(No Subject): The $30 Flight

Sometimes I struggle to write “stories” after I travel. In the moment, everything seems news-worthy. Every car horn, every ocean breeze, every piece of chipped pastel paint that clings to the doorways; I’m always in awe of it. I take mental pictures of it all, desperately clinging to even the smaller details. Then it comes time to actually write it down & I catch myself wondering (admittedly, the correct word would be “worrying”) if anyone else would find my stories remotely interesting. After all, this trip didn’t involve sliding down the side of a volcano or a last minute scooter rental that left me crying in the dark on the side of the road on a Nicaraguan island. SNOOOOOZE FEST, Amiright? (Heavy sarcasm.)

Then I remember that, no offense, I don’t really write stories for you. I write them for me. So that in 5 years, I can remember things like the best peanut butter ball I’ve ever tasted that I bought at a market in Belfast, or the feeling in my chest as Semester at Sea ended, or the genuine fear that I ignored because I was young & dumb in Berlin. So many tiny moments are so easily forgotten. But when I write them down, they become immortal. And I really love that.

So read on if you want. If not, *shrug.* In 5 years, I’ll be glad to have this.

I was sitting on the couch in early November, scrolling mindlessly when I stumbled upon a picture of a tiny, one bedroom hut. What stopped me, though, was that this “hut” was built into the side of a cliff. I had a physical reaction to the excitement; my palms were sweaty, my stomach knotted. I knew I needed to see it for myself. So a clicked through a few pages, finally stumbling upon an all-Spanish webpage. I realized a night in my dream eco hotel would cost less than a night at a cheap motel in the suburbs of Chicago. (Honestly, this says a lot about how grossly expensive a crappy hotel in the U.S. is.) So, the seed was planted. I spent the rest of the day furiously typing away at a fresh spreadsheet, searching flights, counting my miles, and googling until my fingers nearly fell off.

And that’s it. That’s how I decided to go to Colombia. I saw somewhere that made my heart beat a little faster, a place that consumed my thoughts for hours, and I knew I had to go.

Since I was pretty determined to go, I decided this was also the perfect opportunity to prove to Eric how cheap travel could be, so I casually asked if he wanted to go to Colombia with me. When he replied with “sure, when?”, I booked our tickets. I kind of think he thought I was kidding at first, but he really should know better by now.

So fast forward 3 months and countless hours of planning later. Eric and I had just spent 4 nights in Cartagena soaking in (/sweating through) the heat and the thick ocean air and were back at the airport. The night prior, I had checked in to our $30 flight online and gotten the boarding pass emailed to me (pictured below.) I found it absolutely hysterical. I mean…. I was about to entrust this company with my life, yet they couldn’t even get a subject on the email?!? No body of the email? No nothing?? This was not helping Eric feel more comfortable. We walked up to the plane, strolling literally underneath the wing, close enough to the propeller that we could’ve touched it if I stretched out my hands. Eric was mumbling obscenities at this point, clearly irritated that he let me convince him to do this. Meanwhile, I was happy as a clam. Adrenaline pumping, face plastered to the window of a plane that had maybe 12 people on it. If you know me, you’ll know that planes taking off and landing are among my favorite feelings in the world, so this was a dream come true.

No safety schpeel, no “put your oxygen mask on before helping others”, no flight attendants checking seatbelts— just a rickety take off and a landing that I was sure would’ve given someone a heart attack.

We landed in Bucaramanga, Colombia in the middle of the afternoon. The runway is on the top of a thin strip of mountain, nestled between two higher sections of the range, so from the angle of my window, we looked as though we were heading straight into the side of a cliff. At this point, Eric had kindly requested that I not touch him as he squeezed his eyes shut. Even his sunburnt face had paled, which I didn’t think was possible. How do you un-sunburn your own skin? But also… I didn’t blame him. Very few things give me a tinge of panic when it comes to planes (I mean, there hasn’t been deadly crash in over 20 years!) but this landing was almost an exception.

But we survived.

