Ten hour journey through the mountains

Trip Start Jan 25, 2007
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Trip End Jan 25, 2008


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Flag of Colombia  ,
Saturday, December 1, 2007

Little did we realise when we arrived in San Augustin but leaving it for Ecuador would not be as straight forward as we though. The only good rood out of there was back to Bogota and that was in the wrong direction. Instead we had to somehow go west and across to the Pan-American. This involved a collection of jeeps, mini-buses and buses with some random stopoffs along the way. We eventually found ourselves in the town of Mocoa where the real journey would begin. This would be an eight hour journey over a newly construicted "road" in a 4wd. We didnīt realise at the time but buses took this rout too. Most of the road wasnīt paved and was barely wide enough for two cars. Add to that some huge drops over the side, fog and rain and some suicidal driving and you had would could have been a very lethal combination.
I donīt have any pictures of the road but dotted along the road where crucifixes obviously marking the points where people had been killed. Coming around blind bends there were a few times when we had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting an oncoming articulated truck. Of course we also had to overtake a few buses and trucks along the way but in fairness our driver was pretty good and didnīt take any stupid risks. He also stopped for a few minutes at some shrine on the road and lit a candle and said a quick prayer. He obviously wasnīt taking any chances.
In addition to the dodgy road there seemed to be a higher risk of rebel activity in this area. All along the road were military patrols, some even with armoured cars. Every bridge was guarded an dyou could see that these soldiers were a  bit older than the ones we had seen in the jungle. All the same they were friendly at the checkpoints and for us it was more reassuring that they were there, it probably meant that there would be no rebels there.
Finally after eight tough hours we arrived in the town of Pasto, close to the border. As it was getting late we decided to stay there for the night and go on towars Ecuador the next day.
Since Pasto seemed like a nice enough town and it was a Saturday night we hit the town for a bit. Being Colombia there were plenty of Salsa clubs so a chance to practice the old slasa again.
The next day we had an early start, got to the border and in spite of all we had heard got through immigration with no problems. We then had to get anothetr bus to Quito. Straight away we noticed a chance in the scenery as we got more into the Andes. The views were fantastic and the driving terrible. Far too much overtaking through blind corners up hills, not really what you want your bus driver to be doing. We did make it to Quito in one piece though where we would be just in time for the annual festival that celebrates Quitoīs founding.
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