HOWTO: Getting to Ecuador from Colombia

Anyone who knows me know that I am a planner. I don't mean in the sense that I have to know what I am doing every minute of the day, but when it comes to crossing our first border by bus... I wanted to know how to do it. We were about two hours from the border of Ecuador in Pasto, Colombia. We still haven't gotten a good grasp on Spanish, which makes traveling with multiple transfers nerve wracking for me. People coming up to you, shouting at you, and shoo-ing you to their bus, cab, or collectivo is a little terrifying when you have no idea what they are saying or where you might end up if you get it wrong. I searched google, lonely planet, wiki travel, and various forums for a how-to guide when it came to crossing into Ecuador from Pasto, and was met with only dead ends. So I've decided to write my own. It won't be overly witty, but will hopefully help someone else who is as neurotic as I am. After our 20 hour bus ride from Bogota to Pasto, we spent a few nights at the Koala Inn to recoup. Once I had cobbled together a plan, we were ready to take on our first border crossing. The steps are as follows:

Get thee to a supermarket to get some snacks for the ride. My recommendations are oranges, graham crackers, animal crackers, and nuts. (My former coworkers know that my go-to snacks are always "fruit and nuts")

Take a taxi from Koala Inn (or wherever you are staying) to the Terminal de Transportes de Pasto (bus terminal): 3.500 COP

Enter the bus terminal from the main entrance. Take a right and there will be a few bus companies that will take you to Ipiales. We used Supertaxi: 12.000 COP. Note: If you take a left instead of a right once you're in the main entrance, you will go into a long hallway where people from various companies will hang out of their stalls and scream at you as you walk by. I have no idea if they are cheaper or legitimate, but I just tried to avoid it all together.

Take a white collectivo bus or a taxi to customs at Rumichaca. Be sure to tell the driver that you need immigration so they don't send you straight to Ecuador's customs without getting stamped out of Colombia first. We chose to take a taxi (6.000 COP) instead of the collectivo because it was jammed full of people and we had all of our gear with us.

Go inside to get stamped out of Colombia. Walk across the bridge to Ecuador's immigration office and get stamped in.This is the part where we walked past people exchanging currency, one of whom was holding a rubix cube. Daniel immediately asked the man for it, and began to solve it. A crowd of ten or so people gathered around while he worked his nerd magic. When he was able to solve it, the crowd cheered and shook his hand.

Take a collectivo or taxi to Tulcan (again, we chose a taxi; 7.000 COP)

From Tulcan, we got a bus into Otavalo ($6). You could also go to Quito if you were so inclined.

**All prices listed are for 2 people, in COP while in Colombia and in USD in Ecuador.

Colombian Flower Farm

Jordan and I visited a Colombian flower farm today. As most reading this post know, my parents are florists and they work with a wholesaler in Columbus, OH to purchase the flowers for their store. While we were in Zanesville, they emailed them and asked if it would be possible for us to tour a growing facility. We were put in touch with Ivonne who was our host for the day.

Ivonne arrived at 7:00AM and we drove about an hour to the outskirts of Bogota (traffic here is insane). There we met a number of people in charge of the 65 acre growing facility and they walked with Jordan, Ivonne, and I around the farm. The growing process is actually fairly complicated with a plant moving 3 times before finally being harvested. The flowers are then sent to the US, Russia, Japan, or really anywhere in the world.

In the first step of the process, rootless cuttings are taken from "mother plants" that are permanently planted. These are planted in special soil comprised of burnt rice coverings, in a very hot greenhouse. They remain there for a number of days until roots sprout and they are harvested. They're then moved to the final greenhouse where they will finish growing. Depending on the variety of plant they take 16-20 weeks until they bloom and are ready for harvest.

People then move through the rows, picking out the most fully developed flowers and actually pull the entire plant out of the ground. They pull out the necessary number for a bunch (typically 10 stems), measure the stems with a poll cut to the right length, and then cut off the stems below that point. The roots and stems are left in the isle between rows and are later removed. The freshly cut bunch of flowers are immediately placed in cellophane wraps and set aside.

The bunches are then collected and placed in buckets of water that are hoisted onto an elevated trolley system which runs throughout the facility. This is actually a new part of the process; they previously used carts, but the roads are bumpy and the new system is much more efficient and gentle on the flowers.

After the flowers are collected, they're brought to a post processing building where they are checked for pests, grouped by variety, and tagged for orders. The bunches of flowers are then boxed and refrigerated until a truck comes to bring them to the airport.

We finished up the tour of the facility and Ivonne took us to the north side of Bogota for lunch and to see the area. The north side of town is much more modern and nicer than the area that we're staying. There were many upscale shops and places to eat. We were treated to a lunch of Sausage (Chorizo, Morcilla, Longaniza) with Potatoes and Fried Banana with Cheese and tomato topping as appetizers. Both were fantastic, although the Mocilla (blood sausage) wasn't my favorite. For the main entree I had steak with fries (papas fritas) and Jordan had fish (type unknown) with coconut rice and fresh vegetables. Everything was fantastic.

We topped off the day with some ice cream and a ride on a Collectivo back to our hostel. Collectivos are like mini busses. They have their destination in the front window (in pretty small font) and you just wave them down to get on. They then proceed through the streets at a terrifying pace towards their destination. At any point you can hit a button to get off anywhere on the route, they try to pull over to the side, but you may get dropped directly into the middle of the street. We made it though without issue.

Thanks to all the Multiflora staff and special thanks to Ivonne for taking time out of your busy schedules to show us around and give us a taste of the local food. We had a fantastic time. Thanks also to Jason of Doran - Engel who lined up the tour, it was a great experience.

Check out the spectacular photos from the flower farm.

Firsts from Colombia

This is just a quick post for some of the cool stuff we've seen so far in Colombia. Both Jordan and I didn't sleep so well last night and I'm feel a bit ill with sinus congestion. We're going to take it easy today, we've got a visit to the rose farm scheduled for tomorrow.

Be sure to check out all of our photos from today by clicking the link for flickr set at the bottom of the post.

Today we went to "El Museo del Oro" which is the Gold Museum and one of the popular sites here in Bogota. We saw some amazing golden artifacts. There were also a bunch of school children in different groups touring the museum, they were rather amused at my presence. We had a number of them stare and a couple even came over to say "hi" which was the extent of the english that they spoke.

We also enjoyed some Empenada Pollo and Almojobana de Queso (cheese filled sweet bun) for lunch.

At the beginning of the flickr set you'll see our room (which is pretty nice for $30/night) and our view of the Bogota skyline at night.

Click here to see all of our photos from Colombia