We were met by our driver, who took us on the hour long journey to Refugio de la Roca. It was once again clear that traffic rules were nonexistent. Bikers on Yamahas swerved in and out of lanes, cruising between cars that were stopped at traffic lights. Our driver rolled down his window & bought a grape soda from a man sitting on the grassy median between lanes. He asked for a sugar free one, which I found odd given Colombians are known to drink Coca Cola with breakfast. Notably, I found it more odd that he wanted a sugar free drink than I did that our driver just bought a grape soda from a seemingly homeless man on the side of a highway.

Continuing up the mountain, the view of the city below blew me away, until it disappeared below a layer of low hanging clouds and fog. At which point, I promptly fell asleep. *shrug* I should note that I don’t usually fall asleep while in a car driven by a stranger in a foreign country but alas every once in awhile, moving vehicles just lull me right into a slumber.

I woke myself up from snoring, embarrassingly, and we turned off the road onto a dirt drive that was so steep, I thought the car might tip over backwards.

We checked in and were walked to our room. With just a bed inside, the walls were glass and the bathroom was outside. (At the risk of being too personal, I have to admit that I’ve never had a view that amazing while peeing. It totally beat staring at my phone!)

I immediately kicked off my shoes, pulled the sliding door in front of the bed open, and crawled my way onto the hammock set up on the front of the room. The drop directly below me was only 10 feet or so, but the Chicamocha Canyon maximum depth is over 6,600 feet, so I felt as though I was on top of the world. Turns out, it’s the second biggest canyon in the world. Who knew?

So there I was, with my life resting in some bungee cords strung through a few pipes jutting out from the side of a room that had been built into a cliff. Happy as could be. Overwhelmed with joy and gratitude and awe and pure disbelief. There are some moments that take my breath away. In Iceland, I cried while I drove towards Thingvellir because the sunrise was just so incredibly stunning. And in February 6, 2019, I cried in a hammock on the side of Chicamocha Canyon. I sucked at the back of my teeth and took a few long, deep breaths as I looked around this place that I had only dreamed of seeing. It was even better in person, as things so often are.

Then… the wind started. I had climbed inside at this point, but the walls were shaking. And I don’t say that lightly. Shaking might be a bit of an understatement…. I’ve noted that it takes a lot to make me nervous while traveling, but even I was skeptical that this hut could hold up through the gusts that were barreling through the canyon.

Apparently not THAT skeptical though, because Eric and I slipped easily to sleep in the middle of the day. Resting like babies on the side of a canyon while our room groaned loudly with the wind.

When we woke up, we meandered back towards the restaurant. I ordered a mojito for myself and a beer for Eric, & we grabbed a deck of cards. Shortly thereafter, the resident money, Jacinto, decided that Eric was his new best friend. I spent the next few hours periodically fending him off, desperately and unsuccessfully trying to shield my mojito and my dinner. A losing battle for me. It turns out, Jacinto isn’t just a terror during dinner. During breakfast, he’d swing through the trees & fling himself off the roof and onto the picnic tables, grab some of my food, and scamper away. When we’d successfully shoo him away, he’d run down the bar, knocking over each chair in his path. One morning, he smashed several eggs on the ground on his way to terrorize the stack of coffee cups that had been left out. When caught, he ran to the garbage can and flung it over before swinging away into the trees. During dinner, he swung around on some girl’s hair before stealing her fries and running off. We woke up the next night to him trying to open our sliding glass door… thankfully it was Jacinto-proof. Monkeys are cute, but I have no desire to adopt one.

We were sad to leave on Friday morning. I had enjoyed the peace & quiet (I finished several books!! FOR LEISURE!!! Not CFA study books!!!!) & Eric had enjoyed the 50 cent beers.

But Bogotá was calling us, with her exotic fruits a graffiti covered streets, so away we went.

Who knew that 36 hours later, I’d be in a 5 star restaurant eating ants, wild rodent meat, and worms?

#Colombia #RefugiodelaRoca #Travel #travelblog