Both Luc and I wrote about our recent border crossing from Colombia into Ecuador. Here they both are:
Luc
Finally, we arrive in Ipales, which is the border town in
Colombia, just before entering Ecuador. A few more kms, and we are there,
pretty nervous after reading all sorts of articles about border crossings. We
checked out of Colombia real easy. A few hundred feet more and we stopped at
the Ecuador immigration. Jen is really well organized with all the papers. She
has copies of all the documents that we will ever need, except an official
paper that says that she can drive the camper van. Who would have known? That was not an issue in Colombia...It is Sunday, 3:00 pm, and
we are told that we need a notarized paper giving Jen the authorization to
drive the van. Of course, we have to wait until Monday am... We parked the
camper and the motorcycle some 25 feet from where the border police checks every
car before going into Ecuador. We made friends with a few of them and spent a
lovely night in our van.
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| Camping in no-man's land |
Oh yes, we took a walk in the no man’s land, witnessed a
horse that was mingling freely with the cars, probably thinking that he was a dog, ate
in a real small food place with only 3 tables, and finally went to bed around 9:00 pm.
The next morning, we take a taxi to the first town in
Ecuador, Tulcan, get the notorized letter, come back to the van and crossed while the
border police was smiling at us and wishing us safe traveling.
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| The horse |
Now, the real fun starts. We are hungry, the drive is very
slow, around 50 km/hr, (30 mph). Before leaving VT, I thought that we would drive at
least 300 miles / day and get to Chile in less than 3 months. Well, let me tell you that it will be impossible. A good day,
with very little traffic, will give you about 150 miles and it will take 7 hrs.
And I am not exaggerating! I hope that it will get better in Peru and Chile. If
not, we might not get to Santiago for Christmas, and we might forget seeing
Tierra del Fuego. Our goals are changing. We meet so many nice people and try to spend a few days here and there, without being rushed. After all, Jen
and I want to have a good time and driving and riding day after day, will not
give us time to visit and meet
people.
I was saying that we were hungry but could not find a
restaurant any where on the side of the road. We arrive in a very small town,
San Gabriel. We stopped at a roadside tiny restaurant, sit outside under a
small roof to protect us from the sun. When that sun touches your skin, it
burns as if it was through a magnifying glass. The food is bad, the meat is pretty
much like leather from a shoe soaked in some unknown liquid. Jen has a soup with a big bone and no meat on it. Half way through the meal, everything started to shake
moving our table and chairs. I looked up and saw the little roof jumping up and
down and swaying over our heads. I looked across the street, and there was a long cinder blocks building and it was moving as a tent in the wind. Even the windows looked as they were undulating. It seems impossible, but it was what I saw
at the moment, and we were not drinking! It lasted less than 1 min, but we
realized that it was an earthquake. I wish that I had checked that building for cracks in the walls. The next day, in the newspapers, we saw
that it was a 5.9 tremor, and that the epicenter was exactly in the small town where
we were eating lunch.
We finished our pitiful lunch and expected to pay at the max
$3.50 to $4.00, but the lady told Jen that it was $10.00. I was already ready
to go so I was not there to make a scene. It was pure robbery and I have to say
that for $10.00, you can get a very nice meal in a nice restaurant.
Jen
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The Napo River near our pull out.
This photo was taken the day after our trip, and after much rain. |
I'm sitting in the back of the van in Archidona, Ecuador after a fantastic day of rafting on the Jatunyacu and Napo rivers with a group called River People. We met the founder, Gary Dent, in Otavalo a few days ago and at his suggestion came down from 2930 feet in the Andes into the Amazon basin. Though it is raining now, we had a sunny, beautiful day on the jungle river. Unfortunately, we didn't bring a camera, so we'll have to wait for the illustrated edition of the river chapter until Andrew, who was also on our trip, returns to Texas and hopefully sends us his photos. Over the course of the day, 4 or 5 different rivers came together, finishing in the Napo, which flows into the Amazon 2400 km further on. Along the way, there were native families with pans and little sluice machines panning for gold, which our guide, Andreas, said yield about 1 gram a day: $35.00. The big front end loader operations we saw (a Canadian-Ecuadorian company that has mining rights along the river) yields a gram of gold per scoopful, but leaves its ugly mark on the river, too. Wonderful day on the water, including orchids and rapids and native villages.
