Colombia, at last

I finally made it to Colombia. And tonight I will finally be in my destination of Santa Marta. I decided to fly there for two reasons: the first being that it is way quicker and will ensure that I arrive in Santa Marta in time to organize a trip to Ciudad Perdida, and the second being that its probably safer. Colombia is a big place so bus rides take some time and its not like Argentina where you can basically take one bus and get wherever you like. To get from the border town of Ipiales to Santa Marta on the coast I would have to take no less than three buses. And since I would only be taking them during the daylight hours it would take me no less than three days to get there. And I´m not exactly comfortable with the bus situation as it is. I mean, I guess here you can bargain for a better price, but I have no idea what a good price is/I have no idea how much money Im spending anyway because everything is in hundreds of thousands of pesos. Anyway, thats why I decided to fly.
I had an interesting day yesterday. It was my single goal in Cali to find a battery charger for my camera since I had mysteriously misplaced mine a couple of weeks ago. I first went to the owner (maybe, I really dont know) of the hostel and asked him if he knew of any RadioShacks around. He looked at me blankly. RADIOSHACK. still, nothing. The reason I was so sure that there should be a RadioShack here in Cali is because while in Quito I went to a RadioShack that had what I needed, but when he took it out of the box, it was broken. He recommended that I visit the RadioShack in Cali. Thus, my insistence that I find the nearest RadioShack. Next I tried looking it up in the yellow/white pages. Again, nothing. No radioshack, no electronics store, no camera accessory stores. NOTHING. And the owner guy was of absolutely NO help. Soon after he showed me where the yellow/white pages were, he peaced. Thanks a lot. I googled RadioShack. still nothing. Finally, I just decide to go out into the world and see what I can make of it. I start walking, just looking around for a place that sells ice-cream or something, when I stumble across a ¨ferreteria¨ or a hardware store. I went in and explained my situation to the guy working in there and he directs me to another part of town where they might have the part I´m looking for. He explains to me how to get there (under two bridges, straight 5 blocks and then turn left) and as Im about to leave says, ¨and, it shouldnt be too dangerous. I was just there a couple of days ago and it was okay. It used to be a place where you had to be careful, but you should be fine.¨ OH. whatever, I decide to walk. So Im walking, and its sweltering and I´m feeling a bit uneasy, but just keep walking. The under the two bridges area is a little shady, but once I pass through there and walk a few blocks I´m suddenly in a very busy part of town. I guess, you could call it downtown, but I really don´t know. I find the store that he recommended to me. Its closed for siesta. But the nice thing about the cities in South America is that usually all the business in the same line of work are located on the same block, or in the same building. So I just went to a couple of stores around there and asked them where I could find a charger for my battery. And they directed me to other places until I finally found a place that was open and that carried the part that I needed. I felt so accomplished. All by myself I had found a very obscure battery charger in a big city, in a big country, far, far away from home. And it works, too.
So, after that I decided to take this matter of flying to Santa Marta into my own hands. At that time, I still hadnt decided to fly or not. Earlier that morning the owner guy promised to make a phone call to ¨his friend that owns a travel agency¨ and give me a price. Which he never ended up doing. So I went to the airline and got an estimate for a flight to Santa Marta, enquired about a discount, got one, and bought my ticket. So there, owner guy--you suck. Afterwards I treated myself to a HUGE soft-serve ice-cream sundae. What a good day.
In conclusion (Allie!!!), I got all my goals accomplished, plus one, and I managed to navigate my way around the city relying solely on my natural-born wit and intuition. I´d say it feels pretty good to be a ganster, right about now.
Thinking about that ice-cream makes me want another one.

Peace!