avenue where they every sunday shut down the whole main street and have their "ciclovia" where people take out the bicycles, dogs, happy moods and whatnot and walk the streets all day. Last time I was here it was more people, probably because of the elections. Still artists and music in the streets and the fleamarket was open so I got pictures of the things I could catch the last time. 5x7 street fleamarket has everything!

Went to visit a friend from university at home, which has moved here since I was here the last time, and she cooked for me and even gave me norsk freia melkesjokolade! A little piece of Norway that is. Meating Guro in Bogota was my first encounter with a link to the world at home since I got here and it was wierd. After a time, everything at home seems so unreal and distant, and meating someone from that world gives new perspectives. I guess that feeling would have been a lot stronger if we didnt have internet and facebook with us on our travels. Have seen so many travellers on their laptops at different hostels, doing exactly what they do at home. Why do they even bother to travel half around the world just to see the same screen over again? Beats me, but I find it sad and it reminds me to stay away from laptops and smartphones while travelling. The next day was beautiful so I used it in downtown walking around and sorting some things out with next years return (flight ticket from to NY, work and university). I realized that the end of the trip is getting nearer, so I chose to spend some hours getting control on the return plans etc, before I put it back out of my brain. Visited the church that you can see from all of Bogota. Monserrate, a short cable car travel from the Bogota center, overlooks the entire city and believe me; it´s big!

BOGOTA
On tuesday I went and got my passport at the consulate and finally everything that what stolen from me was recovered, except for all my stamps and visas in the old passport! At lunch time, Guro took me out to a kindergarden in a poor neighborhood of Bogota; Suba. We where gone for 5 hours, but about 3,5 of those was spent on buses. Travelling around Bogota by bus takes time. But we had time enough to get a feeling for how it is like trying to make the ends meet with 50 small children in a tiny brick building. Felt like I got a taste of the real Bogota out there in Suba. That same night I took a taxi out to the bus terminal with a mission to find a night bus to San Agustin. Finally having my passport, I was excited to start my travels southwards. The busterminal in Bogota reminds me of an airport. It has 5 different terminals, each with its neat little Dunkin´ Donuts and a hundrer buscompany windows. Finally asked at the right terminal and they had buses for me so I got some donuts and a coffee and got on the bus at 11 at night.
Next day I arrived at San Agustin and almost directly jumped on a jeep tour around the area. We drove around the whole day. Through fields of sugercane, coffee, bananas, Lulos, Granadillas and whatnot. They grow everything around here. Standing on the back of the truck or sitting on the roof gave me excellent views and it was a great day. Visited various archeological sites throughout the day. Thousands of years ago, this was indian cemetaries and they have excavated hundreds of graves, statues, tombs here amidst all the agriculture. They also took us to some waterfalls before returning to San Agustin. Lovely roundtrip in an area where the old cliche that time is standing still, rules. The immense work that theese coffee pickers and sugercane cutters have to do still amazes me.

Scary statues!!
Next day I walked around a little on my own in the morning, visiting some closeby sites, before heading to the big archeological park that is famous around here. Walked around there for hours with a random group of solo travellers, looking at the scary grins of the statues everywhere. Took a shared taxi back down to the little town of Pitalito where I got another shared taxi to Mocoa, the door into the amazon.

The jungle hostel, Casa del Rio in Mocoa.

Arrived just before dark and got a taxi the 3km out to the Casa del Rio, the only hostel around here. Mocoa is off the beaten path of Colombia, despite its fantastic people and nature. This is probably because of that is has been a very dangerous area in the past with a lot of guerilla and drug growing around. Today it is safe enough though, but none of the guide books or even the Colombians has understood that yet. But the locals told me how it is. It is safe, and you can even walk around randomly at night with no problem. The hostel owner is a Belgium traveller who found this paradise and built his dream hostel here. He pioneered the place and I bet in 10 years it will be booming with tourists. Im glad I got to see it with its authenticy intact. Walked to some waterfalls out into the forest and played around jumping and enjoying the pristine nature.

Just before getting lost at the end of the world
On my way up again to the top of the waterfall "the end of the world" I took a wrong turn and the consequence was that I had to struggle around in the STEEP jungle hills for about 30 minutes trying to find the path again, all alone and in flipflops that was useless in all this jungle mud. On the path they work perfect, but out of the path the jungle only offers branches, dead leaves, mud and entangling lians. Glad that no insect or snake had bitten me, but pissed off because of s***ty situation I was in, I finally found the path and worked my way back up to the falls where I jumped from one of the small falls and washed all the mud off me.

