Popayán to San Agustín – The Worst Road in Colombia, So Far
Popayán to San Agustín – The Worst Road in Colombia, So Far.
July 25.
Colombia is the type of country where a man in the center of a town square has a scale at his feet, and he will charge you C$1000 to find out your weight. Opportunistic. Colombia also calls people who want to sell you crap, ‘Snake Charmers.’ I like that. Colombia also has traffic rules but is also a ‘make your own rules’ kind of country. Many intersections are without signs and if a driver has decided that he will not bother stopping, he will honk his horn on the way towards the intersection so that others will.
We arrived in Popayán at about 9:30am. It feels like it was a long long time ago now since I first arrived at the bus station after leaving Ecuador. Lucia and I went for breakfast and then she took me to Ex!to where I think I finally figured out what she does. She seems to have food vendors set up outside of the store who sell pastries. That is my best guess so far. She was asking the girl working to clean the windows of her glass vendor counter. I started calling Lucia boss.
Lucia walked me to my C$25,000 bus bound from Popayán to San Agustín. I kissed her goodbye and boarded a fairly shitty bus. We headed down an incredibly rough road that was too rough to sleep on for nearly being shaken out of your seat. The road from Popayán to San Agustín went from pavement to gravel to potholes to gravel to road construction. The windows of the bus rattled open on their own because springs for the latches had long since been shook loose. The bus door opened and closed on the drive as the potholes on the road kept everyone on edge, for six hours. It was quite a ride and about as rough of a road as a bus is probably capable of handling. On top of the ride, in the middle of the country three soldiers with machine guns boarded the bus and chose two men they asked to disembark. Once outside, the soldier patted down the men in search weapons or drugs and then searched their bags. No random selection for me. They did not seem to feel like dealing with a non-Spanish speaking gringo. Awesome!
I was dropped off on the side of the road and a car hauled me the rest of the way to San Agustín so that the bus could continue on without having to stop for one person. A lady in the car was trying to hard sell me her hostel but I told her I already had a plan. Popayán to San Agustín completed, shaken!
I found a place, had a relax and went out for street food. An uninteresting girl from the hostel who I had met earlier and her boyfriend were out for drinks. I stopped into the bar to say hello and they invited me to join them. I looked around and there were four people in the bar besides me and three of them were gringos. I said, “No thanks. I like something a little more local.” The uninteresting girl said, “The bartender is local…” I wished them a good night after they told me there was good pizza in town. My last words to them was that Italy sounds like a good place for pizza.
I am not sure why right now, but I am just sick to death of how boring other younger travelers are that I have been meeting. I just could not care less about their boring trip and generic stories that lack flare. I could not give a shit about where their trip started or when it will end. I have begun to downplay all of their questions to me because I do not even want to show them what it is like to have a personality. I realize it is not a very nice thing to say and is very cocky. But in South America meeting white people who just want to hang out with white people, often in hostels owned by other white people, require a lot of work from my mind to try to maintain interest levels. It is like trying to read a very boring book. I would rather meet locals and battle through terrible Spanish, or just go to bed and get a good night of sleep so that I am not such an intolerant prick in the morning.
$14 – Bus from Popayán to San Agustín.
$9 – Dorm bed in Hospedaje El Jardin.