Day 20 - Misconnections (and almost dying in a taxi)

Sunday, June 28th, was just not a good day. It seemed like a lot of things just kept going wrong and everyone was in a bad mood and snapped easily. A group of us had planned on leaving the hotel at 9:00am to go on the cable cars to get to a touristic park area. However, since we weren't going to be back before 12, we needed to check out before we left. So ,that took people longer and as a result, we ended up leaving around 9:40. We walked over to the metro, took it the station where the cable cars were. Partway through, it started smelling like sewage because of the area we were going through. When we arrived to the station, the sewage smell was really strong, especially in the area where we had to stand in line to try to get on to the cable cars. The line was giant and people were absolutely packed in the line, especially once they announced the the last cable car would leave at 11:00. Everyone was trying to hard to get up further in the line to be able to make it before they closed. Apparently, they close at 11 because there's just too many people that come through. I don't see why it would be a problem as long as they're making money! They should at least keep it running until the afternoon! We tried so hard to advance in the line and we finally got to the front...at 11:02, when they had already stopped running the cars.

(not everyone got the we're-taking-a-mad/sad/annoyed-photo memo! :P )

This is one of the students sniffing a bottle of lotion so she wouldn't have to smell that terrible sewag smell!

The meto cable we didn't get to ride:

So, we decided to turn around and go back where we came from. Then we decided to not make going on the metro worthless, so we stopped downtown for lunch. When we got off, we realized we were outside the Botero plaza, a place that we had already been. But looking around, there were not many options for eating except for street vendors which I've learned to be wary of. Most of the places we saw weren't going to be open until around 4, except for one place that had Colombian food, which some of us were just tired of. So, we split into two groups, one that was going to stay at the Colombian place, and the other, my group, which wanted to look for another option. However, we realized that there didn't seem to be any other options close by and because we didn't know that area of town well, we decided it would be best to get back on the metro and go to the area of town where our hotel was. We got back to the area of our hotel probably aroun 12:45 but something occrred than needed our atention. Before we knew it, it was almost 2:00, the time we had to be at the hotel. NOne ofthe four of us had gotten a chance to eat lunch, but since we didn't have to eat luch, we made a stop at a juice store since it was close to the hotel where I got juice of passion fruit, banana, and strawberry. After our devotional, we headed to the airport to leave for Santa Marta. The line for VivaColombia was giant and I felt like it took about an hour to get through the check in line. The line grew even longer after us. I was finally able to get some food from Burger King right before we had to get into the plane, at around 4:15. The flight had some bumps, but no where near as much as what we had flying into Medellín. We could feel the heat and humidity right as we landed. It seems like the airports in the hottest area tend to never have air conditioning. We all split up into different taxis. Our taxi driver was in a terrible mood, apparently due to the traffic caused by recent road work. It took us around an hour, I believe, to get to the hotel. Our driver nearly killed us and people on the street several times. He was driving so wrecklessly, but I guess he was aware, so that's good. But still, I would've preferred a less life threatening ride home. There was one point in which he decided to try to pass two cars and a bus. However, he wasn't going to be able to pass the bus because there was a car in the oncoming lane. At the last second, he squeezed in between the bus and the car behind it, where there really was not much room. Finally we arrived to our hotel, however it didn't get much better. The room I was staying in was on the 4th floor, which required going up around 6 flights of steps in a very small and sketchy stairwell. Our air conditioning wasn't working and the room was just dirty and terrible looking. It was really hot due the humidity as it was, without the air working. I had the bottom bunk, but then I realized that every time the woman on the top bunk moved, the entire bed began to move and it scared me to death. I also noticed that none of the planks holdings her bed in place were attached and all looked old enough to fall apart at any minute. All of the girls in my room were just not happy with the quality of the room and wanted to try to find another hotel. I didn't care that much. No, it was not good quality, but I didn't feel like spending $25 on a different hotel since it was just one night and since I'm a little short on money. Everyone was just in a bad mood due to the hotel quality, the heat, tiredness, and the already unfortunate events earlier (of spending the money to go all the way over to the cable cars and missing the opportunity by a couple of minutes). We walked around to try to find some food, but most of it was sketchy street food. There were some places that, once again, had Colombian food and were outdoor in the heat. We really wanted to try to find a place with air. It was hard to find a place that wasn't expensive and we ended up going to a pizza place that was slightly more expensive than we would've liked, but we shared some pizzas, which kept the price down. Almost everyone was in a bad mood, partly due to some drama that occurred as a result of people being in a bad mood, so that wasn't the most fun. We decided to try to stay away from our hotel as long as possible and so we sat on the wall that bordered the beach for a bit, and then decided to go to some shops and ended up finding a feria (craft fair). We spent a good amount of time there and then stopped to buy some water, and at that store I found a candy bar called a Lorena (my name in Spanish), and the white chocolate version was called "milky." I thought it was funny cause I'm white so I'm basically a "milky Lorena." :P We went back to the hotel where there was still some drama and people that weren't content with their rooms. Some were going to go to the other room, but the other room was just as hot. So, I decided to just stay in my room since that would be easiest. We switched me to the top bunk though, since the bed was so sketchy and since I weighed a bit less than the other girl. The top bunk was right underneath the air conditioning, and though it wasn't super cold, because it was right over me, I actually got a little cold during the night and since that's uncommon, there was only a topsheet. The other bed in the room ended up snapping in half when the girl sat on it! Seriously, I've been to really cheap motels, but this place was one of the worst that I've been to! It was a little hard to get to sleep cause the people in the city were blasting music for a good portion of the night and the bed was uncomfortable and wobbled ever time I made a slight movement. To make matters worse, I woke up in the middle of the night with a nosebleed! Looking back, it's kinda funny how everything went wrong but in the moment, it definitely wasn't enjoyable. None of us were too happy about having to get up early, checking out, and leaving all by 7am, but we were all happy to leave that hotel!

Cool looking flower at the metro station