MUNGO EATS Latin America

We have had a couple of big driving days to clear the last half of Colombia and enter Ecuador.  We have to be in Peru at Christmas and we are starting to feel the time crunch!   Yesterday we drove from Popoyan to Pasto, today we crossed into Ecuador.  A few interesting events happened along the way.  When we tried to leave Popoyan yesterday, we ended up hopelessly lost.  We had a small map of the city, which more or less showed the city centre.  On this map, the route looked clear as day, take 17 Avenue out of town.  Of course, it was more or less clear as mud when it actually came time to drive.  I think I hate  traffic circles.  In the end, we ended up backtracking, following the GPS trail we had made to drive into town and finding the bypass route for the city. 

The countryside before you enter Pasto was some of the bleakest we have seen in Colombia.  It was mostly brown, scrub covered hills with cacti.  Quite ugly, especially in comparison to the green hillsides in the rest of the country.  Also along this stretch road, we were only at about 500 metres of elevation, so it was quite hot.  Every so often we would drive passed a person on the side of the road that would hold out their hand or a hat, hoping to get a few coins.  On this part of the highway, there were a few uneven parts of the pavement, and this is where the beggars would stand vigil.  You slow down, they stick out their hands.  Apparently there were not enough uneven pavement areas to make all the beggars happy, so a few of them resorted to stretching a line of rope across the highway as you drove near.  Like a little strand of rope is going to stop a vehicle? 

We spent the night at a truck stop on the south side of Pasto.  Truck stops are our new discovery.  Many of them have a few rooms to let out, some have  a full hotel, all of them have a restaurant.  The restaurants are quite funny, you don’t really get a menu, the waitress just comes out and tells you what they have.  It usually amounts to a fixed menu which includes a soup or a salad and a main course with your choice of meat.  It is funny to hear them tell you what is on the menu for the night though, because it usually goes like this, “We have meals tonight with chicken, fish or meat.”  You tell her your choice of meat and wait to see what you have ordered.  The meals are dirt cheap as well, often less than $20.00 for the 4 of us.  The rooms are quite often noisy, but are so inexpensive that it is hard to complain.  We often have to get two rooms, because they don’t really come with 3 beds, but even then, we rarely pay more than $20.00 total for the  two rooms.  Many times there is a game room, my kids are now addicted to pool, and sometimes you can even get internet included.            

The city on the Colombian side of the border crossing is Ipiales.  There is no bypass road in this city, you have to drive through it, and driving through it means getting lost, at least for a while.    Apparently, as we were trying to find our way towards the border, we went through a red light, or so the policeman that stopped us told us.  Really, we didn’t even see a light.  He wasn’t sure what to do with us.  He asked us if  we had seen the light, we said no.  He told us that we should get a ticket for going through the red light, we said yes.  Then he lead Kevin back to the red light on foot, showed him where he had erred and sent him on his way, telling him the border was three km away…directo!  I love Colombia!  We met some other travellers on the road a few days back and they told us of their encounter with the Colombian police.  It is mandatory to have insurance to drive in Colombia.  We knew about this and purchased insurance in Cartagena, but these folks did not.  When they were stopped by the police at a random highway stop and asked if they had insurance, they had to admit that they did not.  They should have gotten their van impounded on the spot and received a ticket, but the cops thought this would be kind of mean…honestly, that is what they said, so they allowed these folks to drive to the nearest city where they could purchase insurance, without ever fining them.  Ever heard of a Canadian cop doing something like that? 

Eventually we got to the border, and started the well know process to allow us to leave.  Step one, get the van stamped out, step two, get the dog checked out, step three, get ourselves checked out.  No problems with the van, but when we went to the agricultural place to get them to stamp Mungo out of the country, we were told that we would have to pay to get him out.  That is weird, I can see paying to get him in (in fact we did pay to get him in), but pay to LET him leave?  We probably would have paid without any much hesitation, if we could have paid right at the office, but the gal told us that we had to go back into the town that we got lost in and find a specific bank in the centre of this town and pay there.  Oh, and the bank was closed at the moment, because it was lunch time, so we would have to wait for it to open again, then pay, then bring the receipt back to her and she would give us an OK to leave Colombia paper.  Yeah…sure!  We decided to play dumb and try to get him into Ecuador, without officially  getting out of Colombia.  As it turns out, Ecuador couldn’t care less if you pay Colombia.  Mungo is safely in the country. 

The customs agent that processed our vehicle to get into Ecuador today, was a funny old guy.  His poorly marked office had a door and a window.  The window was always closed, and even though there was a sign on the window and the door that said you would be served AT the window, everyone kept going to the door first.  He pretty much refused to acknowledge anyone at the door though, and would stick his head out the window to talk to them.  Reminded me of Les Nessman from the old TV show, WKRP in Cincinnati, who didn’t have an office with walls, but had taped out imaginary walls on the floor, and you could only enter his imaginary office through the imaginary door!

Hey, also today, for the first time since Northern US, we saw a snow covered mountain.  Strange to think we had to get this close to the equator, to glimpse snow?  Go figure!

Tonight we are in a hotel with a nice pool.  It felt great to jump in the water after a long day of sitting in the van and standing in lines.  Tomorrow, we are bound for Otavalo, a town well known for it’s indigenous market.  We will likely spend a few nights at a hostel there.