We left Cali, Colombia about a week ago and headed south, passing through Popayan and Laguna de la Cocha, a beautiful high altitude lake full of delicious trout.
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| Eduardo Laguna de la Cocha |
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| Laguna de la Cocha |
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| Laguna la Cocha |
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Laguna la Cocha
In September, the village flooded and everyone had to move upstream for a few days. |
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| Outside our Hospedaje with two of our hosts |
We arrived at Rumichara at the Ecuadorian border last Sunday afternoon. There are great websites that other travelers have put together explaining the steps for crossing the border with a vehicle.
- Drive to the Colombian DIAN office. Check.
- Get your auto import permit cancelled. Check.
- Get your exit stamps at the immigration window. Apparently not needed.
- Drive over the bridge to the Ecuador side. Check.
- Get your passport stamped. Check.
- Go to the Aduana at the corner of the building with color copies of the owner's passport (including Ecuadorian stamp), registration, and title of each vehicle. Check.
- In the case of two vehicles registered to one person, provide notarized document in Spanish authorizing second person to drive one of the vehicles. Oops.
It is Sunday night at the border. No notaries here. We have been stamped out of Colombia but can't enter Ecuador. (Well, technically, we could enter Ecuador, but the vehicles couldn't.) The woman in the office arranged with the police for us to camp next to the bridge where we spent a pleasant evening.
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| The old customs building |
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| Natural Bridge |
The next morning we took a taxi into Tulcan, the closest town in Ecuador for the notarized letter.
8. Provide notarized letter. Check.
9. Receive vehicle permit to be turned in at border. Check. 10 AM.
10. Buy SOAT (insurance) for Ecuador. Ha. Just try!
We spent the next 2 days first in Tulcan, then Ibarra, tracking down SOAT for the car (sorry only, cars, not motorcycles) then the bike (computer system not working, come back tomorrow). Thank goodness for the guy at the office of the lovely El Prado Hosteria we stayed who spent a long time on the phone for his "amigos who don't speak much Spanish" trying to find it for us.
On the way between Tulcan and Ibarra, we stopped in San Gabriel where we had a hard time finding a place for lunch, but finally stopped by the side of the road for some overpriced, nearly inedible food. Sitting on the patio we were apparently at the epicenter of a 5.9 earthquake. It felt to me like sitting on top of a slightly out-of-balance clothes dryer.
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| Ibarra |
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| Ibarra |
In Ibarra Luc was also able to make some repairs to the van, bike and trailer. We had a little help.
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| Fixing the hitch |
On to Otavalo. We followed directions up a steep cobbled road to Rose's Cottage. However, the van with bike couldn't make the turn from the steep road into the steep driveway, so we continued uphill and found La Luna, a charming hostel run by Kevin and Tamara.
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| La Luna |
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| La Luna |
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| Best flatbread south of Waitsfield |
After a morning in the Otavalo market, Luc settled in to do some more repairs and I took a map and went off for a walk. The area around Otavalo (and all of this part of the world, I am discovering) are covered with old Inca trails, there is a beautiful lake, the biggest in Ecuador.
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| Otavalo Market |
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| Otavalo |
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| Otavalo |
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| Otavalo |
Three hours later, I was still following a once-cobbled road up, up, up and it was going to be dark soon. A Quecha family I met didn't seem to recognize anything on my map, but assured me there was a casa further up. At 5:15 I finally turned around, consulted with various shepards (is that what you call someone herding cows?) along the way, and stumbled into the hostel about 30 minutes after dark. By then Luc and Tamara were out searching for me, but at least they had thought to bring a phone (which I hadn't), so they were back shortly.
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| Bull ring in the middle of nowhere |
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| Inca Road |
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| Lago San Pablo |
It was at the hostel we met Gary Dent, proprietor of River People. Which brings me back to Archidona and our river day today.
