What is man’s oldest dream? What can birds do that only humans dream of?
- Flying.
Yesterday I made a day stop in Bucaramanga, the beautiful town that’s known for it’s paragliding. The owner of the company saw one of my panoramas in a hostel in Medellin and immediately invited me to his hostel and paragliding company. Since I was heading down south after exploring the north of Colombia, I thought I might as well stop by.
And was it worth a days stop in Bucaramanga? Oh, dear child, it was:) They strapped me onto the harness and we quickly took a couple of running steps before the wind took us on a journey away from earth, Edinson and me. Amazing. Breath taking. A huge Wow! inside my young mans brain was everything I could think of. The feeling of seeing our planet from a birds point of view and also flying over it together with our smaller bewinged and feathered friends is not meant to be experienced in words, but in air. We flew for half an hour and then our feet once again touched mother’s green green grass.
I love flying, in any forms. I guess that’s a part of exploring places and feelings I haven’t experienced before, hence my love for travelling.
After taking some photos and exchanging them for salt (no, actually pesos, but the word salary actually comes from back in the days when you got your salary in salt) I took another night bus to Bogota where I am at the moment.
Soon another bus will have me inside her for 22 (twenty two) hours before spitting me out in Ipiales, just by the border to Ecuador.
Till then fellow humans, take care.
The take off and landing site at Colombia Paragliding in Bucaramanga.
This is from last weeks trip to Tayrona National Park, amazing just walking around in the jungle looking for things to see. The draw of luck showed me a big snake, hundreds of lizards and, crabs, a cayman and much more from the animal life.
This is from Parque Berrio in Medellin taken about 1,5 weeks ago.
Today's Crazy Hostel Story: Three days ago a German guy at the hostel had his life's scariest cab ride. After 200 m the cab driver stopped, turned around and pointed a gun to the guys head. Two men entered the car with guns and put a bag over his head while driving to multiple ATMs to empty his credit card. Today's lesson: Call the taxi company when taking cabs at night:)
Today´s Crazy Hostel Story: An English guy at the hostel was looking through his camera photos on the hostel computer and accidentally copied them to the desktop. I was slightly shocked when I saw photo after photo of a fat Colombian chick with his cock in her mouth! Hahahaha, so today´s lesson, Don´t copy your private photos to a public computer:)
Have had some splendid days in Tyrona National Park. Was crossing a small water stream when we saw two eyes and a nose stick out of the water. I pretty big Cayman (looks like a crocodile) was watching us, so we had to wait for a while. Sold panoramas to every hostel I’ve been to:) More panoramas will be up later today at iampear.com. Hasta Luego, Amigos!
Today´s Crazy Hostel Story: Went to a surf beach for a day trip yesterday. Was one of the most amazing places I've ever been to, great surf, some bungalows and heaps of palms on the beach. When the darkness fell the biggest lightning storm ever hit us and we had to stay over night. Sleeping in a hammock on a paradise beach drinking coconut milk is the shizzle!!!!
Had an amazingly interesting discussion about evolution, religion and supernatural things with an English mathematician on the bus to the mud volcano yesterday! Today´s bus ride offered an almost as interesting lesson on how to grow marijuana with a Canadian who had 600 marijuana plants in his plantation. Meeting interesting people makes me fabulously happy:)
Todays Crazy Hostel Story:
Two girls from the hostel went to the street corner to buy 10 (yes ten) grams of cocaine. Four hours later, they hadn't come back. What a world we´re living in.
In Spanish the word for wife and handcuffs are the same: esposa. I new the Spanish language pioneers were enlightened!
And I just met and interviewed Pablo Escobar´s brother, Roberto Escobar, for my project “Project Dreams”. He was mucho coolo and kept calling me amigo when talking about his biggest dream. We also sat in Pablo´s dinner chair and on his motorcycle:)
And thee shalt not be worried. I have arrived in one piece to my first destination, Bogota, Colombia. And what a great place be welcomed to.
The flight here was a bit exciting and I met some really nice people. The first thing meeting me at to Landvetter Airport in Gothenburg was a big screen saying my flight was canceled..
After a couple of hours delay I came to Frankfurt were I had already missed my flight to Bogota. They managed to book me in on a flight via one of my favourite vacation countries, Dominican Republic, however with a nice present of 9 hours waiting. A train to Frankfurt center for a couple of hours, a big coffee at Starbucks and a few small chats to Germans later I was on a flight to Dominican Republic for a short transit, then another stop at Panama City (seems to be a sweet country!). It’s funny what a missed flight and sudden changes of plans can bring. On the plane to Dominican Republic I heard two girls speaking Swedish. With my friendliest voice and a couple of minutes later, I managed to get both of the girls in the airplane bathroom with me, all naked!
OK, that might not be all true, not even close to the truth, but at least we had a nice conversation and exchanged some good stories:) On the transit stop in Panama City a guy behind me asked if I was Swedish. He was from Peru and had been studying in Umea for a year but was going back to Lima, Peru. Awesome dude who also happened to be surfing. He told me when I get to Lima, he’ll show me around and take me out for some surf and we exhanged contact informacione.
This is the brightest side of missed flights, delays and to the common man – misery. And reminds me that every situation, however shit it might seem, can bring some good things. In this case, some wonderful people that I hope to meet again on my travels.
I’m sitting here writing this in a hostel in the area Candelaria in Colombias capital Bogota. Since I hadn’t done any research, booked anywhere to stay or even looked at places to stay I was kind of in a very.. free situation, to put it positively. I got my bag and made it out of the security controls and walked towards the little tourist information desk. When the woman showed me on a map where the best area to find hostels were, two brittish girls were standing blowing me in my ear to get a look at the map.
We shared a taxi to the hostel area in town and I thought I might as well check out what their hostel was like. I hadn’t even reached the check-in desk before a spanish speaking woman lead me to an empty bed in a six bed dorm:) Neither did I have to check in, say how long I was staying or pay before hand. No, no, no, apparently you pay when you leave and the friendly and laid back staff was incredible!
In my dorm (hostel room) stood a dark curly haired and bearded guy saying “Welcome to Colombia! My name is Daniel”.
He turned out to be super cool, and one of the friendliest and most helpful people I’ve ever met. That after noon he showed me around Bogota City for a couple of hours, before happily showing my appreciation by buying him a late lunch.
The first night at the Hostel Sue offered a Party Bus Tour which I wasn’t late to jump on with the rest of the hostel people.
And let me tell you dear friends, the Colombian night life is something above the ordinary. First night was great, and the second night, a saturday off course, was even more spectacular. I can without hesitation say this was the craziest night in my life!! (no mum, I didn’t do drugs).
Yesterday was raining so we just walked around town for a bit, but the good weather today made me go up super early and take the cable car up the mountain looking over Bogota. Got some amazing photos and also had a really nice day. Now, we’re sitting drinking a couple of expensive beer at the hostel. 2000 Colombian Pesos, approximately 1 US dollar or 6,9 Swedish kronor do we have to spend on this poisonous drink.. Ruthless!
Well, here is the garden section of the excellent hostel Sue.
From today’s trip up the mountain looking over Bogota.
To be continued.
EDIT:
Here’s a panorama from the salt cathedral in Zipaquira. Biggest underground cross on the planet measuring 16 metres high and 10 metre wide.
