Our first border crossing with the truck

We were up early for breakfast at 7am and departure by 7.30am.  The coffee served by the hotel this morning was nondescript and lukewarm - such a shame after all the amazing coffee we've drunk in Colombia!

Our hotel was just 4km from the border with Ecuador, so it didn’t take us long to get there.  Exiting Colombia was quick and painless.  We exchanged our remaining Colombian pesos for US dollars, the official currency of Ecuador 🇪🇨. 

Then, we were back on the truck for the short drive through no man's land to the Ecuadorian entry point.  The whole group were stamped in with no issues - we all got pretty pink stamps!  We then had to wait for Ritchie to get through with the truck.  Luckily, the sun came out and there were plenty of people selling fruit, drinks, and snacks.

It's a good job - because we ended up having to wait for 6 hours!!  We don't know why, but the one official on duty kept pushing our paperwork to the bottom of the pile.  We eventually got stamped into Ecuador at 2pm!

It was no big deal really.  It’s just that our destination, Otavalo, is famous for its craft markets, and the biggest day of the week for these is Saturday.  Now, we were not going to arrive in daylight.

Anyway, we began our drive into Ecuador - country number 63 for us.  The scenery quickly became spectacular.  It was a lovely journey through the mountains.  After a couple of hours, we had a toilet and fuel stop, and many of the group took the opportunity to buy fresh fruit from one of the many sellers on the garage forecourt.  Everything appeared to cost $1!

We arrived at our hostel in Otavalo at dusk.  Hostel Curinan is located on the top of a hill overlooking the town.  It is a family-built and family-run business.  Like most of the inhabitants of Otavalo, the family are Incas and are proud of their indigenous heritage and their Quichua language.

The town sits at an altitude of 2,550 metres above sea level.  We all felt the effects of this to some extent.  It was certainly colder than we've been used to!

After being allocated rooms and dropping off our bags, most of us rushed up to the roof to catch the last of the sunset and the magnificent views.

Later, there was a scheduled power outage,  an everyday occurance in Ecuador.  Most of the group made their way into town to find something to eat.  We weren’t hungry, so we stayed in the courtyard chatting to Ritchie, Gill, Shanda, Johnno, and Nikki.  The power came back on at 9pm - we took that as the cue to turn it in.Read more