There are bus routes spanning towns ten minutes away, as well as to cities 30 hours apart. As a result, it’s possible to get around without a car of your own.
Finally, due to my town being a farming town, we also have a couple of other forms of transportation that are a bit more unique. The first is Jeeps. Jeeps are quite common in my town, as they are in other farming and coffee areas. That’s because they are used to get to fincas (farms) easily. Horses and mules are also more common. Campesinos (farmers) often ride horses, and there are sometimes horses going through town or tied up outside cafes.
The main transport I use is buses. I rely on buses to travel around my region and to take trips farther away. For example, I often take the bus to a neighboring town called Barbosa, which is located 20 minutes away. To catch that bus, I wait along the main road in town. Although there isn’t an exact schedule, the bus usually comes every 30 minutes. Once it passes, I just flag it down to get on. Barbosa is a bigger city, so it has a more traditional bus station. There, I can get buses to other cities, including Bogotá (the capital of Colombia), Bucaramanga and Tunja.
The longest bus I’ve been on was 12 hours long. That was from Bogotá to the town of Salento, which is found in the coffee triangle. The bus ride normally takes ten hours, but we got delayed due to traffic and an accident on the road. Buses that are traveling such large distances are typically designed with that in mind. The seats are bigger and recline, so luckily, I was able to sleep for most of the ride.
Overall, I really enjoy being able to take buses.
