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After many frustrating attempts to book flights from Santa Marta to Cali via internet and telephone, Dylan and I soon discovered that this was impossibility. Due to the vast amount of credit card fraud in Colombia they will not accept Canadian credit cards. We decided our best bet was to look up a flight and just show up at the airport with our backs packed. We waved goodbye to the beautiful beach and dry mountainous landscape of Taganga and headed to the airport where we were pleasantly surprised to find this was no problem at all. Flights in Colombia only cost slightly more than busses however they depart late ninety percent of the time. We caught our connecting flight to Bogotá more than a half hour late and barely made our connection to Cali. We would have liked to spend some in Cali but we were determined to make it to Quito. Cali was hot and we immediately crammed into an overcrowded run down old van and took the 45 minute trek to the airport. We arrived at the bus terminal exhausted from our going away party the night before. In Colombia they advise you don’t take night busses due to guerilla activity and thieves overtaking the buses in random stretches of road through the mountains. Especially with the current elections going on FARC has been constantly making threats to blow stuff up. Despite the warnings we were tired and had no interest in finding a hostel and spending a night in Cali. So we took our chances and bought some tickets for a 10 hour bus ride to the Colombian border town Ipiales. We were on a very comfortable bus 10 minutes later with reclining chairs. All we wanted to do was sleep but much to our dismay there were two Colombian girls sitting in front of us who had obviously been nipping at the sauce and were very interested in having a chat and curious if we had girlfriends. We entertained them for a few minutes until we could no longer keep our eyes open.  

Dylan and I both drifted in and out of sleep while the driver ripped through Andes at ridiculous speeds. But sure enough 10 hours later we arrived in the chilly border town of Ipiales. We received our exit stamps and after being relentlessly harassed by countless money changers we walked across a bridge over a beautiful river valley which separates Ecuador and Colombia. After the simplest border crossing I’ve ever been through we had our entry visas into Ecuador within five minutes and probably with less than a twenty word exchange. Having crossed the bridge we could both easily notice the more indigenous look of the Ecuadorian people. We were then pestered by the Ecuadorian money changers on the other side of the bridge. For those of you who don’t know the national currency of Ecuador is the US dollar. Exhausted we caught a bus to finish the final leg of our journey, a 6 hour bus ride to the capital Quito. We crashed immediately and woke up in the beautiful colonial part of Quito. Surrounded by beautiful cathedrals, architecture, and mountains we were finally here after a 24 hour plus journey. Forward Progress!!!

More on Quito to come.

Ciao for now,

Connor