a view of cotOpaxi, the active volcano i Was supposed to climb - it erupted in fall and is cloSed to climbersToday we had a down day in Quito - Bob got an audience with the Ecuadorian President and was present for the annual changing of the guard festivities at the Pesidential Palace , two blocks from our hotel.
I attempted my first "solo" climb, the mountain this time being Rucu Pichincha - 4696 metres or 15,400 feet. I took the cable car (Teleferiqo if you live in Quito) to the trail head at 3,900 metres (12,800 feet) and climbed the remaining 2,600 feet in 2.5 hours, even adding in some serious rock scrambling over the last 200 feet to reach the summit. There had been some reports of robberies on the trail, so I was concerned, but after some checking I was assured all was ok. I was alone on top for about 10 minutes until I was joined by a French couple who chose not to scramble and instead took the traditional route to the summit. After that I ran into about 40-50 people on the trail as I descended. If you are going to do this climb, get to the Teleferiqo by 8:15 am, even though they say the Trleferiqo only opens at 9:00 - they were letting people on by 8:10 am. 1.5 hours down to the cable car and I was enjoying a salami sandwich with processed cheese and wonder bread at the top of the Teleferiqo. Lunch of Champions! Right now we are trying to figure how to get out of Quito, which is no easy task. We are hoping to drive all the way through to Peru tomorrow, so we can't afford too many detours. Before any decisions are made, a nap, shower and celebratory drink (in that order) are on the agenda...
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bob looking down at lake mojandaWhats the best place to get help finding your hotel in a city of 4.5 million people - the KFC drive through of course (wasn't that obvious?). Back to that later.
We slept in until 7:00 and then proceeded to have breakfast at the largest market in South America, watching the vendors set up their wares. After that, we headed for our first climb - an acclimatization trek up to the top of Fuya Fuya (13,900 feet). Before starting our trek, we had to drive 17kms on a poorly maintained cobblestone track, but in order to make it more exciting, we picked up an Ecuadorian who needed a ride back to his home. We dropped him off and soon headed up (what we thought was) the steep trail. Turns out the real trail was much more gradual, and David went up the rest of the way himself, while Bob did some maintenance on the vehicle at the trailhead. After 2.5 hours on the mountain, we headed for Quito. Not before we saw our friend from earlier in the day wanting a ride back down, this time with his entire family of five (with another on the way). They all piled into Manuel and we took them back to Otavalo. The infrastructure in Ecuador is astounding - they have spent billions of dollars on roads, blasting up, over and through mountains, so getting here was pretty easy. Finding our way with a dodgy GPS through a city of 4.5 million people is impossible. So we pulled over to a KFC and inadvertently ended up in the drive through! There was a cab behind us so I asked him if he would take us to our hotel- no problem. For the next 30 minutes he drove like he was trying to shake us, but he got us here fine! Our hotel is almost 250 years old and is in the heart of Quito. It used to be a convent, and still has a shrine with a 300 year old Virgin Mary in an alcove! Tomorrow Bob will take it easy while David attempts to climb Rucu Pichincha, a 15,600 foot peak overlooking Quito. Las Lajas sanctuary, colombiaWe were up again at daybreak to tackle our last stretch of winding Colombian highway. We both slept ok, considering our hotel had no air conditioner, fan or hot water. Come to think of it, out room didn't even have windows, but rather screens with bars across it - rather like a prison cell, but with cow print sheets.
