Even though we just spent one full day in Santa Fe we were quite relaxed. And while we would have been happy to stay longer, we were ready for another day on the road. A bus arrived right when we reached the bus stop so we didn’t get breakfast in Santa Fe. We could have if we would have known that the bus driver got his breakfast while we were patiently waiting for the bus to depart. Anyway, we still got some snacks with us.

Fast forward to Santiago. Here we could have gotten a late breakfast, have a bio break, and probably boarded one of the large and comfy overland buses to David. Instead, we let a guy pick us up right when we got off our first bus and let him bring us to a small bus with uncomfortably narrow seats (he let us know that the next one would only depart two hours later). In the next 45 minutes of waiting for the bus to depart, we had enough time to contemplate that on this major route, buses would probably go very frequently. Our mood dropped to a minimum. We weren’t able to talk to each other. 

While still having an uncomfortable ride, our mood, fortunately, recovered until we reached David. And after finally having a proper meal, we were ready for the last stretch of our journey. Here we joined four other travelers at the bus station. It was a bit strange that the bus driver let us wait outside while letting other passengers in. It turned out, we were going to stand in the bus for the hour-long ride. Katy was able to stand upright but I had to bend over while heading up the curvy mountain road. 

The reason for this was two-fold. First, it’s quite common here for people to stand in those minibusses for extended periods. Usually it is first come first serve though. Unfortunately, the bus driver had made the experience that tourists were frequently offered better seats so he wanted to equalize things by letting us stand this time. While our co-tourists were quite upset we didn’t mind too much and having a good chat time passed quickly.

I promise we will try to avoid sharing too many additional bus stories. 😅

The destination of this full-day journey was the Lost & Found hostel. It is located in the middle of the jungle. You hike up for about 20 minutes until you reach it. We were greeted by a spectacular sunset overlooking the valley and a strong and cold wind. During dinner, we had to be careful to prevent our food from flying away and the night was far from cozy.

The next day we went hiking on the trails starting next to the hostel. We had to climb across three trees that fell across the path during the night’s storm. After we already thought that we got on the wrong track again (like in Santa Fe) we reached the river where we had lunch, took some photos, and meditated for a while. The spot truly calmed us down. 

We could have stayed longer here. But we were keen to finally get to fly our paragliders. So our next post will finally be about our paragliding experience over here — looking forward to sharing it with you!

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