The night before Elena and I had looked into what our options for day trips out of Otavalo were. There were actually quite a few but in the end we decided that we wanted to go to Oyacachi and enjoy some hot springs.

We had a bit of hard time figuring out exactly how to get there but we finally figured it out. We would first have to take a bus from Otavalo to a town called Cayambe and from there hire a car to take us out to Oyacachi. We didn’t anticipate it to cost us as much as it did but we decided to go through with it anyways.

When we arrived in Cayambe we were a little confused as to what to do, but again we figured it out and jumped in this guys truck who would be taking us to Oyacachi. When we first got in the truck he told us there was an emergency at his house and we’d have to make a stop there before heading out, who were we to say “no?” It ended up being a flat tire or something of that nature, a real emergency if you will and we consequently ended up picking up the drivers two kids who would be coming along with us. It was going to be a two hour ride in the truck on some pretty rough roads so it really didn’t matter to us when we got there or who rode with us. On the way out of town there were a couple of lions in a cage on the side of the road which was pretty bizarre. It turned out that there was a circus in town and they were promoting it by having the lions for everyone to see. Clearly it was going to be a more exciting circus than the one I had been to in San Agustin.

The ride itself was incredibly scenic. We passed through a lot of onion farms and other farms as well as some waterfalls and canyons. I think I tried to take a nap but that wasn’t happening.

Maps, videos and pictures, oh my! Keep reading…

Elena, Devi and I spent a good portion of our day wandering around the market, making a few purchases and seeing what was available to buy. I ended up buying a few little things and tried on a couple of hats (I had been searching for one for sometime) but didn’t come away with one today.

The day doesn’t end there, keep going…

Pasto, I learned once we woke up and left the hotel, is nothing to write home about. Elena and I went out to get some food and have a quick look around before heading out for the border. In order to give us ample time and because we were somewhat unsure of what laid in front of us, we left fairly early in the day.

When I had been in Salento I had seen some pictures of a place near the border called Las Lajas and I was hoping to be able to stop there on my way to Ecuador. Because it looked as though we’d have enough time to make a detour, Elena and I decided that once we arrived in Ipiales, which is more or less the border between Colombia and Ecuador, we’d take a cab there and take some pictures.

From Pasto to Ipiales it was a two hour bus ride. The ride was nothing special but both Elena and I were excited to finally be heading to Ecuador. Once we arrived in Ipiales we jumped in a cab and headed off for Las Lajas, which is only 7km from the bus terminal. Driving through Ipiales was pretty creepy. It looked like a pretty run down place without much to offer. On the other hand, it was a functioning Colombian town that was unlike many of the others we’d seen since it’s economy was not focused on tourism. We didn’t make any stops although we contemplated stopping to eat some cuy or guniea pig since it’s a delicacy in Ipiales.

Elena and I both were a little nervous that we wouldn’t be able to find a cab to take us to the border once we were at Las Lajas so we asked our cab driver to wait for us. We were also uncomfortable with leaving our bags in the cab while we were visiting so we took out bags with us which turned out to make the little walk 100 times more difficult.

We met a Llama on the way. It was friendly with Elena not so much with me.

Llama likes Elena...

Llama does not like Aaron...

The day’s not over yet, keep reading…

As you may have just heard in the video, I started the 27th pretty early in the morning. The plan for the morning was to meet Elena in San Agustin and from there head on to Pasto. Elena’s bus arrived around 8 or so and I was there waiting for her. Unfortunately for her she would have to backtrack about 45 minutes as the first leg of our trip would be from San Agustin to another small town called Pitalito, where she had just come from.

From Pitalito, Elena and I boarded another bus that would take us South to Macao. This portion of the trip would take us 3 hours and was rather uneventful. We did get stopped by the military once for a search but by this point in the trip I wasn’t too surprised. It had really only happened once before but seeing as we were now in the South of Colombia it was more or less expected.

Keep reading about one of my favorite days of the trip…

In the morning, once I awoke, I helped Devi by walking with her and taking her bag into town where she would be meeting Jason and heading off towards Ecuador. It was fairly early in the morning but I had been, more and more, getting accustomed to waking up early.

