Today was the first of two travel days in a row. My plan was to fly from Barranquilla to Medellín to Panama today, and then take a night bus to Costa Rica from there. I had quite a lot of time to kill at the Medellín airport, but I had been sure Medellín would be a big airport with plenty of diversion available. As it turns out, I was wrong: the airport is about the size of a small regional airport in Germany. Who would've thought?
While I was wandering around in search for food, I noticed everyone else was all but hypnotized by some program on TV. I turned to watch - just in time to see the Colombian BMX athlete Mariana Pajón cycle to gold. Everybody cheered, and the race was repeated at least thirty times within the next hour. It was Colombia's first gold in these games, a big cause for celebration.
A little later, I saw a bunch of policemen carry guitars and amplifiers into the airport and start setting everything up. And then, sure enough, they started playing cheesy Latin American songs. How weird is that?
And then, after almost nine months, it was time to say goodbye to South America! With all the warnings about terrible crime rates in some places, this is what happened to me: nothing. No theft, no pickpocketing, no robbery at knifepoint, no kidnapping. I heard stories from fellow travelers though, but it always seemed to me that with a little common traveling sense most of what they experienced could have been avoided. In my experience, South America is a safe enough travel destination!
So then, this was my parting glance at South America:
And, a little while later, my first glance at Central America:
I had already been to Panama city's airport back in November. Coming from Cuba, the airport had been the perfect consumerist culture shock. This time, there was no culture shock - in contrast to Cuba, Colombia is much more developed and most certainly open to western brands.
While I was wandering around in search for food, I noticed everyone else was all but hypnotized by some program on TV. I turned to watch - just in time to see the Colombian BMX athlete Mariana Pajón cycle to gold. Everybody cheered, and the race was repeated at least thirty times within the next hour. It was Colombia's first gold in these games, a big cause for celebration.
A little later, I saw a bunch of policemen carry guitars and amplifiers into the airport and start setting everything up. And then, sure enough, they started playing cheesy Latin American songs. How weird is that?
And then, after almost nine months, it was time to say goodbye to South America! With all the warnings about terrible crime rates in some places, this is what happened to me: nothing. No theft, no pickpocketing, no robbery at knifepoint, no kidnapping. I heard stories from fellow travelers though, but it always seemed to me that with a little common traveling sense most of what they experienced could have been avoided. In my experience, South America is a safe enough travel destination!
So then, this was my parting glance at South America:
And, a little while later, my first glance at Central America:
I had already been to Panama city's airport back in November. Coming from Cuba, the airport had been the perfect consumerist culture shock. This time, there was no culture shock - in contrast to Cuba, Colombia is much more developed and most certainly open to western brands.
