Bussin' It

So, I just arrived in Bogota, Columbia after a rather interesting 30 hour bus ride from Quito. After some long goodbyes to my friends in Ecuador who I will surely miss, I headed to the depot to await my bus. But, after arriving there, I found out that the bus was going to be almost two hours late because of a small accident. Wonderful, this was the bus that I would be trapped on for more than a day. Finally, the bus arrived. But, because I was stuck arguing with the clerk about the weight of my backpack, I was the last one on board, and the only seat left was the one five feet from the bathroom with the broken door that kept flying open the entire trip, revealing the overpowering mix of that nasty blue stuff and urine. This, by the way, wouldn't have been an issue if the clerk would have just gotten off the scale while my backpack was being weighed. I kept telling him I was quite certain my backpack didn't weigh 210 pounds, and I wasn't going to pay a $34 surcharge! Eventually, the bus left the depot and we were on our way to Bogota. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that every person on the bus made it a point to pee at least once an hour just to be spiteful to the poor Gringo. At least you weren't allowed to crap in the toilet. They pulled over the bus for that. Well, moving on, our first stop along the way was a small little village where we had a chance to eat lunch, and relieve our bowels. The funny thing was my friend Julian mistook a small family hut for the bathroom. He just walked into their house and into the family bathroom and took a nasty dump! then proceeded to ask the father where the wash area was. The entire family just looked at him as if an alien had just invaded thier home. After that, it was back on the bus, where I had the wonderful privelage of listening to Columbian folk music for the next 28 hours, and discovering that our bus driver was smoking pot the whole trip, where the smell competed with the bathroom for the rest of the way. I think it was the closest I've ever been to becoming legally insane. Then, halfway to our destination, we were boarded by the Columbian control police who wanted to check everyone's bags for drugs and weapons. (They never checked the driver's..hmmmm, possible bribe maybe)This is when my very bright friend Julian(remember him?) kept on asking the officer closest to us if he could check out his very large machine gun. After the third request, the officer findly just looked at us and asked if we were together. I hated to be rude, but I happily said that I had never met him before. After all the excitement, we finally arrived in Bogota in one piece. What a country!

Behind Bars

Well, today was one of the more difficult days in my life as far as experiences go. My friends Jacob, Joel, and I visited a womens prison here in Quito. Things are much different here than in the US. We arrived at the prison with a bag of clothes to give to the prisoners there. We had no idea how bad things were, and I guess we were slightly unprepared for what we saw. The clothes were accepted with more gratitude than we could have imagined, but we sonn started to hear the stories of the women staying there. In Ecuadors prison system, you must pay for everything you have in the jail. If you have no money or no family to give you money, you have no bed, covers, soap, etc. NOTHING...the only thing you get for free is three bowls of rice a day, with a tiny portion of chicken. We talked to one girl who was from Estonia and was in there for 7 years, because her boyfriend planted a small amount of marijuana in her bag. Most of the women in there were in there because of drugs or prostitution, and were serving multiple years. If you have money, things are much easier, but those without money are left to basically fend for themselves. It´s a terrible balance that exists, but justice is a much different word here. The other problem is the massive corruption among the prison guards..Its even so bad that the poorer inmates often serve lengthier sententces just because they lack the funds to bribe the proper offiicials. We are taking a collection of money, clothes, and bathroom supplies at the hostel here, and are making a return trip next week to bring them some more items, hopefully to brighten there day if only a little. We are also planning a trip to the mens prison in the near future, and from what we here the conditions there are even worse. I just wish there was more that we could do. It really makes you appreciate the freedom you have, and the simple things in life that they may never get to experience again.