After 70 hours on a bus....we arrived in Bogota!

So, on Monday around 2pm, we left the constant horn honking, the endless ¨hostels¨ that used to be hotels, the muscle-car cabs, and got on an older clunkier Ormeno bus heading for Bogota. Our seat reservations we had picked when we bought the tickets had somehow gotten lost, or mixed up, and we were put in seats in different places on the bus. Fortunately, we were able to get the last 2 seats together, unfortunately, they were kinda the worst ones on the bus. Oh well, we settled in.
The northern half of Peru was beautiful. We found ourselves back in the desert, multi-colored houses against a sea of tan brown sand. We drove along the coastline that looked like Oregon and further up started looking and feeling more tropical with thatched huts on the beach, and passed small fishing villiages. This turned into lush scenes with endless palms and banana groves with endless rice fields shining in the baking sun. The first night was nice as the bus was not completely full yet and I was able to grab another row so we could both stretch out to sleep a little, and slept reletively well.
Tuesday we woke up very near to the border. We passed out of Peru and into Ecuador through a small dusty, roadside pulloff, stood in a long line, and got our exit and entry stamps with not hassle. Ecuador was amazing country to drive through, that was definitely a highlight of traveling by bus. Green rolling hills and lush pastures, cows, horses, stunning mountains, cacti, amazing sky. We went through Guillenquil (sorry not sure of the real spelling!) at sunset, which was beautiful as we drove through the city, which was much bigger and prettier than I had imagined, and it was kind of magical time of day, driving over the water and enjoying a sense of comraderie with the rest of the people on the bus watching a heartwarming movie.
Wednesday we woke up almost to the border of Colombia, and again got through the exit and entrance stamps and lines without much trouble. We were worried about how much time they would give us on our tourist cards for Colombia, but they gave us what we asked for, so smooth sailing! We started to see a pretty heavy police presence in Colombia. About 20 minutes outside of Cali we were stopped for a total bus search, they were litterally taking it apart! We were there for about 40 minutes and they left with about 7 cases of Pisco which they insisted was nitro glycerin.
We arrived in Bogota on Thursday around noon. So much of the trip has blurred together into hours of reading, and looking out the window, and trying to ignore how cramped and uncomfortable I was, and how much my knees hurt, or being hungry, or watching movies, trying to ignore my own smell, being glad I got to brush my teeth, trying to ignore the too loud, too static laden music blaring through the bus at 2 in morning, the ¨massage¨chair as we started calling the feeling of little kid feet boring into our backs. We met some nice people though, and like I said, seeing the countries pass us by made it pretty worth it. But, let me tell you, stepping off that bus made me a pretty happy girl, and I cant quite express how good laying flat on a bed and taking a shower felt!
We accidentally slept most of Thursday. Yesterday we went to the Modern Art Museum, and saw a show I loved by an artist named Pedro Ruiz. We walked the city, saw pretty plazas and gardens, and ate some really good food, and breathed in some heavily polluted air, and found ourselves back in a big, busteling city with cool, fashion forward people, tons of youth, and nightlife. We have people trying to sell us emeralds on the street, not to mention the guys who come strick up a nice conversation for a few minutes to offer you weed and coke. The weekends are crazy here with main streets being closed to auto traffic, and people out in huge crowds all night. We saw people grilling meat and potatoes on grills made in shopping carts, people singing karaoke on the street, spray paint art demos, people selling cellphone minutes with many cellphones attatched to them so people make calls with the cords all leading back to the same pack and look like weird, modern, people spiders. Theres a big reggae culture, even though the reggae bar Wyatt used to go to is now a sushi bar. There are Dunkin Doughnuts everywhere and Wyatt has discovered that he loves capaccinos. Sweets and gelatto (helado) are huge here, well all over S.A. so far, but Peru and here the most, really, every other person has a cone or cup of it it seems.
Ok, that´s enough for now. Will post pictures soon, as soon as we find somewhere to sit with wifi. Feels good to be here in the warmer climate and anticipating being on the carribean coast next week!