Border crossing from Colombia to Ecuador

Ok, I think it’s fair to say that I really frickin’ love Ecuador already! Everything here seems better than Colombia so far; nicer scenery, friendlier people and better showers!! Now, in fairness, I know we’re only 1 stop down on our Ecuadorean tour, but I really do feel like I prefer this place to anywhere we’ve been in Colombia so far. I might even push the boat out here and say that I think Ecuadorean women are better looking than Colombians….i don’t think Kevin agrees with me on this one, but I’ve definitely seen some very attractive looking girls over our few days here, and at least, unlike Colombia (Medellin in particular), they’re not all silicone implanted. It is true to say though that people over here have such a different look to Colombians; far more native American looking and much smaller! I mean one old woman the other day must have been up to my waist and no more. The old people here are so adorable, teeny weeny, not a tooth in their heads, carrying a load twice as big as them but still have a smile for everyone who passes. Many people we’ve spoken to have agreed with us too that people seem to be much easier to understand here; I’m not sure if we’re getting better at Spanish (highly unlikely!) or if people speak more slowly here or what, but we find we’re not having to bring out “no comprendo” as often and we can actually form the basis of a decent conversation with people! Great success!

So, getting here was a bit of an ordeal really. I may be being melodramatic here now, but I would like to not have to make such journeys again. We left for the border from Popayan in Colombia, getting up at the crack of dawn to make it to the bus terminal for the 7am bus. Boliviarno buses leave on the hour every hour from 5am till noon with trips to Pasto and Ipiales. We arrived at the bus station and kindly asked the very sour-faced looking attendant for 4 tickets to Ipiales. She grunted some price at us and threw us 4 tickets, one of which was marked for Pasto instead of Ipiales (the town on the border). I raised my concern about this with her and she merely shrugged and said something along the lines of “it doesn’t matter”. So, only slightly reassured, we put our bags in the hold of the bus and claimed our superbly comfortable seats on the bus, only to be later told by Sour Face that we were on the wrong bus. She ushered us off that one, and onto another one, taking our tickets with her. One of us asked us if we could get our tickets back and she just waved at us as if to say “just a minute”; she appeared to be getting us new ones.  We feared we’d be later asked for our tickets later on in the journey, and not having any, they might chuck us off the bus and leave us to thumb our way through prime bandito country to the border. I dunno whether she got bored or forgot or whatever, but the bus left anyhow without Sour Face returning our tickets, so we just kept our heads down and tried to sleep through the journey. On top of all that fannying about, we left Popayan a half hour late.

About an hour into the journey, and just as I was nodding off to sleep and dreaming of chocolate-filled churros, we were stopped by the Colombian Police, who proceeded to take everyone off the bus and search some of the bags in the hold. I’ve heard enough reports about this to be slightly nervous, especially  as some cops have a reputation of being corrupt; I’ve heard tales of some cops stopping buses and planting cocaine in peoples’ bags as they pretended to search them and then at another check point down the road, other cops check that back, find the cocaine and arrest the innocent owner. So my advice to all is to watch them closely checking your bags to make sure there’s no dodgy carry on. So, check done and 45 minutes later we got back on the bus and the head of the police crew got on the bus, said something rapid in Spanish that made the locals look a bit shocked. So we set off again, only to stop again not far down the road for a food / nature break! With all these stops, our hope of getting to Ipiales in the designated 8 hours was looking unlikely. The bus stopped again after this in Pasto, but that was scheduled, to let people off and on. The trip from Pasto to Ipiales was supposed to take about 2 hours, but thanks to Latin American non efficiency and desperately slow driving, we arrived about 3 hours later. So, around 10 hours after leaving Popayan we arrived in Ipiales and got a short taxi ride to the border crossing. We had to get a stamp out of Colombia, then walk across the bridge to the Ecuadorean side where we got our stamp into Ecuador. Once we were done there, a few taxi men pretty much bundled us into some taxis to drop us to Tulcan, a few minutes away where we were again bundled onto a bus with some scary 1980s curtains to bring us to the town of Otavalo. This trip took 3 hours, made a bit shorter with the help of a movie on a posh flat screen TV. One thing to be said about South American buses, they’re damn comfortable, 99% of the time. In this short trip we were stopped twice more by Ecuadorean police. At this point I was convinced they were hunting for a serial killer or something who fitted one of our descriptions, but no, a quick check and off we went again.

The border crossing from Colombia to Ecuador or vice versa is a pretty lengthy experience. Some hostels, including Hostel Trail in Popayan were advertising the journey from Popayan to Quito in one day, in a total of 13 hours, but by God I was glad I was only going as far as Otavalo.  By the time we got to Otavalo we had already been travelling 13 hours, and we didn’t even get to visit the beautiful church near the border at Ipiales, a major attraction, as we wanted to get to Otavalo before night-time, as that’s when a lot of bus hijackings seem to occur. By the time we we arrived in Otavalo we had eaten nothing but cheesy Dorritos and crappy chocolate since our breakfast at 6am that morning, so I don’t know how anyone survives the epic  Popayan to Quito journey. My advice is to break up that journey by stopping in Otavalo, it’s very much worth it and leave Popayan early, even on the earliest bus at 5am if you want to have time to visit the church at Ipiales, which we didn’t get to do, much to my regret.

Bus from Popayan to Ipiales: 31,000 COP (about €12)
Bus from Tuclan to Otavalo: $3 (about $2.50)