Muse on Colombian buses

  Popayan, Colombia
Friday, April 20, 2007

Jim´s hangover was raging when we got on the bus in Pereira to head south to Popayan and I wasn´t feeling too good myself. It´s at times like this we could have done with an Argentinian style deluxe bus service, but now we´re in Colombia and like many things, buses are different here.

This was only the second long distance bus journey we´d taken in the country, but already we were beginning to notice a pattern. These seem to be the rules for Colombian buses:

1) The drivers cane it, accelerator to the floor most of the time, but especially when overtaking on blind bends.

2) The driver´s mate is always employed hanging out of the door trying to drum up more passengers by shouting "Cali, Cali, Cali!" or "Popayan, Popayan, Popayan!" etc.

3) There will be very loud Latin music playing for the entire journey, and many people won´t feel embarrassed to sing along. As the only gringos on board we´re the only ones that don´t seem to know all the words.

4) Any breaks that the bus makes will only be after at least 5 hours of driving and no one will be able to say how long you´ll be stopped for, so trips to the loo/cafe have to be done at break neck speed with the constant fear the bus may drive off without you and with all your belongings.

5) Passengers wishing to alight from the bus will have no problem with getting the driver to stop immediately, even if you´re on a motorway or even if he just stopped 20 metres down the road to drop someone else off. They have to get off NOW!

6) And finally any ride on a Colombian bus wouldn´t be complete without various characters hoping on and off the bus to sell you things. They stand at the front and make a short introduction, then they walk down the aisle giving you samples of their product (be it biscuits, chocolate, books or jewellery), then the return to the front an wax lyrical about how marvelous said product is, before walking the length of the bus again collecting the samples again or taking money for them instead.

With all this going on during our journey, it was no wonder that when we arrived in Popayan after about 7 hours on the road all we wanted to do was eat something, check our emails and the head to bed early. We needed to recover fully before heading on a ridiculously early bus to San Agustin the following day.

We accomplished all three of our goals, but very rarely for us we didn´t take a single photo all day. Just goes to show how three litres of rum between seven people can effectively decapitate even hardened travellers.