Bucaramanga, Colombia
I had never heard of Bucaramanga until I saw it was in a good place to stop on the way from Venezuela to Medellín. It is actually a great city to visit with lots of well priced hotels and plenty of restaurants and bars. A great place to go for some food, a drink and a dance is Parque las palmas. You'll find a wide variety of good restaurants here, several beer bars and a disco.To get around the city, taxis are cheap, buses are a little complicated but there is a bus rapid transit system called Metrolinea, which is easy to understand. The roads have a separate lane for the Metrolinea, and they only stop at stations. It's like a metro/tube but using a bus and it's very easy to use.
There are a couple of modern shopping malls in Bucaramanga which are accessible by the Metrolinea.
The famous food of Bucaramanga are big bottomed ants, or hormigas culonas. You can buy these in most places, even in the bus station if you need something to eat on the bus!
Overnight bus from Bucaramanga to Medellín, 8 hours, 80,000
I went a day earlier to the Copetran office to buy my ticket to Medellín. I paid 80,000 pesos for my ticket, I later discovered than when buying bus tickets in Colombia, you can ask for a discount. I could have got the ticket for as little as 40,000 pesos. Another way to get this discount is to turn up 10-20 minutes before the bus is leaving and they will be shouting this price in the station whilst looking for passengers.Copetran is an excellent bus service, as was Bolivariano from the Venezuela border.
