Unfortunately, I didn't get to see much more than the airport. I am pretty sure, though, that we flew over the Canal and that I saw it.
I arrived in Bogota and got through the passport-stamping thing and then the customs thing (two different stations!) and by then it was about 11:00 pm. Next stop was a hotel I had reserved for a night before getting back to the airport again by 5:30 the next morning. I had read that in Colombia you need to get someone to call you a taxi rather than just grabbing one, but I figured that the taxis waiting after the taxi sign at the airport would be safe. That's legit, right? Taxis at the airport?
I might have been wrong about that. Thank heavens I know some Spanish. And I got to start using it right away. I don't think I actually ever spoke a word of Spanish while I was in Panama--I don't think I said anything to anyone at all. I was getting nervous about speaking Spanish in the airport and on the next flight, but that taxi driver sure got me to snap out of that in a hurry. As he told me how far my hotel was from the airport, and explained he knew hotels that were closer, and started trying to convince me to just go to one of said hotels, I got to say things like,
"I think you just don't know where my hotel is." (I don't think he did.)
"No, $100 per night is too much money. I'm not going to pay that."
"The other hotel was much cheaper."
He kept talking me into a (much closer, he said) hotel that would be $70 for the night (rather than the $56 for my reservation), and finally that's where we went. This got phrases like the following out of me:
"Is he a friend of yours?" (When he introduced me to the man behind the desk at the hotel)
"Uh...do I get a key?"
The
hotel had a grand total of three rooms. It was very nicely remodeled,
but...an odd experience. At least I have a good story. Here's me in the
room, trying to show my excitement at being there:
That was when I realized my big mistake. At that point, though, I thought that maybe it would take a bit longer from Bogota to Cartagena, but that the school could send someone to drive the hour or two it would take to come pick me up. Or, if not, that I could hop on a train and be in Cartagena in a few hours.
It is actually an hour and a half flight between the two. I had a window seat, and I saw a grand total of FOUR groups of houses that were big enough to be seen from the air (I don't even know if they could have passed as towns)--the rest was just trees and trees and bits of farmland once we got closer to Cartagena. I was talking to my host family tonight, and they said it would take about twenty hours to drive that distance.
Huh.
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5 comments:
You are one brave lady! Ha, twenty hour drive? That's nothing. ;)
Wow! What are you doing in Columbia? I'm excited to hear about your adventures.
Gabe wants to know if there are any volcanoes in Columbia.
Carrie wants to say thank you.
I wanted to say that I've been to Panama, too! But I just looked at the map and realized it was Nicaragua instead. We took a boat ride on a river in Costa Rica, and all of the sudden we were crossing an international border. On the river. We didn't go very far (maybe 25 yards), but still...we (I think illegally) crossed an international border. It felt awesome.
Anyway, way to go! Way to get there! Keep the updates coming, we love you!
Hello there Carrie Gold! You are so amazing :) I hope all works itself out. Sounds like it was a bit stressful. Glad to see you haven't lost your love for Spanish.
Good job Carrie!! Keep writing, that way I'll know you are alive! Just kidding.
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