Magic Bus

So it has been a little while and currently there is a tall fat man wearing nothing but small black speedos, a bum bag and some faux TEVAs standing in front of me so I may be a bit distracted. Also, as far as I've noticed so far, this town has no coffee and I am suffering. Fresh mango milkshakes just dont cut it sometimes.

Anyway.
stock footage to help you picture my travels for all you word-hating readers our there:
Mèrida was like being stuck in a suburb like, say, moonee ponds. There is nothing inherently wrong with moonee ponds but why would you want to spend a huge amount of time there? By the time our posada had been annexed by a huge crowd of wholesome American missonairies I was in a confirmed bad mood. We decided to cut short our stay by a day and head for the wilds of Columbia.

Before we did that, may I present some links to others' photos to help all you word-hating readers out there:

Dive bar where we saw a Venezuelan ska/hip hop band who had a guest MC who was german

The teleferica which took me and my hangover up 4000 meters

The Parque Zoological which had this particular Oso, and which took over an hour to get due to the mysterious disappearance of all buses headed in that direction. We saw breakdaners in the park on the way down. Possibly one of the best sightings in Mérida.

The magic bus which spirted us out of Mérida to Maracaibo was too tight to even provide a movie but did provide extra seating for all. It also ran an hour ahead of schedule so we were in Maracaibo by 4am. Unsurprisingly nothing much was open, it was pitch black and we didnt have enough money for the only bus that was leaving for Santa Marta (in Columbia) in fifteen minutes. And the bus company didnt have credit card facilities.

After sitting on the bags, staring mournfully at the men walking in and out of the toilets directly opposite me and being yelled at by the bus driver who wanted ot know why I wasnt on the bus that was leaving (all I could do was gesture at the bags and suggest "dos person" to him which didnt seem to help) while Evan searched for an ATM that worked.

The bus left and Evan left to get a taxi to an ATM. I moved into the offical, brightly lit waiting room and watched early morning tv with the heavily armed local military. It seemed safer somehow.

The new plan, armed with money, was to catch a taxi from Maracaibo to Maicao, the nearest town on the other side of the Columbian boarer.

The taxi was cheaper than the bus but involved me stumbling behind Evan and the taxi driver (a portly, silver haired man) through the dark, past the unlit local buses, past the taxi rank, past other parked cars, on and on to the furtherest darkest corner of the bus station and the man's decript old Ford which already had three people sprawled out asleep in it.

We made it through about fifty billion local police checks and finally through the boarder and out the other side. Our first stop in the apparently "lawless" town of Maicao was people being friendly to us and pulling faces to make me laugh (after 12 hours of travelling, no mean feat).

Then it was bus tickets, air con and men with machine guns periodically checking the toilet on the bus to make sure it wasnt harbouring any fugitives. Ah Columbia.