After breakfast we packed our bags and checked out. The Dona Esther has been a nice place to stay and the staff have been very friendly. Surprisingly, and unlike everywhere else we've stayed in Ecuador, the owners have been very uncommunicative, in fact we thought they were other guests at first. We walked the short distance to the bus station to get the first of many buses to Ibarra, c30 minutes north of Otavalo. The bus left just after 0800, full of locals who were maybe visiting family and friends or heading for a day out. It cost $1.10 for the journey. We arrived in Ibarra and found a company with a bus to Tulcan which was suppose to leave at 1015. We waited for somebody to appear to buy tickets from, paid $6 for the c2 hour journey and waited for the bus. We left the station before 1000 (not sure why) and continued to the northern most town in Ecuador. The scenery was lovely on route, very hilly and green with large areas of farming. At Tulcan we jumped in a taxi to take us to Rumichaca Bridge and the border crossing with Colombia. We got stamped out of Ecuador and walked across the bridge into Colombia, stamped in Colombia, changed some money and jumped into a taxi to Ipiales, the southernmost town in Colombia. At Ipiales we bought tickets for the bus to Pasto where we were planning to stay for the next two nights. The bus turned out to be a minivan which was fine as the journey was only a couple of hours. The road followed a valley winding up and down hills which rose steeply either side, with many different plateaus. As with the Ecuadorian side it was very fertile and green which surprised us as a little noting we were between 2500 and 3000m most of the time. On the road we passed lots of smoking "chicken buses" with people crowded inside and lots of luggage and stuff on the roof. We don't fancy travelling in one of those regardless of the price! One thing we did notice different in Colombia was a very noticeable military presence, with lots of checkpoints (which we didn't stop at any) with lots of soldiers with large rifles across their arms (looked like M16s). It's not that long ago that the country was a basket-case and off limits to all but the most adventurous travellers so probably not surprising, and reassuring, that it's well patrolled. We arrived promptly at the bus terminal and after being told "manana" when we tried to buy our onward tickets to Popoyan on Tuesday (you think we would have learnt by now!) we jumped in the taxi for the 10 minutes journey to our hotel. The centre of town was deserted as it was not only a Sunday, but also long weekend as its their national independence day tomorrow. We knew there is not much to see in Pasto but needed to stop somewhere on route to Popoyan (it's advised to avoid travelling on the road at night) and there is supposedly a lovely lake nearby that we plan to visit tomorrow. Our hotel Cassia Lopez is a lovely 19th century building with rooms set around a courtyard and after being made very welcome by it's owner, Jaime, we chilled out drinking Colombian coffee and proper English tea. Unfortunately the only restaurant we managed to find open was a pizzeria which was a taxi ride away. Shame our first night in Colombia was this but we compensated by having a Colombian beer, called surprisingly "Club Colombia". It seemed preferable to their other choice called "Poker". Whilst waiting for our taxi back we chatted to an American family who are living in Medellin (he was working at the language school there, 2 years in to his 5 year contract) and who were returning from a 3 week holiday in Ecuador (all by car). When we got back to our room we had a nice surprise of 2 hot water bottles in our bed, which whilst it isn't cold here was a bit of home comfort (at least it meant Diane didn't put here cold feet on Simon as usual to warm them up!).
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| Ibarra bus station |
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Leaving Ecuador
Rumichaca Bridge and the border crossing |
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| Our minivan from Ipiales |
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