Colombia was wonderful. Unfortunately, 7 hours from the Ecuador border our passports, debit cards, journals, water bottles, tablets and backpack were stolen off the bus. With no other options, we turned around and took the 12 hour bus ride back to Bogota.
After having to spend an extra 2 days dealing with the embassy, insurance and replacing all our stuff (luckily the embassy was able to issue us emergency passports that print in 1 day), we were ready to leave and continue on our journey.
The border crossing itself was an experience. From Bogota we took a 22 hour bus ride to the Colombian border town of Ipiales. The town was actually pretty cute, but we were so exauhsted from the bus ride (even though we pretty much slept the whole time) that we checked into the nearest hotel and passed out.
Turns out the hotel was AWESOME though. They charged us $10 for a room ($5 each.. crazy!) and it was basically the Colombian version of the Grand Budapest Hotel from the movie.. fading glory and way more massive than necessary (it had 5 stories and only 3 groups of people total that we saw.. We had an entire wing to ourselves.)
The Metropole Hotel, aka Grand Ipiales Hotel, in all of its unneccessary glory
In the morning we woke up early and took a cab ride to the Santuario de Las Lajas. We didn't know what to expect, but we were just excited to start seeing and doing cool stuff again instead of dealing with buses, insurance and embassies like the past 3 days in Bogota.
The Santuary did not disappoint.
The scenery was stunning and the church itself was a really impressive feat of engineering
Inside. The back wall was actually just the rock face
Really amazing
We sort of look like crazy people (22 hours on a bus, remember?) but proof that these aren´t Google stock images or something :)
After taking in the view, we got back in a cab, packed up our stuff at the Grand Ipiales Hotel and grabbed a cab to the border. The crossing was insanely easy and relaxed. We had to talk to a supervisor to leave Colombia because our emergency passports didnt have our entry stamps. But he was sympathetic and we had copies of the old passports so there was no problem. Ecuador didn´t care at all that we only had emergency passports, they were more excited that it was Keegan's first time in the country.
This side of the bridge is Colombia, the other side is Ecuador. Not a lot of security here.
We just walked on over into Ecuador
Okay, so once we got in to Ecuador we hopped on the next bus going to Otavalo (a $3, 4.5 hour ordeal.) Otavalo is famous for its market place, and on Saturday (which it happened to be a Saturday) their market is one of the largest in South America. Our original plan was to spend a few hours in Otavalo and then push on to Quito. Unfortunately, our bus stamina had substantially decreased from the past week so we ended up throwing in the towel and staying the night in Otavalo. The town was really neat, so no regrets.
Rows and rows of stalls with everything imaginable. Pictured is me (you might start to notice that I only had space in my backpack for one nice shirt, so it gets worn a lot) and a Canadian girl we picked up at the Grand Ipiales Hotel and travelled with for a few days.
The next day we decided we had to get out and get moving before being stuck on a bus again so we went on a run to a waterfall. Our original plan had been to run around this big lake just outside of town, but our cab driver told us about the waterfall and said that it was worth checking out.
So happy to not be in the big city!
It felt so good to be running and not sitting on a bus
The town of Otavalo
We made it! The waterfall!
After the hike, we gathered up our stuff and hopped on the next bus heading to Quito. The bus ride was only a couple hours so it wasn´t that bad.
Up next, exploring Quito: the second highest capital city in the world (9,350 feet) and one of the first cities deemed a UNESCO world heritage site.
Hurray!
No comments:
Post a Comment