We had planned on spending a short time in Colombia.\u00a0 People say that you can drive from Cartagena to Ecuador in a day or two as it is only about 700 miles.\u00a0 Our initial plan was to drive straight to Ecuador \u2013 but that was before we all fell in love with Colombia.\u00a0 The food was some of the best we have ever had.\u00a0 The people were without a doubt the nicest we had ever met traveling.\u00a0 The scenery was unbelievable (and we are from Alaska!). We left the coastal lands (the hot lands) and entered the highlands where most people live.\u00a0 The temperature was better for us.\u00a0 We stuck to the Pan American Highway and disconnected the camper when we wanted to drive to villages off the Highway.<\/p>\n Driving in Colombia Pulling a 29 ft Trailer<\/strong><\/p>\n When we first began researching this trip, we could find very little information on the roads in South America.\u00a0 The descriptions we did find were usually vague (fine or rough or slow).\u00a0 We figured (correctly so far) that if a truck could drive the Pan American, then so could we.<\/p>\n First, it was always our plan to stick to the Pan American Highway.\u00a0 All adventures off the<\/p>\n highway involve parking and either disconnecting the van and driving, walking or taking a bus \/ taxi.\u00a0 The first rule of driving a big rig is Don\u2019t Leave the Highway unless you know for sure you can get where you are going.\u00a0 We are lucky that our rig is short (many are not) so we fit under archways and such.\u00a0 The Pan American wends through several big cities in Colombia and driving gets tense but it is all part of the adventure.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here are some things to note about the Pan American in Colombia:<\/p>\n We divided our trip through Colombia into five sections:<\/p>\n Cartagena –\u00a0 Medellin<\/strong><\/p>\n The roads out of Cartagena are smooth and paved.\u00a0 We passed through one police check point, they looked at Mark\u2019s passport and asked us questions about Alaska.\u00a0 The inland country is very hot and humid.\u00a0 The first night, we actually felt like we couldn\u2019t breathe (but we are Alaskans).\u00a0 The road is two lanes and there are not a lot of cars \u2013 but there are many trucks and even more motorcycles.\u00a0 There are no passing lanes and few places to pull over.\u00a0 Once you start the climb into the mountains, things move pretty slow.\u00a0 Trucks average about 35mph and there is really no passing because there is just another truck uphead. \u00a0Better to just relax and enjoy the slow and beautiful drive.\u00a0 We could have made the trip to Medellin comfortably in three days but we weren\u2019t in a hurry.<\/p>\n Camping spots:<\/p>\n Medellin \u2013 Popayon<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the evening, we disconnected the van and drove into town and walked around.\u00a0 We\u00a0bought popsicles and some supplies (potatoes, avocados, oranges for juice) and were headed back to the van.\u00a0 Women were gathered around the van peering inside \u2013 it was Sylvia\u2019s car seat that they were looking at.\u00a0 The car seat led to a lengthy discussion which involved Sylvie buckling herself in as a demonstration.\u00a0 Car seats are completely unheard of in Colombia.\u00a0 We told them they were the law in the USA and there was much conversation about this.\u00a0 Our van is also quite the conversation starter, even without the Alaska plates.\u00a0 Kids always ask us why we have a bus as even minivans do not exist in Colombia.<\/p>\n In La Pintada, we met some wonderful and friendly people who brought us all to their restaurant and gave us all bottles of juice.\u00a0 The juice was Colombian and they were wanting to share things from Colombia with us.\u00a0 It is hard for us to understand Colombian Spanish as there is a strong accent so we talked haltingly for a long time and had a very nice evening.\u00a0 We left with a great CD (the folks we met were in a band) and promises to meet up when we left La Pintada so they could see the camper.\u00a0 We did this \u2013 which is no easy task but we had great luck and a truck was delivering produce when we pulled up and it promptly left so we had plenty of space to park. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We drove through Medellin which was beautiful.\u00a0 Medellin is mostly red brick and it is nestled high in the mountains with no sprawl so you sort of meander down a two lane highway from the mountains right into Medellin.\u00a0 Here are some things we learned about Medellin:\u00a0 it has one of the most efficient public transportation systems in the world which includes trams up the steep mountainsides and it has art everywhere and is very beautiful.