After a 3 hour drive and short breakfast stop at Mister Pollo in the City of Pasto, we drove straight to the Colombian / Ecuador border and the neighbouring town of Las Lajas. Las Lajas is famous for its basilica that is built into a giant gorge (as you can see above). After enjoying the basilica, we headed for Ipiales, the Colombian border crossing, which is normally a 10 minute ride. A massive detour turned the short trip into an hour and a half wait-a-thon. When we finally reached the Colombian border crossing, we exchanged our remaining pesos for US dollars (the dollar is the official Ecuadorian currency) and then went to turn our vehicle permit. We then went to immigration and were stamped out of Colombia. All of this took about 35 minutes, so we got back into the car to do it again on the Ecuador side. We crossed the bridge into Ecuador, and were given directions to park behind the building. From there, we entered immigration and got stamped in, and headed over to get our Ecuadorian car permit. We had only been in Ecuador 30 minutes, but looked to be almost finished with our paperwork! Bob was amazed at the efficiency of the process. But wait... The customs official processing our car permit said the immigration agent hadn't put the amount of days we were allowed to stay on the stamp, so we had to go back and find our immigration officer and have him write in the date. By the time we got back to the Customs, there was a long line, so we had to wait another 40 minutes before we were helped. After that, things went fast - she went out and took pictures of the plates and the VIN number, as well as my passport, title and drivers license, and voila, we had our permit! By now we were a bit behind where we wanted to be, but decided we would press on to Otavalo - we would get there right around dark. The Ecuadorian highways are amazing, and the route from the border is being 4 laned whole way, so we made good time until before Ibarra, just 30 Kms from our destination. A massive traffic jam kept us almost immobile for 90 minutes, which brought us into Otavalo well after dark. By 8:30 we had found ourselves a hotel and after a large chicken dinner down the street we are ready for bed. Plans for tomorrow involve going to the world famous Otavalo market, a bit of hiking, finishing up in Quito late in the day... 6 am came very early - Jardin was still humming from New Years Eve. My only regret from last night is I didn't get to see a scarecrow blow up (although there was shrapnel along every road we traveled on today!).
We knew the first 45kms from Jardin to Riosucio was going to be tough. Every person we talked to in Jardin told us the road was bad, but we had prepared ourselves with the fact we would drive slowly and not take any risks. 3 hours later, we hit the pavement and arrived in Riosucio - the road was terrible, with large sharp rocks and washouts throughout. We averaged 15 Kms per hour, as Bob navigated steep climbs and big descents over the mountain pass. We saw 5 people, 2 motorcycles and one bus (how did a bus drive this road?), but not a single other car. After this point, it was clear sailing . There were no trucks on the road today, so we managed to make great time otherwise. We also had our first significant stretch of 4 lane highway, so we were able to set the cruise control at 100 Kms and make up some lost time. Right now we are in El Bordo, staying at a Hotel Campestre, which is a hotel in the country with s swimming pool where locals can come and swim, eat and drink. El Bordo is about 5 hours from the Ecuador border - there is a large military presence here as this is the area that used to be heavily populated by anti-government guerillas. We still feel really safe, though - whenever we pass a military checkpoint every soldier gives each passing vehicle the thumbs up, which means all clear ahead. Today we actually saw a soldier who had an oversized foam thumbs up! We hope to clear the border late in the morning tomorrow and say hello to Ecuador in the early afternoon... Sorry, I couldn't resist - since we have arrived in Colombia I have been using great restraint in making any Miss Universe and Steve Harvey references, but this was just too good to pass up!