Once Devi was on her way I headed back to the hostel to have some breakfast and meet up with Daryn so we could try and figure out what we were going to do today. There was actually quite a bit to do in the surrounding area so we eventually decided to that we would head out to this spot called La Chaquira. It was drizzling/raining a bit so before heading out to La Chaquira, we decided to check out the market in town.

In turns out that Monday is market day in San Agustin and traders/sellers of all goods come from surrounding pueblos to peddle their wares.

After cruising around the market for a bit and waiting for the rain to let up we made our way back to the hostel to gather our things and get ready to head out to La Chaquira. Before we got to the hostel though we had one stop to make. I had noticed the previous day that there was a circus tent in town and I wanted to do some investigating. After tracking down the tent we learned that there indeed was a circus in town and that there would be two shows that evening. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty excited about going to the circus. You’ll have to wait to hear about that though.

So, we eventually made it back to the hostel and we were ready to head off to La Chaquira. La Chaquira wasn’t too far from our hostel but it would be a bit of a hike, especially since Daryn and I really had no idea where we were going. We also had no real expectations for what we’d see once we go to wherever it was we were going. An incredibly arrogant French guy at our hostel had said it was amazing though and seeing as we wanted something to do it seemed like a good match.

Chaquira and circus this way…

Happy Birthday Mom! A little belated but I was thinking it when I woke up on the 25th (of April).

Today would be my first full day in San Agustin and I was looking forward to taking it easy and seeing some archeological artifacts.

Before heading out from La Casa de Francois though Devi and I would eat breakfast and slowly get organized to start our day. We also started to discuss with Francois and consult our books in order to figure out how to get from San Agustin to the Colombia/Ecuador border. Devi’s Colombian visa would expire on Tuesday (I think that’s when it was) and we had made plans to meet up with Elena in San Agustin before heading off to Ecuador together. The more we learned the more we realized that it was going to be very very difficult to get to the border in one day from San Agustin. There were really two options, either we could go North again to Popayan, four hours in the wrong direction and then take a bus to the border or we could take a bus through the mountains via Macoa. Neither option really sounded that great as they would both be long trips and take two days to complete. Coupled with the fact that it was strongly advised to not approach or cross the border at night things were getting slightly complicated. I’ll get back to this in a bit.

So, once we’d eaten and discussed some of our next moves and options it was time to visit the Parque Arquelogico. The parque itself is not too far out of town so we hopped on a little bus and made our way there.

The park itself is laid out over quite a bit of land and has three places of interest. Each “place” however really just has more of the same, carved rock statues. The only not so cool thing about the whole setup is that the statues have all been positioned. Meaning that they are not in their original resting places. They were found and when it was decided to create a park for tourists the statues were moved around and positioned to make them more appealing to tourists. Additionally, there was very little information available about the statues and the people who made them.

Devi and I decided to be a bit rebellious and jump over many of the small wooden fence barriers so we could take some fun pictures with the statues. I’m pretty sure we weren’t the first ones to do that.

Keep reading…

(For the record, please disregard all mention of days/dates in my videos for the 24th, they are wrong, very wrong. Clearly I was not too concerned with keeping track of such minor details.)

Relatively early the next morning Chopo came back to pick Devi and I up and take us back into Villavieja. From there we would go back through Nieva and catch a bus to San Agustin.

Today would really just be a travel day without much excitement. Luckily this time around our bus was much more enjoyable and comfortable than that between Bogota and Nieva. I did experience my first military checkpoint/search on this bus ride so that was relatively exciting. I don’t remember how long that bus ride was but by the time we got to San Agustin it was getting late. I do however remember the guy that bought Devi and I yogurts for our truck ride from the terminal to the center of San Agustin. It was really random but really nice of him to do so.

Although I knew very little about San Agustin I was excited to get there. What I did know is that it was a small town that was surrounded by archeological sites. Since I hadn’t really seen any historic or archeological sites, except for Pueblita in Tayrona, I was looking forward to my time in San Augustin.

Once Devi and I arrived we checked into our hostel, La Casa de Francois, grabbed some of their home made bread and headed down the hill into town to have a look around and get some food. The town, at first, reminded me somewhat of Salento in that it was small and easy to navigate. That first night there it felt as though we had pretty much managed to walk through the whole place. Eventually we decided to get some dinner at a nice little family run place. Although I don’t actually remember what it was I ate, I know it was good.

San Agustin

Dinner is served.

Move along, plenty more to see…