Trials of a Traveler Pt. 2

I arrived at the Tulcan border harbouring a mix of feelings... Relief and stress. Fatigue and exhilaration, all at the same time. The only thing on my mind was crossing the border, and finding a nice hostel in Colombia where I could have a drink and a cigarette with some new found friends... Alas it was not to be.

Despite my taxi driver watching me exchange all my dollars for peso´s when I got off the bus, I still had to bargain with him for the length of the journey about which currency to pay him in (he wanted dollars). When we pulled up to the border I felt an overwhelming sense of relief because I´d made it! I got out and walked confidently to a window stating I was ready to cross the border. Finally, this trips troubles were soon to be over... Psssssh.

After looking at my passport I was asked where my stamp into Ecuador was. I said it must be in the passport as I am, in fact, in Ecuador and have been for three weeks travelling. An English speaker was sent for and I was asked to stand to the side. Attempting to keep down the fear that had settled on my chest since the lost bag incident, I flipped through my passport in a nonchalant sort of way. I couldn´t see the Ecuador stamp either admittedly, but clearly it must be there. 

I feel this face represents what mine
 looked like pretty accurately 

When I was seen for a second time I was told that when coming in from Peru I got my stamp out but failed to get one in (I'm guessing this was due to no-one explaining this to me and the bus driving off without me at the border...see earlier border crossing blog for reference).

Pretty annoyed at this point thinking about how much money I was about to waste on a fine, I sighed and asked what the damage was. Before my nice helper lady could explain that it was going to be difficult, a stone faced bitch in the next window barks in Spanish, "Tell her she has to go back to Quito and get a stamp. It's not our problem".... SORRY??!! 

My thoughts of Quito being in no way positive, and the idea of going 10 hours back on myself to a place I´d already had a troublesome experience in, whilst not having budgeted in any way for was more than my fragile self could handle at that point. I was tired, confused, my brain had gone into panic mode so I couldn´t remember any of the shit Spanish I had stored in the back... So I started to cry. At the window. Uncontrollably. It was in no way pretty.

As locals started to edge around me whilst not making eye contact, and the people behind the window started to back away and congregate in a back room, the reality of the situation hit me and I felt an overwhelming sense of despair. What on earth was I thinking, coming to a foreign place with no concept of the language?! Who the hell did I think I was?! Now, I was going to be stuck at the Ecuadorian border and knowing myself I´ll probably leave my passport somewhere, pay for a taxi with all of my money, and then wander off without my bags. And THEN I´ll have to call my mum from a tiny shack somewhere covered with mud and bruises (because I´ll probably fall down somewhere, trip over a chicken or something) and ask her to bail me out. And THEN I´ll be forever in her debt when I go home and I´ll have to go and work in a call centre to pay her back and suddenly I´ll be 30 and I´ll have wasted my life working for NHS Smoking Helpline and will have picked up a 50 a day habit in the process!!!! 

Variations of these thoughts circulated around my brain in the twenty minutes it took border control to decide my fate and as my melodramatic mind pictured all the worst outcomes, I had become really quite hysterical. I was pulled out of my hysteria when my nice woman shouted "TRANQUIL" and I realised I was making a bit of a scene. She asked me when I was next planning to come to Ecuador to which I practically screamed "NEVER". She looked a bit shocked, though relieved, and said that this time I could go through with a strong warning. 

As I picked up my bags with shaking hands, and tried to subtly dry my face on my jumper, which I then realised had mud on it...which was now on my face... I got my stamp and crossed the border thinking  how lucky I'd been. Guess this whole going to another country with no language skills was an OK plan after all...not a good one maybe, but an OK one.

I walked over to Colombia where I was greeted with smiles, but I kept down just in case someone from Ecuador ran over saying they´d made a mistake and wanted me back (HA! As if.) and got a taxi to Ipiales immediately. Can´t say I loved the look of the border town, and I really wanted to spend that night somewhere safe after my traumatic journey so got a bus to Popayan which I´d heard was nice and near to Pasto which was my bus´s first stop.

