Did you know that after dark the Panamericana route between the Colombian border town of Ipiales and the city of Pasto becomes full of ruthless bandits who purposely set out to pull buses over and mug the passengers at gunpoint? Luckily, we do! So instead of a lie in, the team started bright and early to browse the world famous Otavalo market in order to admire the wonderful Andean wares. The hawkers at the market certainly seemed to have had their Cornflakes that morning and were constantly on the prowl to make hard sells to the inquisitive gringos. Our philosophy was that if we were to go to a stall with nobody there, then we could check out the merchandise in complete peace. Nice theory! But within seconds came along the keen hostess who unfolded several large blankets and threw them into our hands. Some of the blankets were, in fact, so large that not even an origami champion could have refolded them. Each one a beautiful work of art, we couldn’t help but start imagining where they would look good at home, and they were made of alpaca wool too. SNAP OUT OF IT! There was much more to see and increasingly less time in which to do things, so we had to hurry. Oooooh! Fluffy little llama things! LET’S NOT GET SIDETRACKED!
After a very short while it was time for our breakfast bite, which may have been the best value nibble in the whole of South America! A soft and delicate, yet moist and flavoursome Ecuadorian cheese came hugged in a small, tasty bap to start, closely followed by huevos revueltos (scrambled eggs) and a glass of a complete mystery of a juice, unidentifiable both by sight and by taste. After hurriedly wolfing all that down we ran to the Hostal Sucre to grab our growing backpacks and legged it to the bus terminal.
It turned out that we were waiting there needlessly as we were eventually directed to wait patiently at the side of the road for our bus to Tulcan, the poorly constructed, somewhat unfinished-looking, Ecuadorian town that’s situated just 6km away from the border. The remaining distance was a short taxi hop (thank goodness the taxi drivers in Ecuador are more cautious than in Peru!) before we were free to cross the border on foot. There were no gruelling bag checks, fortunately. Not because we have smuggled something dodgy into Colombia (We haven’t!), but because our bags are so jammed packed now that every single item, big and small, has it’s own particular place and there wouldn’t be any less free space if we were to vacuum pack the lot! It would be impossible to get everything back in.
A colectivo took us to Ipiales, eventually! The catch is that the service was cheap enough but we had to wait an eternity before another two passengers came to take up the other two free seats. Time was ticking and we were beginning to grow anxious about the road towards Pasto and we had cut it fine as it was. After twenty minutes of clockwatching we finally set off for Ipiales where we did no hanging about, but went straight to the ticket office and bought our onward ticket to Pasto. The loud bus boy yelled out to the world about the remaining vacant seats and managed to lure a couple more people inside. The driver tore it up, down and around the narrow, snake-like roads being very careful of the steep drop that would put us all in the hands of fate should we tip over the edge. This cautiousness compromised the care he had when overtaking slow, smoke-spewing lorries, so much so that he was speeding us beside large vehicles on blind corners. It was like being on an aeroplane as it lands as the bus appeared to be flying, due to the fact that no road was visible, just the deep valley below.
We watched the sun go down as we passed quaint farmhouses, guarded by fierce hounds, all surrounded by a hilly, patchwork landscape of every shade of green. There were the odd terraces where vegetables were being grown, but most of the farming land was sculpted by the rolling hills and was steep. We watched as grazing cattle clung to the edgy face of the Andean foothills and chickens played chicken with our bus. It’s a hard life up there but it’s outbalanced by the beauty.
When we arrived in Pasto, it was pitch dark besides the sparse street lighting but we were relieved that we made it in the nick of time, just before darkness, and avoided having to hand money over to outlaws. We rewarded ourselves with a meal at the bus terminal, consisting of rice, soft beans, grilled chicken and fried banana. Oh! The tongue-tantalising chilli sauce complemented the dish perfectly! Simon’s lemonade tasted like medicine, so Jon stuck with water. Besides our room at the hostel festering of petrol, everything else was just great!
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