Mompos
Day 302 Thu 30/6
Mompos is a lovely, sleepy, colonial town on Rio Magdalena, which was well worth the effort it took me to get there. I left the hostel in Cartagena at 6:00 and got on a collectivo to Magangue that left at 07:30. The rains in Colombia has left the surrounding region in floods and wrecked havoc with the roads. There were no direct buses to Mompos. It took us 5 hours to get to Magangue. Then it was time to get on a “chalupa”, a small motor-boat, to get to Bodega. I didnt even look around Bodega, but hopped on a (shared) taxi to Mompos.
The hostel in Mompos where I stayed, Casa Amarilla, is run by an English journalist. He lives in Bogota with his girlfriend, but was in Mompos for a couple of days. I had a nice conversation with him and Carmen, who takes care of the hostel.
I walked around time. The people in Mompos are very friendly and are quite happy to chat. At the store I went to get a snack, someone noted that I looked like someone’s nephew. Later on, I would get a hug from the lady whose nephew I resembled. Carmen would also speak of my resemblance to the said lad. Must be one cool cat; afterall my Doppelganger has to share some attributes with me.
While I would have liked to have spent one more night, doing nothing and chatting to people, the buses to Tunja from El Banco dont run every day and I decided that I wouldnt mind an extra night in Villa de Leyva. Mompos and Villa are two of my favourite places in Colombia, but the heat and humidity pushed it in Villa de Leyva’s favour.
Day 303 Fri 1/7
Before the chalupa left to El Banco, I had enough time to make another round, taking in some of the sights a second time. 3 hours in the chalupa, followed by a ride in a moto-taxi to the bus terminal. The moto-taxi is a motorbike that people use to ferry folks around. I had seen it in a couple of towns, but had never tried it before.
After a 2 hour wait at the bus station, I was off on a 19 hour bus-ride to Tunja. I was joined, after about 5 hours, by a pretty young lass. Like most of the Colombians I have met on my trip, she was friendly to a fault and I was more than happy to practise my Spanish with her. We shared some snacks and she even shared her blanket with me because she felt I looked cold, even though I had my jacket on. Colombian buses are quite notorious for turning the A/C on to ridiculously low temperatures at night.
Tags: Travel
Damu