Crossing the Equator

After retreaving Jim' passport (yes, Jim's passport, to my relief and Jim's horror) at the bus terminal in Pasto, we were off toward the Ecuador Frontier.  To our chagrin, the GPS doesn't seem to work for Ecuador so we knew we were in for an interesting navigational experience.  I keep trying to describe the mountainous terrain we are traveling through, with both its astounding beauty and driving difficulty; I'm sure I miserably fail in my attempts to give an accurate picture.  We are in awe and frustrated at the same time.  Driving to the boorder, we spent most of our time at 10,000 feet and above.  Contrary to our US western environment, people thrive here at this altitude.  The weather is similar to that of San Fransisco...a bit wet, cool, and very, very green.  

The border crossing went surprisingly well, compared to our gut wrenching experiences in Central America.  No Coyotes... with professional immigration and customs officials on both sides.  The only glitch was being taken by the money changer on the street when I changed my Colombian Pesos for dollars.  He pulled out a huge wad of dollars and quickly calculated the exchange.  It was later that I realized he pulled a fast one on me and shorted me 20 bucks.  They use US dollars in Ecuador and we discovered where all those Susan B. Anthony dollar coins went to that we all refused to use back home.

A few observations about Ecuador:  1)  We immediately noticed that the drivers are slower and seem safer here; 2) the roads are better; 3)  the people look different than the Colombians...shorter, darker, more indio looking; 4) the highway tolls are much cheaper, $1 a pop.

We were warned that  there was some major holiday bieng celebrated in these parts and that we might find slow traffic.  A four day affair that likely has something to do with Carnival, we surmised.  That proved to be an understatement, as every town larger than a village was teeming with folks from all parts ready to live large.  People dressed in their best tradional garb, drums, music of all kinds, and hordes of vehicles clogging every street, bringing traffic to a halt.  They seem to be fixated on throwing water on each other with small buckets, after being gleefully squirted with some sort of soapy, foamy stream from aerosol  cans. As the Little Red Truck crawled past the revelers I rolled down my window to get a closer look and took a full shot of foam in the head.  With the texture of shaving cream, it stung my eyes like soap.  I could have jumped from the truck and settled the score, but I let them have their little victory.

Our goal was Quito, about 300 miles from Pasto...a long, long day.  We never intended to travel at night, but we are finding that 200 to 300 miles a day in these mountains requires driving into the night, with 10-13 hour days common. It took 2 hours in bumper to bumpper traffic to drive past the town of Otavalo,

a medium sized community know for its world class Saturday market.  A quick glance at the calendar revealed we were one day off.  We neared Quito, the capital of Ecuadore with a population of millions about 9pm, decending to 9,000 feet in dense fog.  We knew the metropolis was there...we just couldn't see it.  After initially passing it, we doubled back on the Pan Am and entered the city, not knowing how to find our hotel.  The proven technique of hailing a cab and then following it to the hotel worked again, and we finally settled in to our amazing botique hotel in the center of the historical district at 10pm.  With no resaurants open at this hour, our proprietor took pity on us and made us a cheese sandwich.  There is no heat in any buildings in Quito, so we were glad for the down comforters supplied.