Colombia; Julie, me and our large craniums!

After leaving the farm, we headed north (by bus of course) edging further towards the Ecuador/ Colombia border. Ecuador has so far been the worst country in South America for dangerous driving, which is a prize I thought could never be taken from the Bolivians, how wrong I was! A yearning for speeding and overtaking trucks or other buses on blind corners must be part of the criteria for becoming a bus driver in Ecuador, perhaps it is the ONLY criteria. Feeling totally helpless in those situations I just close my eyes and hope for the best (i.e. living).

Now that I am in Colombia, I have a new fear, one which I seem to have saved exclusively for travel here, which is that the bus will be hijacked by rebels. Whilst getting night buses here I watch with great interest as passengers get on and breathe a sigh of relief when they’re not wearing a balaclava or carrying a gun! Surprisingly I don’t want to spend my 30’s chained to a radiator.

Potential future holiday snaps......

Where I spent September 2010 - January 2014

January 2014 - Current

The other funny thing about buses in South America is that they actually show movies on board. You can be on the shittest of buses, the windows won’t close, the wheels are practically falling off and the driver is drunk, but you’re meant to sit back and enjoy the entertainment. They don’t show the type of films you would expect such as a Disney or family friendly ones to ensure the non corruption of some of the children that are usually on board, no…they show war or Kung Fu movies with violent scenes of amputation, gruesome torture, murder and often sexual assault. The speakers are usually broken so the films are blaring at top volume. I once got onto a night bus in Bolivia, it sounded like I was in the middle of crossfire, it was pitch black except for the glare off the T.V and all I could hear was deafeningly loud gunshots, which continued for about an hour until the film was over. Bang bang!

In Ecuador, Julie and I spent hours in the Panama hat factory choosing from an array of hats, which surprisingly were large enough to fit our gigantic heads. I have a massive head, it’s astonishing how my neck can withstand the weight of it. I love hats, but usually can’t get any to fit me at home and Julie has the same problem, two big headed freaks on tour. So, we were both very excited when we tried on small hats, hopefully asked for “Mas grande?” and got a “Yes!” in response. We had found the holy grail of hats, we bought four between us and another five when we headed to a market further north in Ecuador where we found a stall with more giant ones.

The "hat stall man" (his official name) on the best day of his life with Julie and the orange rain-coat (of course).

Hats..."Do you have 'freak' size please?"

You can’t do anything about having a big head, weight loss makes no difference whatsoever. Never shall I hear the words “Oh, your cranium is looking so thin!”But, isn’t a large head a sign of a big brain and therefore intelligence, you ask?” Well, I thought of that myself but then asked, ‘Does an intelligent person forget where they are half the time and wonder how they got there? Does an intelligent person book accommodation in one town and then go to another? Does an intelligent person wonder, ‘What happens when I push this button?’ and then realise there is no button?’ I am of course referring to my travel companion, her name escapes me but I know she has a large head.

I bought this blue hat in Peru, it's good and stretchy!

We stopped off along the way to Colombia in a town called Otavalo in northern Ecuador. The men and women here dress in traditional get up, the men in three quarter length black trousers, black boots, ponchos, black hats and with their hair in a long plait worn at the back (kinda creepy). The women wear Japanese Kimono type long robes which reach the floor, flat shoes, blankets folded over and over again and worn as hats, peasant style white blouses with embroidered flowers and loads and loads of orange and gold jewellery, including layers of beads worn on both wrists in a tribal like way. Of course, Julie and I like magpies were attracted to the bracelets and tried some on, they had to be tailored to get around our large wrists meaning that we had to buy them. They are probably the kind of thing that I think will be cool to wear at home "It’s from Ecuador!" I’ll say as I proudly show off my warrior style bracelets thinking how great I look, but really I’ll just look like a dick.

I'll be dressed like this when I arrive at Dublin airport.

We eventually made it to Colombia a couple of weeks ago. It took me a while to warm to the place as at first we passed through some cities and towns, which were really quite dodgy, poor and chaotic. Since then, we have gone to a couple of really beautiful places, including one tiny beach resort on the Caribbean coast, which was so remote we had to get men on motor bikes to take us there, via a very isolated, long, muddy lane way totally off the beaten track. As I grabbed onto Rapheleos waist I thought “Here I am in Colombia on the back of a motor bike with a strange man (again!)” and heard my Mom’s voice “Don’t take any risks!” Uh oh! The beach resort was fabulous and Julie and I spent two days just lying in hammocks chilling out and laughed that once again we found ourselves in a beautiful romantic setting!

Our resort.
Our beach where I hoped Julie would propose.

The one thing that stands out about Colombia which we weren’t warned about is the sleaziness of the local men. We are used to being stared at and cat called in South America, but we have never experienced anything like the harassment we are getting here. We can’t walk anywhere without men staring at our chests, trying to stand in front of us, hissing at us, making kissing noises and shouting at us. The men here are tall, which makes them more intimidating than the midgets in other countries such as Bolivia and Peru, though they weren't anywhere near as sleazy there.

We have been followed twice by men, one of which we had to go into a shop to avoid. One man the other morning walked by us and said “Hello the grand Maracas” as he stared directly at our chests! Okay, that was kind of funny, but the rest of it is really unnerving and is impossible to let just wash over you as it is happening with literally every single man we walk past. Now, I am not in some way or other trying to indicate that I can be considered attractive, I am the least attractive I have ever been, all you have to do is read my other blog entries to know that there ain’t no vanity going on here! My clothes are wrecked, I look a mess and I really don’t care, these men don’t seem to care either!

Even the police do it, we walked past a large group of them, they stopped talking, elbowed each other, nodded in our direction, turned and watched us walk past. I had my sunglasses stolen a week ago (robbery number four, how special am I!?), they were taken off the table of a café whilst I was in the toilet, Julie was actually sitting at the table but a man distracted her and someone else took them. I couldn’t face making yet another claim with pervy police so I didn’t bother.

On the other hand, we have met some nice Colombians, including one very cute, young Colombian boy/man called Andreas, who was on one of our buses, sat beside Julie and bought us both two bracelets made of thread with the Colombian colours to welcome us to his country. We chatted to him for a few hours, he offered to buy us food from the sellers that got on the bus in between giving us random compliments. He didn’t stare at us, didn’t follow us and was polite, we liked him and want more like him (but maybe slightly older and taller!)

So, we are making our way towards southern Colombia to find some trekking, paragliding and other activities suitable for large headed people. The countdown to going home is well underway, which we have mixed feelings about! It will be impossible to stay in the one spot for longer than three nights. We have taken over seven hundred hours of buses since November, that’s over a month and a half, night and day of just sitting! How did we have time to do anything else!? Maybe when I get back to Dublin I’ll keep getting buses in and out of town, all day for the first few weeks to help me adjust to the "settled life" again! OH HOW WILL I ADJUST!!?