28th Oct - Quito to Cali, Colombia

So got the bus at 1am from the station. It was fine though, it left at about 1.30 and there were a couple of Kiwi lads in the seat behind me. Slept a bit and then we stopped for breakfast at one of those usual roadside dinner places. Met another kiwi lad from the bus there, seemed a grand lad too.

Got to the border and despite the fact that I didn't have some piece of paper I needed to leave Ecuador they waved me through no hassle. The kiwi lad I met at breakfast got stopped though. Turned out that he was a bit of an odd fish. He had a 3 month visa for Ecuador but had stayed for over 4 months. He told the lads that he'd been "sick" when they asked him why he stayed so long.
He spoke absolutely zero Spanish so insisted on shouting at the border guards in English. Ah yeah, sure that's just a super idea! He also brought zero cash with him to the border, so couldn't even bribe his way out of the situation! He was kicked off the bus anyway and detained in Ecuador. Bizarre lad.

I went over to get my passport stamped at the Colombian side - no problems. Then a lad who was selling Colombian pesos came up and started chatting. Normally this is a shake-down to get to know you, then pounce selling his wares. This lad just wanted banter cos he seemed genuinely interested in banter. Even after I told him that I'd already exchanged my cash earlier he still just wanted to chat away! Good first impression of the Colombian people!



Colombia... nice




We stopped a couple of hours later for lunch. There was a mad rush as everyone on the bus ran to shower when they had the chance. Myself and the kiwi lads had no notion of it! There were a couple of sound Peruvian birds on board and they were doling out the savage abuse back on the bus! These poor girls live in Venezuela and were on the bus for 5 full days to get home and 5 more to come back! Brutal. They've a good excuse to take showers anyway!



Friends! Friends! Bus friends!





One of the 2 drivers came down the back to chat to my new bus friends. And of course to do his classic porn star pose!



The bus turned out to be a 21hr trip.  I don't usually mind the long bus journeys too much. I write this blog, watch tv, listen to music, read a book, research the next place I'm going to but this was a tough journey.




19 hours into the 21 hour journey. Utterly shattered.



Got in anyway for 11pm, taxi to the hostel recommended in the book that Mike and Sam wanted to go to. Welcome to Colombia!