How to get to Mompox?

And again it's a travelling day, with a clear destination in mind, but not quite so clear directions how to get there.

Yesterday we left San Gil for the district capital of Bucaramanga, with more than half a million people the ninth biggest city in Colombia. We were the last passengers to get on, and so got the front seats of the sixteen passenger bus, thus were able to enjoy a different angle of the view than usual. The drive led through spectacular country, deep down into the Chicamocha canyon, at up to 2,000m deep and 227km in length the second largest in the world. As usual big trucks slowed down traffic especially on the uphill section, and our bus driver proved once again how south American drivers, especially bus drivers, approach passing slower vehicles, always expecting them to make room when the bus driver has once again engaged in a daring manoeuvre. It does make you feel a bit queasy sometimes on those roads where the next curve is always around the corner, but it's something to contend with. At least the roads are good here, with guard railings, unlike the road in Bolivia where I had feared for my life.

A view from above: Chicamocha canyon

At the modern bus terminal in Bucaramanga we changed busses to get to our chosen destination of the day, Aguachica. We were prepared for the freezing aircondition on those larger busses and had brought jackets and long pants, which proved to be a smart idea. The bus was so comfortable that we both slept for part of the three and a half hour ride, which was a shame, really, because it was such a beautiful landscape again, steep, richly forested hills at first, the small towns along the way – in none of which we stopped – with lots of fruit stands overflowing with different kinds of bananas, oranges, mandarins, guavas, guanabas, melons and many others. Later on this changed to wide pastures filled with white and brown cows, the country much flatter, hills only vicsible in the distance: we have arrived in the lowlands. This means it will be very hot from now on.

When we got out of the bus in Aguachica it felt like stepping into a sauna after the cold air on the bus. Since we only wanted to stay overnight we had decided to try to find out how to continue to our next 'real' destination, Mompox, right at the bus terminal. The first company where we asked for information was the only one that has a bus going there, but – it leaves at midnight and arrives at five in the morning. Not a very nice prospect. How about El Banco, a station on the way? Oh, we could go there at seven in the evening, arriving two hours or so later. Not so great either. Unsure what to do we had almost decided to go directly to Cartagena and stop somewhere on the way, but left the final decision till the next morning. Walking out of the bus terminal we passed another company office, this one for small busses in the surrounding area, and low and behold, they have regular busses to El Banco where, if the employee we talked to is right, we can catch a bus to Mompox, or Mompos, as it is called here more often. That's what we are hoping to do today, leaving the option open to come back here and go to Cartagena from here if we can't find a way to go to Mompox, which seems less and less unlikely now that we are this close. People travel between small communities all the time, after all.

The nicest taxi driver in all of Colombia took us to our hotel, where we spent a pleasant night in an airconditioned room, very desirable here: when I said to Umberto, the taxi driver, that they likely didn't see many foreign tourists here he agreed: it's too hot, he said, hotter even than Santa Marta and Cartagena on the coast, where at least the sea breeze cools things down a little.

It's time to pack up and go if we want to catch the bus to El Banco at ten. What new adventure will this day bring?