The complete Ecuador experience
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2008
1
23
61
Trip End
Apr 01, 2009
Popayan,
Colombia
Sunday, December 14, 2008
(yes SIX hours) wait at the border to leave. I arrived at about 1pm
and decided if I was through by 2pm I'd ring Tony and Kim and tell them
I'd be arriving in Popayan a day early. Huh!
After about an hour it
started to rain, then really rain and by the time everyone was drenched
someone made the executive decision to move us undercover - that was a
mad scramble, but the people around me made sure we all kept our
relative positions in the new queue.
At about 5pm a camera crew
turned up and started interviewing people about the disgraceful state
of the border crossing for the news. My friends in the queue had their
say in no uncertain terms.
Every time anyone mistakenly or
intentionally tried to go straight to the front of the queue there was
a near riot with shouting and jeering. It was really entertaining to
see 7 very large rastas and their women cowed by a bunch of seriously
pissed off little people and sent to the back of the queue. Having a
taxi waiting cut no ice with anyone.
At
about 6pm I finally got into the immigration room itself and by half
past my troubles were just starting. I explained about my lack of
tourist card and showed the police report and that was all OK, but
having a different passport number from the one I entered with really
upset them. The computer couldn't cope. I was sent to another line
and spent a further 30 minutes there.
It was dark by the time I was
allowed to try and find the extremely underlit Colombian immigration
post - if I hadn't been there before I'd never have succeeded - and on
the verge of tears. It took about a minute. I got a taxi to take me
to the best hotel in town, which wasn't actually that good and the taxi
man broke the handle on my troll but it felt so great to be out of
Ecuador I really didn't care.
It
took 8 hours to get to Popayan instead of the Lying Planet advised 6
hours, but the road had been washed out in a few places since I was
last here. Apparently a couple of days after I left the road was
completely closed for several days.
Tony assured me that I
enjoyed the full Ecuador experience - like Brazil, expect to be robbed
and you wont be disappointed. What none of us can understand is why
Ecuador has a much better reputation than almost everywhere in South
America.
I've been suffering leg and feet pains due to my 8 hour
round trip to Riobamba without benefit of jabs or sexy support socks
but that's better too now I'm in Colombia.
