Into Ecuador!!

It was without regret that I walked through Pasto to the terminal and boarded a bus to Ipiales, the Colombian border town.  The only thing I can say about Pasto is that the town does not need travelers and travelers do not need Pasto.  It is a hard, grey town with a few nice colonial buildings, a fantastic plaza that seems to be mostly inhabited by huffers, and not much else.  The best interaction that I had in Pasto was in a bakery at the bus terminal on the way out of town.  

Four dollars US bought me a ticket to the Colombian border.  Almost.  There is always a collectivo or some sort of other transport involved in crossing land borders.  

We were traveling down the Panamerican, twisting up and down through the steep valleys with rivers and waterfalls everywhere.  The clouds were heavy in the sky as we climbed and dropped, climbed and dropped.

Some very steep fields hugging the sides of the montains.

We rreached Ipiales and I immediately got a better vibe from this border town, which was dissed by Lonely Planet.  Sometimes i agree wih the folks at LP and sometimes, well, we just have to agree to disagree.  From the terminal at Ipiales I had to take a collectivo taxi to the actual border, about 2 kilometers away.  Collectivos are exaclty what they sound like, a taxi with a set fare to a certain destination. When the taxi fills up with whomever wishes to go, the taxi leaves.  Riding with the locals, Baby!

In minutes I was standing at the Colombian Immigration counter getting the passport stamped for exiting the country.  Easey-peasey.   Based on my experiences in this fantastic country, this will not be the last Colombian stamp in my passport.  

Rumichaca, the actual border town, still on the Colombian side.

Walking across the puente into Ecuador.  I simply love crossing international borders on foot.  

I took the usual skinning from the Cambio Guys, but that is par for the course.  I only had a few hundred thousand pesos left, so not many US Dollars.  I headed through the Ecuadoran passport control and was welcomed into the country without so much as a single question about declaring goods.  There was no "Customs" at all in the sense of checking my bags.  OK, fine with me since I have carried two boxes of cigars through four countries so that I can hand them off to mi amigo bueno, Senor Hansen.  Buying an agua with the last of my peso coins, I grabbed another collectivo and we headed to Tulcan, the border town in Ecuador.  Somewhere in town our collectivo was stopped at a Transit Policia checkpoint.  A fairly angry policia chewed out our driver and kept pointing at the meter.  I am not sure that the collectivos are completely sanctioned, but eventually the ass chewing was over and our driver was able to get away without anything more serious.  Dropped at the terminal, I was quickly scooped up for the milk run bus to Quito, with my stop being hours before Quito, in the market town of Otavalo.

The sun beginning to shine on Ecuador's rugged terrain.  

I was aboard the Big Bus, which keeps the driver's shenanigans down to a minimum, simply because the Big Buses are slow as tortugas.  The landscape became more arid and more rugged, with less tilled fields on the slopes.  There were signs for the Museo de Sal, The Museum of Salt, so mining is part of the local tradition.  

It was a typical bus ride, with vendors piling on and off at every stop, and there were many stops.  The type of food sold was a bit different, boiled potatoes in a bag, for instance, along with all of the standard fare.  In addition to the regular food vendors and book vendors, we were treated to a new kind of show.  After a stop, a guy popped up at the front of the aisle.  He started his pitch with a fervor and glibness that one only hears with the selling of snake oil or religion.  In this case it proved to be a bit of both.  He was selling magic rocks.  He worked the crowd a bit, warming them up, then he started passing out the magic rocks after extolling their virtues.  No, he wanted no money.  Then there was more patter, with well timed gestures and lots of "Mi Amigos y Amigas."  Then he passed out the cheap black lanyards for hanging the magic stones around the rube's necks.  Oh, still he did not need dinero.  Finally, winding down his spiel and with all of the willing rubes holding their magic rocks, he regretfully acceded to the need for small donations to keep the magic rock enterprise thriving.  Then he was off of our bus and, I assume, onto another to ply his magic trade.

The sun decides to shine on Northern Ecuador

Cane fields and the drier mountains behind.  

i arrived in Octavalo and was deposited on the side of a busy road that I thought was the Panamerican.  I walked one block into town and there was a map taped up in a tienda window.  Handy bit of info, that.  I realized I was coming into town from the South rather than the North and adjusted  accordingly.  Luck was with me and the first hostel I stopped at had a good room at a great price.  This was an Ecuadoran hostel, no englais spoken, and no backpackers.  A nice change and $12 dollars per night with a private bathroom.  Oh, the official currency for Ecuador is the US Dollar, just as it is in Panama.  It's a little weird, but you get used to it.  This is, incidently, where all of the Sacagawea dollar coins end up.  The Ecuadorans love them.  One dollar bills are pretty uncommon, at least in Otavalo, so one ends up with a big pocket full of heavy coins.  

Otavalo is a very important Andean market town.  The market happens everyday, but on Saturday it spills out through the entire town.  Weaving and textiles are the main trade, but there are all sorts of things for touristas to spend their dollars on.  Fortunately for me, I arrived on a Monday and it is also very much the low season here, so the number of tourists is very, very low.  

I gave the town a good evening walking, then I decided on a change for dinner and had Chinese food in Ecuador.  The cafe came highly recommended and the LP folks did not steer me wrong.

Chairman Mao lives on in my small Cafe Chin!

Oh my noodly friends, how I have missed you!!

I finished off the evening watching the Navidad festival from a bench in the main park.  There were masses of kids dressed as Angels or Wise Men or Elves.  They were accompanied by their parents dressed in the traditional garb, which is what many people wear here everyday.  Evening fell on the park and I was a very happy traveler, full of good food, enjoying a lively and fun town, a getting chilled in the muy frio night air.  Tomorrow would be aimed at shopping for some warmer gear.