Adios Colombia, Hola Ecuador

 Our time has come to say good bye to Cartagena. It was an amazing city and full of great memories for me now. Our original plan was to take a 22 hour bus ride from Cartagena to Bogota but through the grapevine at the hostel we heard about a cheap flight. For $10 more, we could take an hour and a half flight instead. The choice was pretty obvious. We went to the airport around 9:00 am. We made it to the ticket counter and started purchasing our tickets around 9:30 am. The flight we got on was for 10:30 am. There were some hiccups in the payment department so we weren’t in line to check in until 10:00 am. It felt like the Amazing Race type travel. One of the attendants in the line asked us when our flight was, when he heard it was in half an hour he rushed us to the front of the line. We were checked in and through security by 10:15 am. It was pretty amazing.

We had an uneventful flight to Bogota. Everyone fell asleep. Once we arrived, we took a taxi to the bus terminal to find a bus to get us to Quito. 

The traffic in Bogota. As Jeremy described it, the cars and motorcycles are like ants, weaving in out of traffic. Stopping and starting seemingly without rhyme or reason.

The streets of Bogota were filled with amazing graffiti and works of art on the buildings. 

The bus terminal was as big as the airport but harder to navigate. Every company had their own window. We split up, one starting at each end and one in the middle to find out the information we needed faster.

 The only bus we could find directly to Quito didn’t leave until Monday. Not willing to wait almost a week, we started exploring other options. We eventually found a bus that would take us to Ipielas, Colombia and from there we could bus to Quito. The bus ride was 22 hours long, winding through the mountains. 

Fortunately, the bus had Wifi and a large list of movies to watch on an individual screen. Also, the scenery was constantly breath taking and was something I could watch for hours. This past summer, we took a family trip to Colorado. My dad, Andrew and I drove through the Rocky Mountain National Park. This drive is much like that only more intense. There was switch back after switch back through these lush mountains. I was and still am extremely grateful for my motion sickness patches, without them I don’t think I would’ve made it.

When we finally arrived in Ipiales, Colombia we learned that it was home to Las Lajas Sanctuary. We took the 15 minute taxi ride to go see it with our own eyes. It was well worth it. It was breathtaking.

After visiting the church, we took another taxi to the Colombian – Ecuadorian border. We went through Colombian customs and walked across the border to go through Ecuadorian customs. There were people all trying to get us to exchange our Colombian Pesos to Ecuadorian money. We decided to do that and were confused when they handed us American cash. We told the man again that we wanted Ecuadorian Pesos and he laughed and said that Ecuador has used the dollar since 2002. It is nice to be working back in a currency that we don’t have to convert in our head.

 From the border, we took a taxi to a bus terminal. As soon as we got off the bus we were approached by a man asking if we wanted to go to Quito. After replying yes, he ran us up the stairs to buy our tickets ($16.50 for all three of us) and then ran us back downstairs to load the bus and leave.

The bus ride was long and choppy.

After another 7 hours, we finally arrived in Quito. We took a taxi to the center of the city, where Alex learned was safer. Our taxi driver was extremely helpful. Since we arrived so late he was concerned that we wouldn’t be able to find an open room. He went into the hostel for us and made sure there was space.  He even told us some bus companies that are cheap and good that will take us to our next destination, Cuenca, Ecuador.

The past 36 hours of straight travel was taxing. On Thursday, all I ate was 5 graonla bars and 2 packages of fruit snacks. When we got into our room the sight of a bed was pure joy. We crashed pretty hard. We have decided to spend one more day here to regain our endurance and health (Jeremy is sick). This also gives us time to plan out our next moves.