Our lift to Neiva was mostly comfy but the hostel owner who was driving us was moody and drove like a lunatic - but then again he was French so really it was to be expected. By the time we got to Neiva we decided we were too tired to face another long 6-7 hour bus journey - not the 4 hour journey that we had been told about by the French hostel owner. This meant a trip around town in a taxi looking for a reasonably priced, clean, safe hotel which we found at Hote...

We arrived at the bus station (which was still barricaded) and managed to get on a bus to Pitalito leaving in 10 minutes. Our local friend was not so lucky as no buses where heading past Cali let alone Medellin. Our bus was a small minibus with only our group of now 7 gringos and two locals. The journey started badly again as after only an hour we got stuck for another hour due to an accident but finally got going. The reason for the small bus became clear as we...

I was going to be travelling to Colombia with Malou and Lotta who I met in the Amazon which I was glad about as the route was not going to be a straight forward one. We had to catch a bus to Tulcan, taxi to the border, cross the border, taxi to Ipiales and then another bus to San Agustin. Things started to go wrong when we heard there was a bus strike in Colombia. All went well until we got to Ipiales - hoping to visit the Santuary pictured in the photo before a...

Another visit to Secret Garden hostel and it is starting to feel like home! I had an easy day in rainy Quito only venturing out for cash and a bit of shopping before returning to the hostel to catch up on admin and relax on the roof terrace. I had left my next destination up to the laundry gods - if my laundry was ready the same day I was heading to Colombia, if not to Otovalo.... To my great surprise my laundry was ready when I went to collect it at 6pm so the ...

The bus journey was bad - either really hot or really cold and not at all comfy with a very bendy road. Not sure I slept at all and we arrived in Lago Agrio about 6.30am and had breakfast before our transfer bus turned up at 9.30. I was travelling with two Dutch girls (Malou and Lotta) from Secret Garden and we were eager to find out who else was on our trip. The transfer bus narrowed this down as only two lodges were on this 2 hour trip to the start of the river...