[ Dec.2016 ] We spent the last few hours in the beautiful town of Barichara in Colombia relaxing, until 2 pm when the taxi was supposed to come and pick us up.
When we were walking around the town, we came across Oswaldo, our guide from the day before, eating something in a bakery.
We greeted him warmly and said good-bye.
And it reminded me of some of the information he gave us.
It was about eagles.
Apparently they choose a partner which has the same wavelength and the couple will be together all their lives.
And when one of them dies, the other one stops eating and starves to death.
How romantic!
Another thing I learned from him was something more basic.
I was thinking vaguely that because we came to South America, we were in the Southern Hemisphere.
But at one point, for some reason I realised I was wrong so I asked him for the clarification.
The equator goes through Ecuador which is south of Colombia and some part of Colombia, too.
And the equator is not exactly one line, but a kind of zone, so we were under the zone of the equator, he said.
So roughly speaking, the sun moved from east to west going through right above us, which means the shadows were formed either west or east, not south or north.
The reason why this place was not too hot for the equatorial zone was that it had the altitude of 1300 metres.
Really Barichara was a lovely relaxing town, warm but not too hot.
Another thing I remember now is that when we went into a pharmacy to buy a pack of plasters, we found that they were selling them loose, which was a surprise for us.
So many countries, so many customs.
We went back to the hotel in time for the taxi to come, but it did not turn up after 2 pm.
Because we were to take an aeroplane for Medellin on that day, we started feeling uneasy.
By the way, the hotel we stayed in Barichara was called Hicasua which was located just outside of the centre on the very steep slope.
Our room was bright and spacious with the high ceiling on which there was a fan.
There was a swimming pool, too, though we did not have a chance to use it.
None of the staff there spoke English, but they were very nice and friendly.
When they saw that we were in trouble waiting for the taxi, they started calling a few places to find out what was happening which allowed us to calm down.
Finally it came 35 minutes late.
The drive to the Bucaramanga airport took more than 3 hours on the curvy mountain road.
When we crossed a pass, we saw a breathtaking view.
