Making Travel Plans + A Day Trip to Socorro

Sunday and Monday, Aug. 27 and 28, 2017--San Gil and Socorro

I spent almost all of Sunday making travel plans.  Most of the time was spent trying to find a place to stay in Medellin.  It's frustrating.  The mid-range hotels all seem to have bad reviews when you read the details, even though they have been given 4-5 ratings out of 5!  The number of apartments available is quite limited, and even they tend to have bad reviews, too.  I'm now hoping to get one of two possible apartments, since they are half the price of a mid-range hotel room.  One has approved me, but the one I am most interested in booking has not responded back yet.  I'll give them until tomorrow morning, then I must act before I lose the other one.

The other travel planning I did today was to walk to the bus station and buy my ticket for Tuesday.  I wasn't sure when the buses would leave, so I needed that information.  Then I could decide which company and what time I would go.  I will leave around 9:00 with Omega bus for Tunja (4 1/2 hour trip meaning it will really be about 5 1/2 hours), then I will change for another bus for the 45 min. (meaning 1 hour) trip on to Villa de Leyva.  (I am really getting tired of these long travel days!  I hope once I move into Ecuador, the trips will be shorter since the country is smaller.)

Otherwise, I spent much of the afternoon at the plaza watching people and reading.  And speaking of reading, I have been forgetting to report that I finished The Good Lord Bird by James McBride last week.  I really enjoyed the book which won the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction.  It is about John Brown of Harper's Ferry fame back in the mid-1800s just before the official beginning of the Civil War.  It tells the story of his private efforts to free the slaves in the Missouri/Kansas border area through the observations of a slave he took with him when the father was accidentally killed and concludes with Harper's Ferry 5 years later.  Although I enjoyed the story, I gave the book a rating of 4 out of 5 because the writing could have been a bit better.
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When I awoke Monday, I had heard nothing from the apartment I was hoping to get in Medellin, and there was a message that someone had already rented my backup apartment.  So I had to start from scratch.  I knew, however, I had to do it faster and not be so particular.  In a way, I lucked out.  I found one closer to the center of town while still being in a safe neighborhood and at a cheaper price (only $28 US per night).  The photos make it look a bit dowdy, but all the reviews for it are very positive and say that it is a much nicer apartment than the photos make it look--that the owner must be a poor photographer.  I requested to book it, and the owner responded immediately with approval.  So I don't have to worry about staying in a hotel with a bad review, an apartment in a bad location, or any place overpriced.  What a relief that is.

At breakfast, there was a group of young, idealistic Venezuelans who had spent the night here.  They are walking from Venezuela to Bogota as a part of a human rights campaign.  I didn't ask whether they were pro- or anti-Maduro  who seems to be establishing himself as a dictator and has continued the efforts of his predecessor to spread the money among everyone which is an effort to raise the standard of living of the poor but has resulted in the country being essentially bankrupt with the highest inflation rate in the world.  The group planned to hike 100 km today.  That's about 62 miles--quite a distance to make in a day while going up and down hills.

After breakfast, I headed out on a day trip to Socorro, just down the road and the former capital of this region of Colombia.  It's another old colonial city.  It rises up a hillside and drops off the other direction into the canyon.  That's probably why they abandoned it as the capital.  They were drawing up plans for new government facilities back in the 1800s, and abruptly stopped and choose Bucamaranga as the capital.  I imagine the buildings were going to be too big to fit easily on the slanted ground where Socorro is and that they also realized that it had no room to grow to become a large city.  But is also famous as the city where a woman, Manuela Beldran, ripped up and stomped on a royal tax edict--a move that is considered to be the beginning of the Colombian Revolution for independence.

The city has a wonderful main church, Minor Basilica Our Lady of Socorro, on its main square.  But there is an older church from the mid-1700s, Our Lady of Chiquinquira, with a unique timbered interior dome located on a smaller square about 4-5 blocks away.  A newly reconstructed cobblestone pedestrian street between them is lined with some wonderful old buildings including a toll house (in the middle on the right) where people were charged to enter the city and some rather new ones such as the Teatro Manuela Beltran which was built in 1919.

I walked up and down the streets, I went into the churches, and I sat in the smaller square (the main one was closed for reconstruction) and read.  It was a perfect partly-cloudy day in the mountains with pleasant temperatures.  After about 2 1/2 hours, I returned to the bus station and caught a bus back to San Gil for my last evening here.

Tomorrow, I head to my next destination.