February 4, 2008
Day 859
Crossing the Gap, Day 5
I spent the morning with the Italians waiting to see if the mysterious plane would show up. The two boys were brothers who had been working around Central America and Colombia for the last two years as street performers. Among their luggage was a… Read More »
February 3, 2008
Day 858
Crossing the Gap, Day 4
The day started off smoothly when the immigration office was actually open and I was able to get my passport stamped. The officer needed to make a copy of my passport, so he made a kid go to the back room to turn on… Read More »
February 2, 2008
Day 857
Crossing the Gap, Day 3
I got up early and promptly began waiting for a boat. Nobody seemed to know when one would leave, but they assured me the a boat would indeed be going north to Sapzurro at some point. Eventually I got the ride I was… Read More »
February 1, 2008
Day 856
Crossing the Gap, Day 2
The boat was crowded and left early. When I jumped on board, everyone was already wearing a life jacket, and in a place that's normally so cavalier about safety precautions, I knew it was going to be a bumpy one. When we were slowly… Read More »
January 31, 2008
Day 855
Crossing the Gap, Day 1
It was finally time to leave South America. My first step was to take a bus from Medellin, the big mountainous city in the center of the country, to Turbo, a small port on the Caribbean coast. The bus started along the same road… Read More »
January 30, 2008
Day 854
For my last day in Medellin, I went to the interactive Explora Museum. It had a lot of cool exhibits showing the history of the earth, what DNA looks like, how there are lots of different kinds of people on earth, and what Read More »
January 29, 2008
Day 853
Today I tried to get to a colonial town called Santa Fe de Antioquia, but things didn't quite work out as planned. I got on one of the frequent buses out of Medellin without any trouble, but I didn't realize that the main road only skirted the edge of… Read More »
January 27-28, 2008
Days 851-852
I was in no hurry to leave Medellin, so I spent a couple more days sightseeing the area. I discovered that like several cities in South America, Medellin had a cable car system that went to the top of a large hill. However, unlike the other… Read More »
January 26, 2008
Day 850
I decided to get out of the city for the day and took a trip to the hills surrounding Medellin. After a short uphill bus ride, I was out of the city and in another world. My first stop was El Peñól, a massive 200-meter high… Read More »
January 24-25, 2008
Days 848-849
Medellin used to be the most problematic city in Colombia. Pablo Escobar's drug cartel was more powerful than the government and was constantly at war with the other cartels, paramilitaries, and the legitimate military. Bombings and shootouts often happened in the middle of Medellin, and its inhabitants were generally… Read More »
