(Also see the backlog from Cartagena, Salento & the coffee region, Cali, and Popayán.)
It was time to move on from Colombia, and after 12 hours of buses and a night in the cold, depressing border town of Ipiales we entered Ecuador yesterday with a minimum of hassle – particularly compared with our last overland crossing into Panama.
In the past week we’ve had a run of perfect days followed by hellish, “I’m sick of this shit” days. Generally it’s long bus trips surrounded by noisy Colombian people with crap action movies shown at top volume combined with suicidal drivers (honestly the worst I’ve ever seen) that put us in those moods. Then to arrive in a ho-hum sort of place does little to lift it.
I wonder if this is a window into the bi-polar experience; to experience great days at the hot springs (complete with the fastest, roughest water slide around, extending 52m down the hill) meeting great people, drinking great coffee and eating great steak.
The next day arguing with indifferent, moronic ticket sellers at the bus terminal, coming down with a nasty cold, motion sickness passing the Andes at > 3000m, being too spaced out to enjoy the view, haggling with 3 taxi drivers in a day, arriving at what is supposed to be the city’s best hotel ($30) to find that the sauna, Turkish bath (what is that, anyway?) and WiFi are all broken. I’m the first to admit I have a short tether, but it really adds up to an anger management exercise.
Then to find some serenity away from the cities, not devastated by human traffic and human filth, does wonders, as it has done up here in the hills surrounding Otovalo, Ecuador at 2900m. Aside: I never imagined feeling so cold just 19 minutes north of the equator.
To understand “human filth”, imagine traveling through the incredible Andean landscape, with bottles, bricks, paper, plastic, cardboard strewn in every direction, sitting behind locals (both indigenous and those of European descent) watching each one take their turn to open the bus window – or car door, or the front door of their house – and throw trash onto the street. Signs everywhere imploring citizens to keep the place clean seem destined to forever go unheeded. To me it’s civilization, or lack thereof, at its very worst.
Places that are neat, tidy, and where most of the facilities are functional are almost invariably operated by foreigners. Throughout the trip we’ve had to accept that supporting local operators invariably means tolerating woeful inefficiency and stuff generally not working as expected / advertised. Is this a cause or a symptom of poor countries struggling to keep an upward trajectory to their development?
Travel fatigue is definitely present. We’ve perhaps also made the mistake of looking forward to the next phase – Europe – a little too early. Talk of epic bike rides and French gastronomic adventures make it difficult to stay focused on extracting maximum value from the remainder of this continent. It’s easy to imagine Europe as being much less effort to traverse, although we need to remember that here we’ve had the luxury of passable Spanish ability. Local language skills are going to be decidedly absent for most of the rest of the trip.
