Pasto, first stop in Colombia

About the only interesting thing on our journey to the Colombian border was what I think was an attempted robbery.

It's a scam we'd been warned about and it's mentioned in the guidebooks too. Basically it's simply a guy getting onto your bus, and telling you where to put your hand luggage - either on the floor under your seat, or on the luggage rack above your head. The scam of course is a mate of that guy sitting behind you either taking your bag, or cutting it open and taking what's in there (one of the bus companies in Peru even hand out a little flyer to every passenger telling them to always hold onto their hand luggage).

So just minutes after we leave the bus terminal in Quito a few people get on the bus and one of them tells Sarah to do just that, i.e. put her bag on the floor. At the same time I noticed another guy sit in the seat directly behind her (the guys were both fairly young, but well dressed and not suspicious looking at all). We both tell the guy the bag is fine where it is, on Sarah's lap, and I turn around in my seat and glare at the guy behind. Within about 3 minutes both guys (and a girl who got on the bus with them) all get off the bus again. All very strange really, and it makes you a little shaky to be honest, although we can't be 100% sure we were going to be robbed (just like we can never be sure we were going to be robbed back in Durban in South Africa), but reassuring to know we still have some wits about us I suppose.

We arrived at the border by early afternoon, so after the very quick passport stamp we get a cheap lunch on the Ecuador side, and use up the last of our Ecuadorian change (they use US dollars for notes, but local coins which are useless outside the country). Then it's a stroll across the bridge and very quick Colombian stamps before having to get a taxi (ggggrrrr!), who of course ripped us off as I hadn't any local currency yet. We get to the bus station (we'd asked the taxi driver if the station had an ATM and he said 'Yes', but of course there wasn't one (although our Spanish is terrible, so maybe...)). So still having to pay in US dollars I got ripped off again getting a bus from the border to a town nearer our intended destination. But we still got to Pasto before dark, and this bus station did have an ATM.

We just stayed in Pasto for one night (Hostel Manhatten, huge nice room, but the shared shower and toilet were a bit dodgey!), having a great dinner in a cool lively local restaurant (La Merced). Afterwards I strolled about the town while Sarah had an early night, and it seemed to have a good bit of life to it (many towns seem deathly quite during the week). The next morning we explored the town a bit and whilst in a cafe trying to decide what to buy for our takeaway breakfast and lunch through very bad Spanish, the waitress turns to a local guy who just came in and who spoke English. It turned out the guy was the owner of the cafe and the owner of the best bar in town, and he'd studied English in Ireland over 20 years ago. Anyway, he was really friendly and kept us chatting for a while, but both our breakfast and lunch on the bus were really delicious (empanadas and a huge tamales).

A few hours later and just before dark we arrived in the town of Popayan, which is the turning off point for one of Colombia's main archeological sites (San Agustin), but also a lovely colonial town in it's own right.