:: Annors Development - The Projects Blog ::

This past Friday afternoon my friends and I took a cab to the modern and rather big central bus station of Bogotá.

Since there are hardly no trains in Colombia, bus is the way that people tend to travel - if they can’t afford a car or if aircraft isn’t an option. There’s harsh competition and you have the option of very comfortable buses, or you may go for the smaller, dirtier and cheaper ones. Leaving Bogotá we went for the cheap option - my friends didn’t want me to miss out on that part of Colombia…

And yes, that was quite a ride. It took about 1,5 hours just to get out of Bogotá. The bus was oftentimes slowing down, so that the guy selling the tickets could announce the destination to potential passengers waiting along the road. One woman entered as the bus was already full, but didn’t accept the floor seat she was offered, and so she left. All kinds of vendors were entering - selling cakes, sandwiches, chewing gums and what else travelers may need. Made me wonder if we were in business class…

The bus ride started in the northern, more pleasant parts of the city and was then going south. Gradually the panorama was getting quite miserable, and on the way out we were passing the infamous “Belt of misery”, formally “Ciudad Bolivar”. This is a huge slum area, much of it dangerously climbing up a steep hill. So-called displaced people, i.e. economic victims of the civil war, are moving into Bogotá en masse. Many of them end up in the “Belt of misery”, starting out with a primitive home built of carton. The Belt suffers from extreme social problems and the drug dealers are in charge.

The Belt supposedly has more than one million inhabitants. The settlers arrive and make some land theirs, subsequently starting the rough struggle to survive. The government does offer schools and more in the area, but the problems are immense. I would have liked to offer you deeper insights, but since The Belt is an absolutely mortal place to go to, I can’t. The only somewhat safe way to go there is if you have have friends inside. Elsewise you may get mugged and killed.

After passing an industrial zone we were finally out of Bogotá. It got dark around 6 PM (18.00). A couple of hours later we arrived in Melgar…

Anders