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After leaving Cartagena and Ocho with it, we headed to the airport to start our journey down the Quito in Ecuador. The trip would involve 2 taxi's, 2 planes and 3 Buses so there was plenty of room for some interesting and unexpected events as always with this kind of travel.
In the airport Sal and I ate some leftovers from our final meal with Ocho from our little food pots. Apparently when Sal went to wash her pot out in the toilet sinks a woman seemed to think that Sal had pooed in the pot and was now swilling her deposit into a hand basin! I don't think i stopped laughing for at least 10 minutes. As we sat waiting for the planes I noticed a stunning Columbian woman sat across the way. Sal had spotted her too and said it wasn't fair that she was sweating in dirty clothes while the Columbian was done up and wearing stiletto's. A couple of minutes later another beautiful Columbia sat close by. I could see Sal face and I could tell that she was wishing for a shower and some nice clothes and makeup from her stuff in England. 10 minutes later about 10 more stunning women came over and sat near us. I turned to Sal with a big grin to which she replyed 'now that's just taking the mick!' well that's not quite what she said but you get the idea. As far as we could work out it was a group of Columbian models on their way to a shoot. I won't say it didn't make the waiting easier :-)
Around an hour before we were due to board our flight an announcement came over the tannoy 'Urgent message would Mister Peter Conway please come to the front desk!'. Oh crap what have I done now! When we got to the dest a woman spoke to us in Spanish, we figured out that we would not be making our connecting flight and that the airline company were putting us up in a hotel........ A HOTEL, WOOOHOOOO! The lady seemed sorry to break the news to us but we were over the moon. A free nights accommodation in a hotel what more could we want after sweating it out in dorm rooms. We practically skipped our way onto the plane.
I was a strange feeling jumping on a plane and not having our friends messing around and laughing while Stu smelt the place out as we had become accustom to. Our connection was in Bogota and when we arrived a man was waiting for us, 'Are you Mister Conway?' to which I replyed 'Yes I am' with a big grin on my face. 'Quick Mister Conway you need to run we can still get you onto you next flight tonight!' NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! There goes our dreams of aircon and comfy beds!
We did not arrive into Cali until 1:30am and now that I had the prospect of a free nights accommodation I was determined that I was still going to get one but in place of a hotel room we had airport chairs. We set up camp in the all but empty airport with our small bags strapped to our fronts and our big backpack's playing the part of our pillows. I had a suprisingly good sleep even though I woke up several times in the morning surrounded by staring Colombians.
The bus journey on the Columbian site from Cali to the boarder was straight forward with nice flat roads and only one change of buses. It was a long journey and we arrived at the boarder at 11pm. The Columbian boarder control was open so we got our exit stamps to save time in the morning before heading to a hotel with cozy beds at hostel rates (I knew we would get to stay in a hotel in the end). Next morning we woke up and grabbed a taxi to take us to the Ecuador immigration office and then onto the bus station for the next leg, simple right? When we got into immigration the guy took a good long stare at our passports then said we would not be allowed to cross the boarder because we had not checked out of Colombia today! After some going back and forth with his colleagues he told us that we had to stamp back into Columbia and them stamp back out again before they would let us through. I went out and paid the taxi driver the fair for taking us 200 meters (US$1.50). In the end we got ourselves all sorted out and soon enough we were into Ecuador, YAY!
Once that taxi dropped us off we soon found the bus we needed to take us into the capital, Quito. As we settle into our seats a man with a leather jacket and a few gold chains round his neck hopped aboard with a big box. The man stood in the isle while the bus set off and started talking very loudly and enthusiastically. We had no idea what the guy was trying to sell and it was no less than 45minutes of relentless talking that we found out........ It was a bracelet to rule all bracelets! According to his sales folder this metal bracelet could help you lose weight, stop smoking, improve your complexion, reduce the chance of cancer, reduce the threat of heart conditions, make you more attractive and finally reduce the chances of complications during pregnancy! Wow! That's a hell of a bracelet for the equivalent of £5. Bus salesmen became a bit of a theme over the next few countries, they are always entertaining.
The scenery was stunning as we headed through unspoilt cloud rainforest on our way to Quito. Two things were very noticeably different here from Colombia, the first being the road condition... bumpy doesn't even start to describe it. Secondly the drop in temperature as we climbed in altitude, going from 40 degrees in Cartegena to around 5 degree in the cloud forest was a bit of a shock to the system but a shock that I was enjoying. Ecuador was going to be a nice change of pace from our travels so far.
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Dad :-) What an adventure Pedro, shame about the near miss on the hotel overnight!!!