South America,  Colombia,  Travel

Guatape

November 20, 2019 /

In the morning, go to the coach station and take a bus to the Guatapé boulder, two hours away from the city center. The girl sitting next to me on the bus chatted with me all the way, and I admired myself for over an hour in Spanish, and then fell asleep after overusing my brain. The girl is an indigenous person from a small village who moved to Medellin 13 years ago and is now a civil engineer. She doesn't know English and doesn't want to learn it at all, but she has taught herself Japanese for two years and is particularly interested in Japanese culture. I immediately recommended her to watch Terrace House on Netflix. I also found that I can chat for a long time as long as I talk about delicious food, because I can remember the Spanish names of local delicacies clearly. She also recommended me a curious combination of guava cake and cheese. She also asked me a lot of questions about China afterwards.

The long-distance buses in Colombia are very interesting along the way. When they stop halfway, there will be street vendors selling snacks on the bus with bags of snacks. On the way, the police boarded the car to collect everyone's IDs and checked them one by one. I brought my passport but he confiscated it. The most amazing thing is that I was sleeping soundly on the way back, only to be woken up by a burst of rap. The two buddies came up and set up a small speaker, and took turns rapping and ventriloquizing. This entertainer is too entertaining for the public! After ten minutes, the car stopped on the side of the road and went down.

I fell asleep in the second half of the way, but fortunately the girl next to me woke me up when I reached the boulder. I was quite shocked when I walked to the foot of the mountain and saw the boulder (the first picture in Figure 1 was stolen from the Internet). It looks like a lot of steps, but it's actually okay to climb up. The weather is exceptionally good, and the topmost scenery is also super beautiful.

I met several interesting people while climbing the boulder. The first one was an American, but after learning that I was Chinese, he immediately chatted with me in fluent Chinese, and he was also fluent in Spanish. He studied Chinese at Peking University, lived in Beijing for one or two years, and traveled to China for business trips for ten years. He lives in Southern California in the United States, which is very close to the city where I used to live. The second one is a German girl who traveled alone. She met on the top of the boulder. They went to Guatapé, a nearby city, for a stroll together, and then took a long-distance bus back to Medellin. Along the way, I shared a lot of experiences as a woman traveling alone, which resonated very much. She is a nurse and once worked as an AIDS volunteer in Cambodia for a year or two. The most unbearable thing was to ask her how long the trip was, and she said, "Oh, it's too short, it's only three weeks." This is actually a common answer among travelers from Europe, especially from Germany. They have too many holidays a year, ranging from six to nine weeks. Extremely envious and jealous! The third person I know is a Dutch uncle who retired to travel with his wife, but his wife didn't feel well so he didn't climb the boulder. He joined us when we carpooled with German girls under boulders. He just needs a ride down the mountain, instead of going to Guatapé with us, because his hotel is at the foot of the mountain. He strongly recommended a vegetarian restaurant in Guatapé to us.

The small town of Guatapé is super beautiful, full of colorful buildings and decorations. I was walking around with the German girl and I accidentally saw the vegan restaurant recommended by the Dutch uncle just now. This is probably the healthiest meal I have eaten since I came to Colombia (the usual meals are too much meat and the portions are small. huge). The owner of the restaurant and the worker looked super happy, singing while playing local music while cooking for us. We sat on the small chairs outside and ate delicious food, which was very comfortable.

When I was ready to go back after eating and shopping, I suddenly saw the Dutch uncle who had just carpooled sitting and drinking coffee in another place, so we sat down and chatted with him again, mainly to thank him for the restaurant he recommended. While chatting, the Chinese-speaking American I met when I was climbing the boulder just now suddenly appeared in this restaurant. It's amazing! Before taking the bus back, I bought the combination of guava cake and cheese recommended by the girl next to me when the long-distance bus came. Encounters, reunions, and trying the food recommended by others during this day are simply one of the happiest things in travel.

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