However, Colombia is huge. What was ´near to´Pasto turned out to be another 8 hours so I arrived in Popayan at 2am in the pitch black with no hostel reserved, no taxi´s in sight, and thought ´fuck this I´ll stay on till Cali´, which was where I was heading tomorrow morning anyway. And so, my first ´safe night´in Colombia was spent on a night bus, which I was told should never be done in South America because of robbers and such. Due to this, I made sure I stayed awake the entire time with my iPod in my bra and my brain in alert mode. Good.

Trials of a Traveler. Pt 1

I had planned to stay a night in Quito on the way to the border to check it out, but after talking to a few people it transpired that Quito was generally considered to be big and dangerous. After my laptop robbery, I decided best to skip it. However, for any travelling around Quito, be warned - there are two main bus stations. One goes South, one that goes North, and getting a ride inbetween them isn't easy, if done in a taxi you´re looking at $9 minimum - no thanks. 

So, when I went to the Baños bus company I was sure to check that my bus would go to the centre... seems like a likely place for the North bus stop to be... Nope. I ended up getting off at the last stop which was a post office in the middle of a pitch black Quito-lost and alone in the land of robbings with no Spanish to save me.

Slightly concerned I eventually managed to work out where I'd gone wrong and tried to find out how to get to Otravalo, my next destination half way between Quito and the border. Quickly transpired that I was at least half an hour away and would need to get a taxi there, and there was me thinking I was being clever...

Luckily for me a woman in the post office was also going North so I waited for her and hopped in her taxi heading toward my destination. What could have been a $9 journey was now $2. Found a coach, stayed very alert for the 3 hour journey and eventually got into Otravalo around 10pm. Having not eaten in 8 hours I thought food may be a good way to go so after walking around for half an hour I found a legit Chinese which gave me two meals worth of chicken and special fried rice for $3.50. Back to the hotel for 20 minutes of men in black and I was out!

I was feeling confident in the morning having overcome incidents with minimal stress so after taking my bag downstairs I wandered around Otravalo, checked out the market and headed to catch a bus to Tulcan to get across the border nice and early. Slight hiccup occurred when swinging my bag onto my back I knocked over a glass door leant against a wall that smashed into a thousand pieces on my exit... Awkward.

Once on the bus I immediately needed the toilet, sadly for me there wasn't one on my bus. I considered for 20 minutes whether to ask the driver if we could stop..in bad Spanish...in front of everyone, but luckily we pulled into a petrol station. Perfect!

This has nothing to do with the story, its from Peru.
Purely here for comic relief

After smiling at the bus driver, I jumped off and ran to the restroom. When I came out and jumped onto my bus I was rather confused to find the interior had completely changed, as had the passengers.  I laughed, hopped off, and looked for my original bus. But no.. My bus was not there. It had not only left me stranded in the middle of nowhere, but had also taken both my bags with it. Que panic.... Now.

Thankfully this new bus was going to the border too so I paid a dollar, got on, and prayed we'd catch up with my belongings. I began to feel less and less hopeful of a happy outcome after enduring 3 well-meaning people telling me in Spanish that the only thing I could do was contact the police when I got to Tulcan because essentially, my possessions would never be seen again. Meerkat'ing every time we passed a coach, the woman next to me just shook her head silently, the universal sign for no hope. 

In the end I sat there and cried thinking how stupid I was to leave my bags-especially given my track record of bags on buses.

When we arrive to Tulcan however, I am greeted with my bus and both my bags-thank fucking Christ!!! There is smiling, laughing, joking (probably at the my expense) but I'm so relieved I just want to carry on before anything else happens! So after exchanging my dollars for pesos with a guy on the street (wouldn't recommend it, didn't get the best rate but was beyond caring by that point) I hopped in a taxi and headed to the Colombian border. What could possibly go wrong there...?!