Colombia - at night

We arrived in Colombia at 4:00pm. I wasn't prepared. Claudia paid off the customs officials with chocolates. The officiousness of the guards is a facade for corruption. The rule seems to be that you play along with them, acting as though you are reverent of their position, and then give them a "gift" for being so nice with you. They say, "Normally, I'm not supposed to accept gifts, but..." No one says anything, even though everyone knows it's a lie. I'm glad that I was with people who knew the rules.

There were 20 people waiting for us outside the gates. Rafael's sister, mother, aunt, their children ... It was the first time that everyone was going to be together in over 20-years.

That night, after more family had arrived, we took a bus through the mountains next to Bogota. It was raining; the roads were overflowing; people had given up on the buses and decided to walk through the streets.

Our bus was packed with people - children on laps, people standing, people sitting on the floor. Luggage in laps and filling the back. There was a question as to whether or not the bus could withstand this much weight, but the driver drove like he was on a motorcycle. In and out of traffic, scraping the side of the road. We'd round a corner and there would be a truck in our path. We'd all scream.

The mountains were dark, and I wondered what was in the hills. We'd pass small, roadside towns, where people were casually drinking on their porches, or smoking meat for sale. Occasionally, we'd pass security checkpoints, the police dressed in khaki-green, holding machine guns. It was a major holiday weekend for the country, so police were on the look-out for people causing trouble.