table with two of his associates. After dinner Clara 

 went to bed while I sat with them on the terrace. After 

 a Daiquiri and some desultory conversation, I also re- 

 tired, leaving a call for U.30 AM. 



Feb. The Avianca bus was scheduled to call at the ho- 

 tel at $.10. We were called on time, and managed to get 

 our bags packed and taken to the lobby by six minutes 

 past five, only to find that the bus had gone. The plump 

 Teuton at the desk seemed not at all disturbed and sug- 

 gested we could get there by taxi. A rather disagreeable 

 man with a slight accent (but no Spanish at all) was in 

 the same fix and very cross about it. He had made the 

 trip befofe, and said the bus was probably killing time 

 outside Avianca v s city office; we shared a taxi to the 

 city office, and there was the bus, a big open affair 

 with no inside aisle. It was dark, the street was dark 

 and the passengers were sitting in glum silence. We man- 

 aged to find places &nd squeeze aboard. It was too dark 

 to see anything of the city, but the sun came up before 

 we reached the airport, so that we could see the road and 

 have our first glimpse of the meek little Colombian burros, 

 some carrying crates of bottles and some carrying humans , 

 who looked incredibly long-legged as they towered over 

 those small backs . So food of any kind at the airport, 

 and nothing within reach. We were briefly weighed, with 

 baggage, and then sat on the terrace ?/aiting to be called 

 to the plane. P. J. Eder -as also waiting; we talked 

 with him now and then, and sat behind him on the plane. 

 It was a Douglass, with side entrance and all seats fac- 

 ing forward. The other passengers seemed to be South 

 Americans . We went up less roughly than in the seaplane, 

 and Clara found it less painful to the ears. When the 

 plane was up and on its way the steward brought around 

 coffee and sandwiches, ft jamon o queso ? H . We came down 

 for twenty minutes at Barranca Bermeja; we could just 

 make out the oil drums and see that it was a river port 

 as we came down, but the airport was surrounded by fields 

 and woods . A few yards from the building I collected 

 some scale insects on a gardenia. 



There was much to see as we flew up the Magdalena val- 

 ley mountains on both sides, the Eastern cordillera 



on the left and the Central on the right, with the river 

 between looking very small indeed. Now and then there 

 was a small cluster of roofs, but long stretches without . 

 Once we saw a little steamboat on the river, tiny enough 

 to prove that the river was not the thin thread of water 

 it appeared. Once I saw a crocodile, sunning himself on 

 a sand-bar. After an hour or so the river began to get 

 even smaller, as we gradually climbed, until we were fly- 



