The Sky´s the Limit!

During our stay in Bogotá we were close to breaking up the group due to different personal interests. Gin wanted to go further south and discover a massive desert by herself, Chris wanted to head to Chile as soon as possible because of an job offer, and after I discovered that San Gil was not as expensive as expected, it because more and more interesting.

So we all headed to the Bus station in order to fly off into our own directions, but unfortunately I mixed up the distances to San Gil with another city and suddenly lost my will to go there, as it would have been another 7-8hrs north of Bogotá whereas I thought it was only 2…

So in the end we again sat all in the same bus on the way south. Although Chris wanted to speed foreward in the first place he, and I too, decided to follow Gin´s to the Desertio de Tatacoa. A stop-over in Neiva was compulsory as it was the closest bigger city and upon arriving there at 9pm, all further connections had departed already.

The hotel we stayed in remided a bit of the Hoe-tel California on Aruba and was actually worse, since the shitter and the shower were in the same room as the beds…
So, no reason to stay in the room before bedtime. Hence we went for a stroll through the small city, feasted on some delicious pastries and croissants and finally went to bed around half 12 (00:30h).

The next day we headed off towards the desert. It took about an hour and a bit, which we spend wondering if this desert was a wet desert or not, since huge puddles and wet streets on the way indicated exactly this. BUT it was relatively dry and reasonably hot.oeHoe A (in the end) cheeky dude named Choppo and his shitty little Motorbike Taxi drove us into the desert and brought us to a simple hostel with open air hammocks.

The sun was out, which we hadn´t seen in quite a time, as Bogotás clouds prevent it from shining through, and we were immidiately encouraged to go for a walk. Red sand, cactuses and dry bushes were the average picture along the stroll, beautiful but not really exciting, so a few outstanding places were abused for a variety of creative pictures.

As the sun started to set over the desert, we went back to our place to grab some food and later head to „El Astronom“, along with an entourage of about 5 other people we´ve just met.

El Astronom has been working in his field of study for about 40-something years and taught us everything there is to know about the stars in the sky and the moon.

He showed and explained the heavenly constellations (star signs) and we were able to take closer looks at some red, blue and diamont-like shining stars as well.

All in all, I would guess these were the best 5$ that I have spent on the entire trip. And although El Astronom solely spoke in spanish I was suprised how much I understood from what he was saying. So all in all, we had an absolute blast that day, topped of by a nice bonfire on the grass outside of our hostel.

At about 1am we hit the hammocks and were interrupted during the night by the meanest rainstorm that I have ever wittnessed in my life. Rain was pounding on the metal roof and water was everywhere around us, but despite the open air dorm nothing got wet; execpt from Mr. Montana, an American who slept in his tent out on the lawn…

The next day we left the place and headed towards Popayan, which is supposed to be the biggest connection-place to busses down to Ecuador. Ideal for Chris and me, since he still got his job offer in Quito and another on in Chile, and I was writing with a Surf & Dive Club in Montanita, who got an open internship and seemed interested in me. So: Roadtrip!!!!