Enjoy - Happy New Year to everyone. I hope 2016 brings health, prosperity and good luck to all! After a gruelling first day, we went to bed at 7:30 pm and woke up around 7:00 am - almost 12 hours of blissful uninterrupted sleep! We decided to take it easy today and drive only 4 hours to the town of Jardin, a small isolated town in the heart of the coffee region. While the drive wasn't long, the altitude changes were crazy, as we started at 8,600 feet this morning, made our way down to 3,500, and the back up 6,500 feet to Jardin. This makes driving the 2 lane roads slow going - we made about 185 Kms today, which was actually a great pace. We were told that if you actually flattened out all of Colombia, it would be the 5th largest country in the world! The town of Jardin is impossibly beautiful - I don't think I have ever been to a place where the natural setting, the architecture and design all combine to form the perftect country town. The main square is large, and all the buildings are colourfully adorned. There is a beautiful church, and the square is packed with flowers of every imaginable color. There are chairs set up right in the square where you can order s coffee or beer (or something stronger). We took advantage of this and had a beer and a Cuba libre, which came out to a whopping $1.75 US! Tonight is supposed to be crazy, as all the Cowboys come in to town and parade their horses through the square, and fireworks are set off. The tradition here is to make what I would call a scarecrow, personalize it (hair, clothes,etc...) and fill it with fireworks. Then at midnight you light the scarecrow and blow his head off, which is supposed to symbolize getting rid of all your problems in the past year. They are selling these things on every street corner, but I'm afraid if I buy one I would blow my own head off, rather than the scarecrow's. Anyway, after celebrating the New Year, we will be up at 6:00 am to leave - we have a very tough stretch tomorrow right outside of Jardin with a really bad gravel road, so we need to be up at first light to make good time. Feliz Ano to everyone! We woke up at 4:30 am and by 5 am we were on the road out of Cartagena. Even at that time of the morning, it took us almost 45 minutes to get out of the city!
We had mapped out how to exit the city from our previous cab rides around Cartagena, so we managed to exit the jumble of clogged arteries that make up the Cartagena road system without too much trouble... Our drive today took us through the arid plains south of Cartagena and up into the beautiful lush mountain valleys that surround the City of Medellin. The roads are ok in some spots, not so good in others, but slow going with a lot of truck traffic and many, many towns spilling onto the roadway. We finished our day at 5:30 pm in Santa Rosa de Osos , about 1.5 hours north of Medellin. We made only one stop for gas and one for lunch and made it about 500 Kms. That's an average of about 40 kilometres per hour! Needless to say, we are both completely gassed! One last thing - Colombian drivers are crazy. They will pass at any time on the road, even on hairpin curves - especially buses! We saw one accident and nearly another today... Let's just say their risk tolerance is a little different than drivers at home! Tomorrow we have a short 4 hour drive to the Town of Jardin, in the coffee region, where we will spend New Years Eve. The real Juan Valdes lives nearby in Andes, so we may pop by to say hello... We are back in the hotel after a long but productive day that ended up with the cab ride from hell. We won't tell the story here, but next time you catch up with us in person be sure to ask us about it - it's worth the price of admission!
We are pleased to announce that we were reunited with Manuel this afternoon. Here is how it happened: We received a call this morning from our agent Luis telling us to meet at his office at 1:45 pm to head over to meet the DIAN (customs) agent. While we were sitting at the pool in the morning, Luis' wife, Sonia, was submitting our paperwork to DIAN, getting our SOAT (Colombian insurance) and setting a time for our DIAN inspection at the port. After arriving at the office, we set off to pick up our inspector, Kevin, who we took to the port with us. The port is 30 minutes south of town, and is brand new (about 6 months old). There was nobody else in the entire port except for us, a Canadian couple trying to get their car as well, and the 50 or so port workers. We were shown in to the office, were we exchanged paperwork (I have no idea why) for about 30 minutes. We found out the Canadian couple was from Montreal and had decided not to use an agent like Luis - they had been trying to get their car out for 7 days! Turns out they were unsuccessful on this day as well. After exchanging paperwork (even our inspector, who had been to this port just 3 times was flummoxed), I donned a hard hat and vest and was put into a port vehicle where I was driven to the vast compound. The only things in the compound were 4 combines, 6 farm tractors, about 20 New Flyer buses, and... Manuel! After a brief inspection, Kevin said I was good to go - I drove the vehicle to the exit of the facility. I wasn't quite finished, as the next 30 minutes were taken up by inspections by the port workers. It was like a skit right out of Monty Python - I would drive the car 20 feet, the car would be inspected, then I would get called to turn the car around and go back 30 yards the way I came and another guy would inspect the car. This happened 3 times, all under the watchful eye of Bob, Luis' son who was driving us, and Kevin the DIAN inspector, who were all looking perplexed by now. Finally, we were free to go, and we drove out of the port, following Luis' son back to the office. However, after about 20 minutes of driving, our cars got separated in traffic. About 2 minutes after getting separated we were stopped by the Colombian police at a check stop. The police asked for our documents; can you guess where they were? That's right, in the other car, somewhere ahead of us! So, in my poor Spanish I explained we didn't have documents - more police arrive on the scene. In the meantime, we see the car with our documents (and the DIAN inspector) reversing in the far right lane of the highway. They pull up, and another long conversation begins between the police and Luis' son, who now gets on the phone to make a call. Turns out the SOAT (insurance) is at the office and the police won't release us until they see it. So, we wait at the side of the road for 15 minutes until Felipe, another of Luis' sons, pulls up on a bicycle and hands the SOAT to the police. Handshakes all around, thanks to the police, and we drive the 6 blocks to Luis' office! We plan on leaving early tomorrow to start our journey, and will get as far as we can - you can follow us on the SPOT as we will keep it on all day to track our progress. Now it's time for some sleep! After drinks on the city wall at sunset and an amazing dinner at La Cevicheria (featured in this episode of Anthony Bourdain's television series) we were ready for our prison break of Manuel this morning.