Got a super local fish dinner at the local cabaña from the owners off the land here, including a heavenly beer. The falls I had just visited was close to perfect, and I was wishing I could have stayed there longer. Walked back and enjoyed the great jungle hostel and took a swim in the local river along with some local kids that showed me how to jump into the rapids. Local expertise is always great to have, would never have jumped into that without someone doing it before me and showing me that it is safe. Next morning the long journey started. First of a leg of 6 hours straight up the cloudforest covered mountains right next to Mocoa.

Mocoa - Pasto road

This is where the andes plunges down and becomes the amazon rainforest, and it does this in a dramatically steep way. So therefor the road up was equially spectacular and frequent landslides obviously takes away the road. Great views and we even saw monkeys from the car window, a certain sign of wilderness. 80kms took 6 hours and as we finally arrived Pasto, I jumped on the first bus going to the border. There I got my exit stamp in my new passport and eagerly walked across the bridge and into Ecuador.

Lots of pissed off people at border.

There was problems. The border har been closed all day due to "technical problems" and people had been waiting in line already for 10 hours just to get a stamp in their passport and everything was chaos. Not before the crowds created a roadblock on the bridge between Colombia and Ecuador, calling for a solution, did the officials move the asses and they finally started stamping people in. Manually. Surprised by how fast it actually went, 6 hours after I arrived the border I had my entry stamp to Ecuador. Shared a taxi with an irish couple I had been waiting with and as they got a hostelroom I jumped into the first bus I saw heading south. Being 12 at night, this was also the last bus going today and to my incredible luck it was going as far as Riobamba, close to Cuenca which was my first pitstop town on my way to Bolivia. 2 buses and 14 hours later I finally arrived old Cuenca, where our trip started almost 10 months ago. Wierd being back and feeling how I now look at it with a very different perspective now that I have 9 months travelling behind me. It was still the same though. Met my friends from my university in Trondheim, Marte and Marte, who are also doing a trip of south america and decided to start at the same spanish school as we did. So I also got to see my old teacher from january, Martha, again. She was happy to see me, as I was to see her and this time we could conversate in spanish without the difficulties we used to have. As it turns out, one of the Martes has her as a teacher too. Small world. We hung together all of monday and I got a great pitstop in Cuenca with them before moving on tuesday morning at 8 am. Now I am in Arequipa, Peru, where we also were 6 months ago climbing mountains and running around in canyons with our friends from Pisco. It took me 52 hours to get here. 4 buses. 5 hours to Loja where I got lucky again and arrived 15 minutes before the next and only bus in the next 12 hours left the terminal. Crossed the border without difficulties and at 11pm we were in Piura. There I got on the first bus onward to Lima. It turned out to be the same bus that we drove with from Guayaquil to Lima 7 months ago so I really felt that I had already been there done that. Coastal Peru, close to Lima

It was nice though, sitting on that bus just as it was 7 months ago, watching the same desert pass by and seing the ocean again after over 2 months without it. The contrasts to the jungle of Mocoa where I started 4 days ago to this dry desert is huge, and it is something special about sitting in a bus for days, watching how the landscapes, people and civilization change from country to country.

Lima traffic at sunset

Arrived Lima after 17 hours and quickly decided to keep going, but this time in a nice bus. So I bought a 50 dollar ticket to Arequipa with "Excluciva" and I had the best 17 hours on a bus I´ve ever had with my own bed, my own TVscreen and food included. For 50 dollars. That would get me 2 hours on a crappy bus at home. Anyways, when I finally finished my long trip down to this pitstop I was almost sad to go off the bus. Got a room at the same hostel we lived in before, the hostel scandinavia. Have used the day on chilling, drinking coffe, eating the famous toffees and kebabs here and tomorrow I will head up to lake titicaca and Copacabana, Bolivia. Bussing my way down from Colombia to here has taken a lot of time, but has been interesting. Now its time to be a part of the gringotrail again up at 3-4000 meters above sea level. And maybe I´ll have to get myself an alpaca sweater..

I am now back on the foot of these two great mountains. They are now without snow.