The flight from Quito to Bagota is quick, one and a half hours. Before departure, the girl sitting next to me, a Colombian girl, asks me if I would please help her fasten her seatbelt (which is curious, since she seemed quite experienced in flying…).
After that I fall asleep (as I almost always do during flights 😂). I just can’t keep my eyes open.
In a flash I find myself in Colombia. The airport is very nice, already the name is characteristic, El Dorado. The line for immigration is modest, meanwhile I read the signs, including a warning to travellers: 25 years in prison for those who have sex with minors… how strange I think….
Here is my turn at immigration, a pretty-faced girl is my border officer. Everything seems to be going smoothly except at one point The passport reader breaks. Panic. The girl starts running from side to side, talks to the superiors, they don’t know what to do… (usual luck 😅).
After a good 10 min they manage to cancel the procedure and finally send me to another officer, where after a few minutes I get my tourist visa for Colombia.
That might be enough for today, but no! I go out and head to baggage claim, the carpet is empty and on the screen is the name of my flight. I wait patiently…. 10 min
20 min, 30 min, 45 min….
Then it starts to look very strange… I go to ask the airport staff for information and nobody can tell me anything. They tell me to go to the lost luggage office of the company I flew with. The indication is to go to the first floor at the bottom right. I go there but of course there is no office 😑.
I ask again and they send me somewhere else… after walking all around the airport and talking to half the people there, I finally find it. And I realise that in Colombia the first floor corresponds to our ground floor 😅.
I am not the only one having problems with my luggage apparently… while I wait my turn I look around the office. Behind the glass window is a room with 3 men sitting, only one of whom seems to be working. On the opposite side there is another window looking out onto the baggage rollers for domestic flights… and there I see my backpack passing on one of these rollers!
As soon as it is my turn, I point it out to the attendant, who, after an endless procedure, returns my luggage!
In the meantime, Luis arrives at the same airport, a man from the Mancora group, with whom we will travel together to Colombia.
Time to take a taxi and we are at the hostel.
The room initially assigned to us has an unmade bed and a broken safe drawer, so we are assigned another one.
After watching the Peru-Australia match, in which Peru lost on penalties and so will not participate in the World Cup, we go for a walk. The city is nice, but the weather changes constantly. One moment it is raining, another it is sunny, from cold to hot in a few minutes.
In the evening we go out for dinner and trying to reach the nicest part of the centre we have to cross a small park.
The faces are not very reassuring, blatantly drugged boys almost unconscious on the sides of the road. Two guys run towards us in an attempt to sell us some doses… we continue at a rapid pace. Another guy approaches us and starts trying to see Luis, who replies that we are not interested. I am slightly behind them and I hear the guy insist, going so far as to tell him that he had to buy it otherwise something bad would happen. He goes so far as to say that he is the police there, he is in charge in the park and that Luis has to give him everything he has. But my friend continues undaunted and says no!
Then the boy approaches me and it is only then that I see what he has in his hands: a switchblade knife. He also tries it on me by threatening me and intimidating me to give him everything I had. I answer no too, and in the end the boy desists with an air of surprise. Better go and get something to eat… 😅
Welcome to Colombia