Lauren –
Our time in Colombia was coming to an end. It had so far blown our expectations out of the water, so much so that we had canceled our pre-booked flight from Colombia to Peru on the 14th January and opted for a more spontaneous style of travelling. We were so happy to have spent nearly 4 weeks in beautiful Colombia.
Our next stop was Quito Ecuador and we were a little stuck on how to get there. Flying was out of the question (upwards of $400 per person for an hour and a half flight…no thank you!). Our next best bet was a bus from Cali (a city in southern Colombia). So we made our way down south and settled in the home of salsa for a few days.
Our hostel was lovely, but we couldn’t say the same for the City. It just didn’t click for us, maybe it was the weather, maybe it was us getting tired of moving around constantly, who knows, but we didn’t fall in love with Cali. It was the only place on our whole trip where we didn’t feel 100% at ease walking the streets at night, and held a little tighter onto our belongings.
We made the most of our time there, soaking in the city’s atmosphere, going on walking tours and enjoying the social aspects of our hostel. It was in fact the first time in 5 months that David and I cooked for ourselves! Other people we met couldn’t believe it, but who wants to cook when you can get such cheap local meals! Nonetheless we (spent more than if we were to eat out) made a lovely healthy salad, and prepared ourselves for the journey ahead to Ecuador.
The journey was a long one. A 12 hour bus to a rather questionable border town called Ipiales, an overnight stay in a dodgy side-of-the-road hotel, a boarder crossing that is known to take up to 6 hours, followed by another 7-8 hour bus ride to Quito. We set off with snacks in our hands, movies downloaded onto our laptop and trepidation for the long road ahead.
We should have realised that a ’12 hour journey’ in Colombia probably means around a 15-16 hour journey. This became very clear to us as we sat on the side of the road in the middle of no-where waiting in a traffic jam that had been at a stand still for almost three hours. Our driver seemed used to it and was happy to have a hearty lunch from the petrol station. I was a little apprehensive when I saw a truck towing a mangled bus past us, clearly the reason for the delay, hoping that no-one had been killed in what looked like a pretty bad accident. No-one seemed to pay too much attention, accidents like this are a common occurrence in Colombia. As we re-entered the bus I was no longer enjoying the winding mountainous roads.
After around 15 hours we made it to Ipiales. The advice we had read to “not leave your hotel after dark” was at the forefront of our minds as we rolled in at 1am. The bus sped off and we were left of the side of the road in the dark, alone and cold. We made a dash for our hotel trying not to make any eye contact with cars that slowed down a little too much and let out a sigh of relief as we fell asleep, alarms set for 4 hours time.
The border crossing was easy peasy. We had heard horror stories from other travelers that it could take upto 6 hours, but we whizzed through in 15 minutes. We met an English guy called Jack who was our border buddy and was also on his way to Quito. Everything from that point was much easier (apart from the bus nearly leaving without David and Jack who were buying snacks – I ran up the front and tried to explain in broken Spanish that there were passengers left behind!).
Finally we made it to Quito. It was a completely different climate than what we had been used to, cool, rainy and extremely high. Sitting at nearly 3000 meters high, I felt it immediately when trying to climb the stairs in our hostel – I felt as though my heart was in my throat. Uh oh I thought, this is scary! I wore David’s Garmin watch most of that evening to monitor my heart rate (which at rest stood at around 140!!) praying that I wouldn’t get too sick from the altitude. I thankfully woke up fine the next day.
Our hostel was incredibly social, everyone gathered on the rooftop for a ‘family style’ dinner and chatted about what to do in Ecuador. Most people had come from ‘down south’ and recommended some amazing sounding hikes in the mountains. We liked the sound of that and immediately committed ourselves to hiking the infamous ‘Quilotoa loop’ – a 4 day hike through villages all the way up to a Volcano crater.
We had high hopes for our few days in Quito. It was a bit of a shame that the weather didn’t turn it out for us like it usually does. We did manage to make the most of a few hours of sunshine by going on (another) walking tour and appreciated an understanding of the City’s history.
Although informative, our walking tour guide was a little bit annoying. It was Sunday, and she insisted on taking us to all the impressive looking churches in Quito – fine, but don’t make us go inside and disturb the masses! She insisted that we go in and walk around (the old creaking floors making a huge racket) whilst she would wait outside. She told us that she was actually banned from going into a few churches because of taking tourists in and disturbing the locals!! We couldn’t believe it and opted not to go into a few out of respect. Others didn’t seem to care and waltzed in creaking as they went.
Sadly the rest of our three days left in Quito looked like the below. We had intended to catch a cable car up a mountain over the city and hike to a nearby volcano but the clouds and rain forced us to change our plans. Never mind, we used the time to prepare for our upcoming hike (by purchasing some pretty professional hiking boots!).
Our journey from Cali to Quito had been tiring, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that we didn’t love either Cali or Quito. They seem to be more of a base point for further exploration, and we couldn’t wait to get out there and explore. We plan to spend around a month in Ecuador checking out the magnificent Andes mountains to the Pacific Coast. Next stop hiking hell *cough cough* I mean heaven!
Far Away From Home 