From A to B with Buxton: Long distance buses and border crossings

I write this blog post quite some time ago. Since then we have had many long distance bus journeys and quite a few border crossings. Most recently we bought a ticket to Buenos Aires from the Bolivian border, a 24 hour trip. We boarded the bus, drove 30 seconds to the border... and sat there for five hours before we eventually were able to drive off into Argentina.

But before then, and at the time of writing, we´d been pretty lucky with both border crossings and bus travel. The longest trip we´d made was our Cusco-beach trek, and even that had a five hour stop off in Lima the day before Christmas eve, where we witnessed the whole colonial centre come alive with the magic of Christmas and about a billion last-minute shoppers. We got so carried away with the pure commercialism of it we had a KFC for dinner and a Toblerone McFlurry for dessert.

The best thing about travelling by bus is you get to see the beautiful countryside

Our crossing of the Peru-Ecuador border passed reasonably quickly, although Ecuador, with its new and much-advertised ´modern´ immigration system, of course took twice as long as any other country. They even had a machine to ´stamp´ the passports, and it took so long for the machine to get going they might as well have hand-carved it in stone.

On this particular trip we were told that the bus we had caught from Mancora in Peru to Quito was direct. However, after 10 minutes on the Ecuadorian side of the border it stopped, Tom and I were ushered off and a woman from the bus company marched us off down the street without us having the faintest idea of what was going on. It turned out she was taking us to another bus terminal, where she booked us on an actual direct bus to Quito... that left in two hours´ time.

Such is a backpacker´s life. Just when you think you know exactly what is going to happen, you´ve asked all the right questions, made yourself understood and understood (most) of what is said back to you, something happens that you weren´t expecting. How you react to the unexpected event depends entirely on your mood. Either a "FFS, if they say ´directo´then why the **** do they actually mean ´stops after two hours for two hour break and change of bus?!´" or "Meh. Shall we have a wander and get some food?"

Luckily so far for Tom and I, when one of us takes the former approach, the other one usually takes the latter and politely reminds that this is just how things work in South America, and experiencing the difference is part of the reason we came here in the first place.

On this occassion we used it as an excuse to ´treat ourselves´(catch phrase of the whole trip) to burgers and milkshakes. Well, the national currency of Ecuador is US dollars after all, so it was pretty much a cultural decision. But I'd like to point out that although I've mentioned three fast food meals so far in this one post, usually we eat local and cheap. Honest.

We arrived in Quito at 7am the following morning and immediately bought a ticket to the Colombian border, another five hours (which turned out to be over six) away. On this bus we met Arnold, a young Colombian guy who was travelling back home from a trip to Ecuador. We managed to have a pigeon conversation with me speaking mostly in Spanish and him speaking mostly in English, except when we didn´t know how to say something in which case we reverted back to our mother tongue while the other smiled, nodded and had no idea what was being said. When we reached our destination, Arnold joined us for lunch and said he would accompany us into Colombia. This particular border crossing was not like any other we´d experienced. Until then it had gone like this: get off bus - go into the exiting country´s immigration office - get a stamp for the passport - walk a few metres across the border - go into the entry country´s immigration office - get a stamp for the passport - get on the bus. Sometimes both immigration offices are in the same building and it´s as simple as switching queues.

The Ecuadorian-Colombian border is not like this. You get a bus to the nearest town, Tulcan, about 5km from the border. Then you take a taxi to the border. Then you go into the Ecuadorian office which has several queues, all of which appear to be for both entry and exit. You join one at random and hope for the best (even our companion didn´t seem to understand what was going on). After receiving your stamp, you walk over to the Colombian office, which in our case, had a huge queue snaking right the way round the entire building. After this you get a cab to the nearest town (Ipiales, about 5km away) and pick up a connecting bus from there.

Being English, we joined the massive queue at the Colombian office without question. Arnold joined alongside us and then said he would go and find out whether this was indeed the correct queue for everyone - entrants, exitors, foreigners and nationals alike. And off he went.

So there we were, queuing to get into Colombia, surrounded by police, with the bags of a complete stranger (who had now disappeared) at our feet. It was like an episode of ´Banged up Abroad´.

Luckily for us, Colombia isn´t all about the stereotypes and Arnold was back in a flash. Unluckily, the news was that this was indeed the queue for everyone.

By the time we passed through immigration and got a cab to Ipiales it was early evening and we were knackered. Ever-helpful Arnold had already subbed us the money for the taxi as there was no ATM at the station, and now he insisted it was best if he enquired about bus tickets to our next destination (a further 8 hours north) on our behalf. Now this is one thing I am competent at doing in Spanish having had so much practise over the past couple of months, but again, being English we were too polite to insist we did it ourselves, or to ask him to get a move on and enquire as he seemed more interested in showing us all the presents he had bought for his family and friends in Ecuador. Trouble was, by the time he finally got round to doing it all the buses were full due to it being a festival in this part of the country (more on this later).

We finally managed to sort ourselves a ticket out for 10pm that evening which meant we would arrive at our final destination, Popayan, in the early hours of the morning, almost 2 days since leaving Mancora. I had read in the Lonely Planet that they advised not to take a night bus on this particular route as it was one of the few places in Colombia still frequented by bandits at night. However, our Lonely Planet is three years old and Arnold assured us it was fine, so we went ahead with the booking. Later, when we arrived at our hostel in Popayan we saw notices posted strongly advising against taking a night bus to Ipiales (where we had come from) due to "hijakings happening often".

Luckily, the bandits weren´t Blur fans so let him keep the book.

Just before we borded the bus I discovered I´d left both my phone charger and Tom´s UK travel plug adaptor in the wall socket back in our hostel in Mancora. This was the latest in a long line of things I have lost since we embarked on this trip, and the most annoying as both of these items are of extreme importance. This, combined with the fact that one of the items was Tom´s, made worse by extreme tiredness, meant that Tom was not very happy with me. Arnold asked what was wrong and I explained, at which point he pulled out his own phone charger and asked if it would work in mine. I tried it in the wall and despite his being LG and mine being Samsung, it only bloody well did! And even better, Arnold insisted I keep it as he had a spare at home. My faith in humanity at this point was at an all time high, especially as news that I no longer required a travel adaptor for my charger so Tom could keep the other one for his exclusive use appeased his anger no end.

As a thank you I let Arnold borrow my spare travel pillow on the bus (although I did take it back in the morning, you never know when you might need a spare after all).

We arrived in Popayan, found a lovely hostel immediately and after a shower and little rest went out to explore the town, but not before Tom finally got to check the Chelsea-Villa score he'd been eagerly anticipating for 20 hours. Villa lost 8-0.

It was at this point we discovered we were still in the region in which the festival was taking place, or to use its proper name, La Fiesta de Blancos y Negros. The festival lasts several days and involves everyone running around town covering each other in white foam, water bombs, flour and black face paint. And no one is exempt. In fact, I believe getting a Gringo right in the eye is worth five locals. And all you can do is laugh along and pretend you´re loving it, otherwise they´ll really go for you.

Just what you want to be greeted with after a two day bus ride

I´m ashamed to say I lost my sense of humour after someone poured an entire bucket of water on me from a balcony directly above where I was walking and everyone roared with laughter. Tom on the otherhand (and to my surprise) took it all in his stride, despite wearing one of his favourite shirts. Popayan is advertised as a ´City of Gastronomy´. Well I´m also ashamed to say that due to the mayhem outside we had pizza delivered to our hostel door both days we were there. And the same pizza both days at that.

The second day was better as there was a parade which went right past the hostel so Tom could get some great shots from the safety of the window, and I even went out again and got involved. And actually, it was great fun.