Budget Border Crossing

It took us 12 hours, 4 bus rides, 6 taxis, 1 flight, $43, 24,000 credit card points, and a whole lot of patience to cross the Columbia-Ecuador border. In South America, flights from country to country are not cheap, meaning $400+ per ticket to get directly from Bogota, Colombia to Quito, Ecuador.

So, we opted to save over $700 and came up with this gem of a strategy...

We first took a domestic flight from Bogota to Pasto. This is where we noticed an exceptional amount of people carrying on Dunkin’ Donuts bags.  We clearly missed out on the capitalist opportunity to feed the sweet tooth of a small town in southern Colombia, but we enjoyed the 1-hour flight without this American indulgence none-the-less.  After we picked up our bags at the single carrousel airport, we walked to the pick-up area, greeted for the first time by someone holding a “Heaton” sign, since public transportation didn’t make it’s way to this airport.

An overnight stay in Pasto, Colombia let us prepare for the day ahead.

We woke up at 5:30am for a 6am departure from our hostel.  Thanked our host as she handed us a warm sandwich and juice for breakfast, and grabbed a cab on the street for a 10-minute ride to the bus terminal. In the terminal, there were “callers,” scattered about yelling different city destinations from every direction. We found the one yelling "Ipiales" 10-times fast, and bought two tickets.  We spent the two-hour bus ride smudging clear the foggy windows to see every bit of the lush mountainous landscape that was our first glimpse into the Andean countryside. I looked past the road crew clearing rock slides.   

Once we reached Ipiales, we took a van taxi 20-minutes to the Colombian border town of Rumichaca. Ignoring all of the people trying to exchange our pesos, we got an exit stamp on our passport for Colombia, walked 10-minutes across the border, got our entry stamp for Ecuador, and hopped into a cab for a 20-minute ride to Tulcan. Payed the taxi driver in USD, because that's the currency in Ecuador (since 2000, when they switched from their highly devalued sucre).  

Before we even got out of the taxi, callers from every direction were yelling destination cities again.  We get on the bus stopping in Otavalo, and pause as we are two of maybe four people on the the giant charter bus, but later learn that they drop off and pick people up all along the way. About 30-minutes in, they began to play the movie “Kung Fu Killer” in Spanish at a volume that was assaulting my ears.  At every big stop, vendors came on the bus with street food…everything from freshly cut fruit to chicken wings and fries, to plantain chips. Ignoring our hunger, we resisted the urge to buy something, recognizing that sickness from street food on a long bus sounded worse than a grumbling stomach. Lengthening the ride, we stopped five times for anti-narcotic checks as police confirmed passports and tested baggage.  Four hours later, we made it to Otavalo.  Under dark rain clouds, we walked to the nearest establishment, which meant lunch at a gas station.  To our luck, the gentleman sitting next to us was a taxi driver and he took us to our hostel after we finished our meals.  

We gave ourselves a few days of enjoying Otavalo before the last leg to Quito, which thankfully wasn’t nearly as interesting and ended with a wonderful welcome by great hometown friends and a big cheers to budget travel!