Going With The Flow

I'm sitting in an internet cafe talking about my general lack of plans when my travel companions discover that I never got vaccinated for Yellow Fever. As it so happens, you are legally required to be vaccinated to even enter Colombia, but apparently this law does not apply to me. A local told me there was a clinic that gave out a free vaccine in town, and we made a plan. Wake up @ 6:30 to check out of hostal, go seek out vaccine, catch a cab to a mercado outside of town where you can catch a ride on the local boats that travel back and forth to an island 45 minutes away called Playa Blanca, find a hostal owned by a Frenchman named Gilbert, stay the night & catch a ride back the next afternoon.

The following is the readers digest of the events: The centro de salud doesn't give the shot but knows of a place 30 minutes away (and coincidentally close to the mercado where we search for a boat). We caught a cab for $4 and headed to this very poor barrio to pull up to 200+ people waiting outside for service. The cabbie realizes the hopelessness of the situation, parks the cab, and jumps out with me. We weave through the people asking questions and making excuses, constantly getting referred farther and farther back into the small building, sweltering hot and packed with people. Finally we arrive at a door marked vacuna (vaccine), knock, explain to a few people the nature of the situation, get ushered in & I get a needle shoved into my arm faster than I can blink. They grab my passport, jot down a few #'s, give me a yellow card to prove I'm yellow fever free, and we're back outside. We jump in the cab and drive to the docks, which are surrounded by a 1 way circular road avoid making the 4 kilometer tour, the taxi driver pulls onto the road, throws the car into reverse, and books it backwards at 30 km an hour. We catch a boat with the locals, arrive on the island, find the frenchman, and him up until he lets us use his wood canopy he built farther down the beach and separated from everything. We spend the day snorkeling, swimming and lying about until someone approaches us asking us if we want a ride back - and in a last minute decision catch a boat back to the mainland.

The next day I spent the whole time trying to figure how to get out of Colombia... as flights are WAY too expensive. After visiting 3 travel agencies and wasting 5 hours, I finally buy a round trip ticket to Lima, Peru (because the 1 way was $100 more expensive!) for an astounding $400. The flight leaves at 6 am, so I go back to the hostal where I meet 3 Israelis, 2 Germans, 1 Austrailian, a Colombian from Bogota & a Canadian. I teach all of them how to play Kings Cup and after 2 handles of Rum and 2 bottles of Vodka we head across the street to a bar where a band is playing live Salsa. We spend the whole night salsa dancing until 4 am, when I head back to the hostal, pack my bag by flashlight and catch a cab at 4:30 to the airport. I arrive at Bogota at 8 am, spend 5 and a half hours in the airport wasting time til my 1:40 flight to Lima, Peru where I arrive at 4:45 ... unfortunately, my bag doesn't. Where is my bag? I sit here 24 hours later, and the answer to that question is still " I dont know"...