We had a lot of positive comments about our festive Santa hats while we were traveling.From Alabama we headed to Houston, Texas for a five hour layover. Fantastic.
But I got by with a little help from my friends. :) A nice drink to keep my mind occupied before our midnight flight. Bonus: the bartender made too much and gave me another little glass of daiquiri. Sweet!
We finally made it to Bogota early the next morning.... where we waited some more.
The first flight of the day to Manizales (we were on the second) had not even left yet. Apparently, dense fog was covering Manizales. The day before the same problem occurred and only the final flight of the day was able to land. I didn't want to wait around all day only to find out that we weren't going to fly. So Lucas got us on a plane to Pereira. From Pereira we would take about an hour and a half bus ride to Manizales.
When we arrived in Pereira we were one bag short. Great! So it took us quite some time to fill out the appropriate forms before we could head out to the bus. We were the last to arrive. Waiting for us was an Avianca representative who requested our signature on a form. GREAT! I hoped this wouldn't be like last time (but secretly hoped it might so I could share the story with you)!
So Lucas read the forms and signed. We loaded our bags and boarded the bus. Then the same guy from Avianca proceeds to tell us that we will be dropped off at the bus station (in the bad part of town) instead of the airport. Lucas doesn't like this idea at all and, of course, protests.
Great! Here we go again. But Lucas backed down and we were on our way to Manizales.
At first, I didn't think I would mind the ride. I love the scenery.
But let me just tell you about Colombian roads. They suck! There are many, many potholes and if that isn't enough to slow down traffic they have put lots of speed bumps on their main roads. Well, none of this really bothered our bus driver. He just kept hurdling on down the road at speeds I would rather not know. Several times I went flying through the air (no seatbelts, of course), bumping my head on the ceiling, arm on the armrest, knee on the seat in front of me..... None of this even mentions that it is entirely two-lane roads and we just had to pass every single car in front of us.... giving us several near death experiences.
After all that, this is how I was feeling when we were approaching Manizales.
I seriously don't think I could have taken it much longer. Thank goodness we arrived. We took a cab to the house where we met his family!
We were exhausted but his mom was so extatic to see us!
Lucas with his mom, dad, and brother Simon(Martin, his youngest brother, had not arrived from Bogota yet)
We ate lunch and visited... then took a nap. Whew! Very long trip!!
(oh, and we did get our missing bag back the next morning)
More to come about our time in Manizales and travels within Colombia....
(By the way, go check out Aubrey at The Fam Five for a fantastic giveaway!)
No comments:
Post a Comment