We got an email from Luis at Enlace Caribe, our agent, saying that he would pick us up at 2:30 pm and we would have our car by the end of the day tomorrow... Could it possibly be that easy? The quick answer is, as of now, yes! We had expected two full days of sitting in offices, filling out paperwork, and going back and forth from the port - it couldn't possibly take one day to get this done... We took our free morning to wander the beach and sit at the pool - it actually felt like a "normal person" vacation! Luis' son, Luis Fernando, an engineer who works for Siemens in Bogota was helping his dad out and took us to Enlace's office near the port. Enlace is a family company started by Luis and his wife - all five of his kids have worked with their parents at some point. Two of the siblings are lawyers (yay!), two are engineers and one works full time for the company- no slackers in this family! After spending a couple minutes in the Enlace office, we went to Naves, the shipping company's agent, to pick up the original Bill of Lading, which we would need to present throughout this process. Getting the Bill released took about an hour, and we waited patiently reading shipping trade magazines (Bob is now an expert on oil tanker pumps!) until they called our name. While waiting, Luis Fernando was on the phone with his mom, who was getting all of the information on the car from us. We would later find out that she was filling out all of the DIAN (Colombian Customs) documents so they would be ready when we arrived. At Naves, I had to sign a book and a document saying I had received the Bill of Lading, and that was it - back into the car to Enlace, where we waited for the DIAN paperwork to be finished. Normally you would have to wait in line to fill out the paperwork at DIAN, go get photocopies across the street, come back to DIAN with the photocopies, get life insurance, get the paperwork approved and then schedule an inspection with a DIAN inspector for the next day. All we had to do was check the paperwork and give it to Luis' wife, who would do the rest. After signing, we were sent home and told tomorrow afternoon we would get insurance for the car, go to the port for the inspection, and then pick up the car! If this all works out as it as planned, we will be on the road with no muss or fuss early on Wednesday morning... A quick 40 minute flight (our last commercial flight for 5 weeks) and we were in Cartagena, the home (for the past 10 days or so) of our car Manuel. Our hotel, Hotel Caribe, is on the south end of town on the beach in the Bocagrande District, and as we were preparing to turn in after dinner, a fawn (yes, a baby deer) walked through the glass doors of the lobby straight to a poinsettia plant and proceeded to eat the entire plant! The few of of us who were in the lobby stared as the deer started looking for the next plant to devour! After a very fitful sleep, we have spent the day touring the beautiful walled city, dipping our feet in the Caribbean, and sitting poolside with a cold beverage - the main thing is to keep cool as the temperature is 34c, but with the Humidex it sits at 46c! Plans for tonight include a seafood dinner, and drinks on the 550 year old city wall. Tomorrow we try and retrieve the car, which is the main reason we are in Cartagena. I think this is where things will start to get interesting! Bob with miss colombia 1896 |