A port in a storm

Trip Start Apr 18, 2011

Trip End Ongoing

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Where I stayed

Koala Inn

Flag of Colombia Pasto, Colombia
Tuesday, August 30, 2011

After crossing yet another border, this time into Colombia, we arrived in Pasto haggard, tired and ready for food/bed. We showed up at the only backpackers place in Pasto, the Koala Inn with low expectations. Thankfully the owner of the place was great. He sorted us out with a nice big room with a comfy double bed, told us a good place to get some grub and even lent us 30,000 pesos ($15) to go and eat! This restored some of our faith in the Colombian people, as a taxi driver at the border tried to rip us off, and then multiple people cutting in front of us in the queue for a bus ticket.

The border crossing itself at Tulcan (Ecuadorian side) and Ipiales (Colombia side) went smoothly, as both are border towns we decided to get out of them as quickly as possible and jumped on a bus to Pasto. Little did we know that Colombian bus drivers are definitely insane. The bus journey, which wound itself on an often white knuckle road, with sheer drops off the side that we were sat on, went quickly

Entering Colombia

. This is only because it seemed like the driver of our bus had taken it upon himself to do the Ipiales to Pasto route in record time, he was overtaking cars, lorries, other buses, basically anything that came in his path. Now this wouldn't be too bad, but it was dark and the only thing that separated us from certain death was an occasional flimsy metal barrier next to the cliff face. Thankfully he was not even the most insane bus driver in the country, we realised this when another bus hurtled past us, and proceeded to overtake anyone and everyone, blind corner or not!

We arrived in Pasto safely, and the kindly owner of the Koala Inn made our night with his generosity, he advised us not to take money out of ATMs at night in Colombia, as it is not entirely safe. This is quite apparent when you see the police walking around with machine guns, the police presence is quite strong, with numerous police checks on the roads and they even get onto buses to check everyones documents are in order. This is quite reassuring, no baddies are going to have an easy time of it here!

Yet another bus journey coming up, this time to Popayan where we plan to rest and recuperate for a few days. It is the gourmet food capital of Colombia, YES PLEASE!

Slideshow