Every border crossing we have done thus far we have been on a tour or on a bus where the company guides you through the process. Between Ecuador and Colombia was the first time all on our lonesome. We are truly grownups now. It was the same feelings, although we had nothing to hide it is still an intimidating process. The impressions that we had in our heads were that Colombian Police were going to be real hard asses and horrible to us. Standing in the line on the Colombian side we asked a policemen a question and then he started chatting to us…they seem nice so far! The town on the border is called Ipiales, we crashed the night here as we were pretty tired from the 20 hours on the bus.
The next day we headed to Pasto, we had read that the place had an interesting history, suffering several eruptions from the nearby now dormant volcano. It was a lovely town with beautiful landscapes and lovely people. It was here that we had our first spring rolls since we were in Japan! For lovers of spring rolls that is a long time – we may have gone a little overboard.
In the next small town there is a serene place called Laguna del la Cocha. There are special taxis that do the trip back and forth, it was a little hard to find the depot but once we were there we waited for a taxi until there were enough people to fill it. The journey takes you up and over a windy mountain road, to say the least we were shitting ourselves. South Americans reckless driving has never ceased to amaze us, taking on corners at high speeds and with wet roads at the top of the mountain, hearing the car scrape as we turned. Luckily we arrived in one piece and were greeted by the sweetest little man asking us to go in his boat and he would take us to a camping ground. There was a little confusion of the price of this boat trip, but were pretty used to getting ripped off by now. Just our luck it started to rain while cruising on the lake. Luckily the spot he brought us to had an abandoned shell of a house, up on the second floor we set up tent. It was amazingly peaceful and we had our own little house by the lake. We arranged with the man for him to come and pick us up in 2 days time. We were stranded here completely relying on him to remember to pick us up, but it was so relaxing!
Next run of bad luck – the bottle of gas we bought didn’t fit the camping stove that we had. We attempted to build a fire but with the rain everything was wet, so cold dinner for us! The next morning we tried all sorts of ways to attach the two together, getting out the first aid kit in a MacGyver style effort to make it work. After taping and tying it together it WORKED! As we started to get comfortable and the oil heating up, BOOM, a big burst of flame leaped from the modified contraption at our unaware faces, barely getting away with our lives. Maybe not so dramatic, but the fix didn’t work so cold breakfast for us.
We just could not go another meal cold so after some investigative wanderings, found a bed and breakfast place on a nearby hill. It must have been low season as the place was empty, and we asked in terrible Spanish if we could use their kitchen. They were kind enough to allow us in, it was quite the funny sight our small camping cookware on their massive industrial sized stove. So in the end, we had some incredible and hot pasta for dinner. We spent our days lazing around and reading our books while the rain continued to pour down on the tin roof. We were super happy we had our hut, as we could still walk around outside the tent in comfort - so good.
The sweet old man returned right on time two days later and took us back to main land.
We went back to Pasto with an even crazier driver than the first and returned to the hostel for some comfy mattress goodness. The next day we took a windy (most main road/highways in Colombia are windy) 8 hour bus trip north to the third largest city in Colombia, Cali.
See you there!
Peace and Love
Doodles and Boos Boos
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