Colombia, beautiful women, clean cities and safety

Dear everyone,

So there we were going on a small journey again, on Thursday evening as soon as everyone got home and packed we were of to Colombia as we were all free on friday, so after a long taxi ride through the very very congested Quito, we arrived at terminal Carcelén to take our bus. As we were with eight people we had to take two taxi's and the ones in the other taxi had already called us that they were already in the bus and it was leaving in 5 minutes. So when we got to the bus station about 5 minutes later, we tried to hurry, just to see them standing there laughing because it was just a joke that they were already in the bus...So after buying our tickets and knowing it still took one more hour for the bus to leave for the border town of Tulcan, we decided to still eat something. So after we walked passed al the small shops who are so super eager to sell you something, we decided to go and eat something at the main restaurant of the bus terminal. When some guys took the coffee it became clear that the coffee there wasn't drinkable at all because it was more like vanilla chocolate milk with dirt in it (which it probably really was) so after laughing our asses of seeing the people drinking coffee and after making some jokes we were finally ready to go to the bus and leave Quito once again.

We walked up to the bus got in and left almost immediately while the bus actually still had to wait at least 15 minutes but it turned out we were the last passengers on the list and than the bus also just leaves. So after talking to my roommate for about half an hour I decided to put some music on and go to sleep which surprisingly worked pretty well and after 3.5 hours we were in Tulcan, though the bus company said it would take around 5 hours but I guess the bus driver was in a hurry. After we found a great hostel for $6 we were ready to go to sleep and cross into Colombia the next morning.After a short night of sleep we were all ready to go, so we first went to a really nice place to have breakfast and ordered a fruit salad and a milkshake. What happened next was a bit of a surprise, we got a fruit salad with cream and cheese on it, which was to some apparently so disgusting that they didn't eat it, luckily it was a kind of mozzarella cheese so it wasn't that bad. so...

After this nice breakfast we took a taxi to the border, our driver must have thought he was Jacky Ickx, Aryton Senna or Michael Schumacher, but despite that we weren't at the border that quickly due to the traffic jam at the border. After we got out of the cab we were going to get our stamp to travel out of the country, which to all surprise went really smoothly, as we crossed the bridge to Colombia we took some pictures and then it was time to avoid all money exchangers and get our stamp to get in to Colombia. As we still needed some money we exchanged $20 for pesos for which the money exchanger at first wanted to give is 32.000 pesos, but our own calculations showed that it should be 36.900 at least so we agreed for 36.000. So after finally getting the stamp we took another taxi into Ipiales a small border town where there is not much to do, but there is one very beautiful church so we paid the cab driver a bit more just to go there. This driver also decided just to stop at a view point where we could see the church from a distance "Que Chévere". After this we went on to the church to see it with our own eyes and it was really nice it lies in a valley with a river. a waterfall and an idyllic old village. After we saw the church we decided to go to the center of Ipiales to change some more money and then take the bus to Popayan, a city which is famous for its nice historic center and as I have read its cuisine. But as made this plan, something went wrong when taking the taxi to the center of town, because our driver thought we had to go to the bus station (no way how he would know because we told him he had to drive to the center) but after some talking we persuaded him to drop us of in the center. Since the others were not there we decided to go and change money and head to to bus station, after 1 hour luckily we found them again, and where... At the money changing office. Off to the bus terminal!

So there we were again, again at a bus terminal, this time to have lunch and to wait for our bus again where the ticket sellers kept screaming "Pasto" "Pasto" "Pasto" "Pasto"! until it got really irritating and luckily at the time I really couldn't stand it anymore our very comfortable bus arrived ... about an hour too late, but well, this is Latin America. As we were settling down in the bus and it was about to leave we saw that this guy from the bus company came bye with a video camera and video taped us alls as he went to the back of the bus and put the camera off again and walked to the front. This of course caused a bit of commotion, was he taping to identify the dead bodies after we got robbed and killed or was this just for if something got robbed that they knew who was in that bus. Well it was time for the bus to head North once again and after 8 hours with a 30 minute stop we made it to Popayan in the night, where we took the hostal closest to the bus station as we were all just very tired from our journey.

The next morning we left early to discover Popayan and what immediately struck me was the calm and quit atmosphere of the town. So at first we were walking the clean streets of Popayan to discover its beautiful churches and nice squares to just after that go for a coffee on a nice Latin American courtyard, this was way more Latin America as I had imagined it than Quito is. After a very nice coffee at Juan Valdez we went on for breakfast. Whilst sitting in the breakfast restaurant we could already spot the beautiful women of Colombia out side, what a difference to Ecuador, WOW... But it is good they don't have this in Quito I guess many people wouldn't be able to concentrate on work anymore ;).... So next we went on to discover the town and went up to this little church on top of a hill where while climbing the stairs there were bronze statues every five to ten meter or so that depicted the suffering of Jesus. Of course to us it looked more like Jesus was looking for coins on the ground with some of these statues.... After having climbed up to the church which wasn't that spectacular, but luckily the view was! Were making our way down to down town again when we came across a pair of shoes just standing there on the road as if the person who wore them had mysteriously disappeared. Next we went on to walk the town and head to the bus station to buy our night tickets to unfortunately go back again by night bus. A small group of three persons was going to Cali and the five others including me were going back to Quito already... But not before we went to drink a beer in the town center in the evening, talked with the locals and took some really nice night pictures of Popayan.

So at half past ten our bus went again, to Ipiales the border town we entered Colombia through on the way there... As I couldn't really sleep the first few hours of the bus ride I decided to just look and stare a bit outside where it was really dark, so dark even that a lot of stars were visible. To give you an image of how dark it is there, between Popayan and Ipiales are only a few small villages and the bus ride takes 8 hours, sou you are driving 8 hours through almost nothing. This is what made it in the past popular FARC territory but since a few years due to government efforts and police controls the area has become safe to travel through. so after a 9 hour bus ride we were back in Ipiales again in the early morning where it was time to spend our last pesos on breakfast and a cab to the border again. the breakfast wasn't as nice was we would have hoped, sweet bread with salty cheese, bad coffee and of course the Colombian special of eggs on sweet bread. But was we were hungry we didn't really care about the food as long as it was sufficiently eatable to not throw up everything was okay. Of to the cab then to go to the border where we got our stamp out of Colombia, crossed the bridge where a nice surprise awaited us, a drug check, so we were ushered into this small office, our bags were put on the ground and they made a narcotics dog sniff our bags really thoroughly. After they knew none of us had drugs with us the police officer said in a kind of macabre tone "Good boyz" where before we came into the office he asked "Marijuana? , Cocain? " "Bad Boyz?".... So after that procedure was done we were of to get stamped into Ecuador again and take a cab to take the next bus... So after 6 hours and 2 more narcotics checkups we arrived in Quito safe and sound and the weekend was already over once again.

But I will have a great adventure next week as I will be heading off into the Jungle together with Sophie who has been in Ecuador roughly around as long as I do, so I am really curious what except for mosquito's and creepy diseases the jungle has to offer

By the way in a little less than 15 days I will be home again, I've missed all of you guys a lot and hope to see you soon in the Netherlands!

Hasta luego amigos!