Driving from Cartagena, Colombia, to the
border of Ecuador was relatively uneventful. Once we got off the Ruta Caribe
(Carribean Road), we were reminded to fasten our seatbelts and not drink and
drive.
I also loved they the Colombians let you
know of points of interest nearby.
And, hitchhikers are always able to find
a ride! This is a container on a car hauler with two guys on the back. This was
not an uncommon combination!
In the northern part of the country, the
landscape reminded me of the area in which I grew up, except the hills were
bigger and steeper. In my part of Kentucky, the hillsides tended to be dotted
with cattle, predominantly Holstein. Sometimes, those cattle dotted the road,
too. (At least ours did!)
We were also driving up and down hills,
seeing nothing other than farms and a few houses. Suddenly, there was a little
town that may have a cross street, but not necessarily. These little towns all
had the same makeup: A few houses, a restaurant or two, a gas station, and a
little market. Every two or three towns, there would also be a farm supply or
feed store.
The architecture was different, too. In
Kentucky, the homes tended to be colonial-style farmhouses or ranch-style
homes. In Colombia, the buildings are the tradition block and brick structures.
As we drove further south, Colombia
began to look more like an Andean country than Appalachian. These mountains
really can make a person feel small.
We made it almost to Medellin the first
night. We stopped for gas. This station was definitely full service. They had gas, rooms, and a restaurant. Pretty
handy! They had serious chuckles at our shorts and T-shirts while they were bundled
up in winter coats. It was pretty cold! So glad there was somewhere around 20
blankets on the bed!
The next day was a difficult drive. The
mountain roads in Central and South Colombia aren’t wide enough to accommodate one-way
traffic when you consider semi-trucks and hairpin curves. They are two-way
roads, though. Often, trucks had to stop and wait for traffic on the other side
to pass before they could enter curves, or oncoming traffic would have to stop
and wait for the truck to complete the curve. Passing was treacherous but
possible, trust me – Bruce was driving!
There was a heavy military presence
throughout Central and Southern Colombia, especially guarding bridges. They
were all very nice and waved back at us and smiled. About half of them would
give a thumbs up when traffic went by. They had huge smiles when we gave them
the thumbs up back! I’m really not sure what it meant, but it was fun.
The award for best police officers is
going to have to go to Colombia. We got pulled over for document checks a few
times. I feel confident we were pulled over a few extra times because Florida
doesn’t issue a front license plate, but that was only an issue one time. In
Medellin, the officers that pulled us over seemed very frustrated that they
pulled us over and couldn’t find anything to ticket us for. They circled the
truck a few times, made several comments about the lack of a front plate, and
examined all of our documents very closely. They finally let us go, though.
Other than that, the police were exceptionally
friendly. Once they saw that we were driving a US vehicle on a temporary import
permit, they wanted to just chat for a bit. One officer didn’t even take our
documents to look at. He just noticed that I had them. “Where did you come
from?” “The United States, but we entered Colombia in Cartagena.” “How do you
like Colombia?” “It’s beautiful and so full of history!” “Do you like the food?”
Bruce says “Yes” with me and pats his belly. The officer laughs and pats Bruce’s
belly, too!! He wished us a good trip and sent us on our way, never having
touched any of our documents that were sitting on the console during the
exchange.
Another one noticed that when he would
ask Bruce questions, I would answer, so he asked if Bruce spoke Spanish. “He
only speaks a few words.” The officer: “Gracias, Buenos dias…” Bruce: “Cervesa.”
Me: “More cervesa!” The officer: “He’s learned a lot! That’s all he really
needs to know!” He briefly glanced at our documents and wished us a pleasant
trip.
The Colombia-Ecuador border crossing was
one of the easiest, and definitely the cheapest! Processing out of Colombia was
easy. We went to the Dian to cancel the TIP for the truck. We could have just
gone right on past. No cancellation paperwork, stamps, or anything. Just turned
in the original permit. I’m glad I had an extra copy! Then, get the exit stamp
in our passports. That got us out of Colombia.
Entering Ecuador just required filling out the
immigration form and getting our passports stamped. One of the aduana guards
noticed that I was standing in line a long time to get the TIP for the truck,
so he went to a different building, came back, and escorted me to that
building, where we sat down in a comfortable office, and a guy took care of our permit.
Unlike most other countries where you can get a 30-day permit that can be
extended, he issued us the full 90 days to correspond with our T3 visa. We
asked about SOAT insurance, and he told us it was no longer required, so to not
worry about it. I had copies of everything, but he just took pictures of my
documents and uploaded them into the computer and gave me back my copies. I’m
not sure what’s going to happen when we try to extend it, but we’ll cross that
bridge when we come to it. This was the first country we entered that did not
charge for the permit, inspection, insurance, or any number of assorted fees to
bring the truck (and often ourselves) into the country. I was so excited about
how easy and free this crossing was, I forgot to take pictures of the
processing center, but here’s the Welcome to Ecuador sign taken from outside
the Colombian side.
We’re definitely back in Ecuador! The slower
drivers are hugging the shoulder of the road so you can pass, and three wide
over a speed bump is the norm, especially if you’re passing a truck or bus. The
landscape is beautiful, and livestock is herded on the roads. We stopped for
the night just past Quito. Initially, I had planned to see a few things in the
northern part of the country on our way, but we’re ready to get home. We
decided to just get to Puerto Lopez, and we’ll make a trip back up to see the
things we missed later.
Loved seeing the palm trees on the side
of the mountain along with the trees expected at certain altitudes, though I
believe we had come down from official “altitude” by this point, I think we
were still pretty far up.
There have been a lot of changes to
Puerto Lopez since we’ve been gone. The next post will either talk about the
changes in town or run down some of the expenses on our trip.
