Leaving San Gil

Whoever lives above us – an older Spanish speaking couple, by the sounds of it, the woman not always happy with her husband – has been walking back and forth continuously and talking full volume since a quarter to six this morning, just like yesterday. Since the ceiling of this high room consists of nothing but boards sleeping is impossible, and we might as well just get up and pack.

After four days and five nights here in San Gil it's time to move on. It was a wonderful time, and I feel a bit sad to have to leave: the whole area is beautiful, the town pleasant, the hostal and our room nice, the people friendly. It would be easy to just keep adding another night, and another one, and ... but that's inertia speaking, I'm sure. It's just easy to stick with something you know works well, harder to pack up and move on into the unknown again. But there is more to see here in Colombia, and on our bus rides today we are guaranteed some spectacular landscape again. We'll take the bus to the district capital Bucaramanga, about two hours from here, and will traverse the Chicamocha canyon on the way, at deep rift with the Suares River at the bottom. From Bucaramanga we'll take another bus to Aguachica, another bigger city, where we'll spend the night. We are trying to keep the legs of bus travel at a manageable length on our way to Cartagena instead of taking a fourteen-hour overnight bus, which is, even with all the comforts busses have to offer, not as comfortable as sleeping in a bed, and of course it would prevent us from seeing any of the amazing landscape on the way, too.

So, off we go, in hopes of busses being reasonably on time and finding fitting accommodation along the way. 

The blog entry about yesterday's trip to Curití and Pescaderito will have to wait, but here is a photo of one of the flowers I saw along the way. To me, it looks like an orchid, the small (about 2cm diameter) blossoms exquisit.