End of Prologue, Begin Chapter One

Rose from bed at the ripe hour of 5 ayem Sunday morning, and left the hotel in Ibarra to catch a taxi to the Terminal Terrestre and an early morning bus ride to Tulcan, close to the Colombian border. A three hour bus ride, high in the stark, high Andes, left us in a rainy Tulcan, where a mad taxi driver raced across wet, windy mountain roads to take us to the Ecuadorian immigration facility. A short wait (and a lot of confusion), and we had our exit stamps in our passports, and walked about 150 meters across the border to Colombia. Got another stamp (sort of lame, the "stamps" in both countries are dot matrix printouts), changed some money*, and grabbed another taxi to the bus station in Ipiales, Colombia. On a 10:30 bus to Popayan, which switchbacked down through lush valleys of green and terraced hills, mountains wih clouds draped over them like blankets.

High in the mountains, a few hours into the trip from Ipiales, our bus was stopped - a collection of Colombians, marching, protesting, armed police everywhere - protesting for peace in their long-troubled nation.

Then six hours into the last bus jounrey of the day, we were again stopped, pulled to the side of the road by armed men. They reviewed the bus drivers papers, quizzed him on the trip, and boarded the bus! The Colombian plice officer, M-16 in his hands, said something to Chase and I in Spanish. I did not understand. "¿Que?" was all I could think to say. "Buenes tardes," (Good Afternoon), he replied. The police inspected the bus, and 15 minutes after we were stopped us, we were on our way.

Arriving 8 hours after boarding the bus in Ipiales (and 13 since we left Ibarra), we alighted in Popayan, the well preserved colonial "White City" of Southern Colombia. It was a long day of traveling, but worth it for this lovely, if extremely quiet, capital of the deparmentivo.



We had a nice meal last night, and met a Scottish fellow who has been the caretaker of a hostel in town for a few months, with some really helpful information on the town and surrounding area. For those readers worried for our safety (in other words, for my mom and people who know Chase), the Scotsman said in the four months that he has been here, he has heard zero horror stories about the surrounding area. He and his Australian dining companion maintained that because Colombia has so few tourists, it does not attract theifs because they can not survive on the meager earning from robbing so few travelers.

In any event, I will try to post back before we leave for the countryside, I think we will be without internet access for a day or two.

And the coffee is really, really good here.