\u00a0 Medellin has a law that says that all public buildings must have art so there are statues and gardens and fountains and mosaics everywhere and many light up at night.\u00a0 Along the river which runs through the city is a park completely lit up the entire length at night with colorful decorative lights.\u00a0 All along the trip, people kept asking us if we were from Medellin and once we got there, we knew why.\u00a0 Most people in Medellin are much lighter skinned than coastal people and tourists are so rare everyone assumed we were from Medellin.<\/p>\n We headed into a small town on the advice of a Colombian \/ Irish gas station attendant and camped at a Esso station next to a hotel.\u00a0 It was quite the exciting moment when we arrived and we soon had a crowd of about 20 people outside hanging around.\u00a0 We were too far from the town to walk and we were pretty tired that night so we stayed around our neighborhood.\u00a0 Our neighborhood turned out to be filled with prostitutes and hotels you could rent by the hour, hotels called things like the Love Karma Sutra and Cupid Love Shack with gigantic nativities set up outside. \u00a0Apparently this is part of the truck driving industry.<\/p>\n We camped in Popayon in a parquedearo listed in Americas Overland<\/em> and disconnected the camper and drove into Popayon.\u00a0 The van and camper were secure but the parquedearo was filthy and smelled really bad.\u00a0 Oil and gas had been spilled or dumped all over it and it was pretty toxic smelling.\u00a0 The section of town was kind of rowdy and from the camper we could here plenty of fights and screaming and even a few gunshots.\u00a0 The security guards at the parquedearo were constantly walking the gate and the evening was not tranquillo.\u00a0 Once it got dark, there was some kind of massive trash fire that filled the entire valley with smoke that made your eyes sting.\u00a0 This lasted all night.\u00a0 We shut all the windows \u2013 luckily it was not very hot.<\/p>\n Popayon \u2013 Pasto<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We camped at a very nice Texaco station that was quiet and about a 5 minute walk to town.\u00a0 The Texaco had free showers and water and a stunning view across the valley.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pasto \u2013 Border of Ecuador<\/strong><\/p>\n Pasto was a very nice city.\u00a0 It reminded us of Vancouver, BC.<\/p>\n In a perfect example of the lack of signs, the Pan American drives right through the center of Pasto and then turns right.\u00a0 The upcoming right turn is marked but when you get to the point of turning right, there are actually two right turns; one heads west and one heads more southwest.\u00a0 We took the wrong one.\u00a0 The GPS completely failed us here.\u00a0 It had us floating about 10 feet off the road anyway.<\/p>\n There was no gasoline and lines were long at the stations that did have gas.\u00a0 Diesel was not a problem.\u00a0 The price of gas drops dramatically here, from over $8000 pesos a gallon (yes, a gallon) to $5600 a gallon.<\/p>\n We camped at a Bio station with a huge empty parquedearo and disconnected the camper and drove into the small towns.<\/p>\n Ipiales is the Colombian border town.\u00a0 Driving through it was confusing and the streets were narrow and crowded.\u00a0 The border was easy, we had our passports stamped and we were on our way to Ecuador.\u00a0 It is funny how a few feet can make such a great difference.\u00a0 The Ecuador side of the border was much dirtier, buildings covered with graffiti and litter all over the place.\u00a0 We had to wait about an hour to get our passports stamped.\u00a0 Someone had thrown up on the floor and it was covered up with pieces of paper.\u00a0 The good part was that it was a little meet up of fellow travelers so we had some fun conversations with a man on a motorcycle from Scotland and another couple on motorcycles from Australia.\u00a0 The Ecuadorian border town is Tulcan and it was more narrow than Ipiales.\u00a0 Lucky we got behind a bus and just followed it out of town.<\/p>\n Ecuador<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n We were sad at first with Ecuador.\u00a0 It was dirty and covered with graffiti and litter and the people were not so nice.\u00a0 On the other hand, we were not such a freak show and no one seemed to care.\u00a0 It was New Years day and there were drunk people <\/span>\u00a0men everywhere, sleeping on the sidewalk and lying in the grass and stumbling around.\u00a0 Everything was closed.\u00a0 We drove up and up and up and up to more than 10,000\u2019 and then down to 2,000\u2019 and then we did it once more.\u00a0 It was kind of stressful.\u00a0 The roads are much better but there are many more drivers and cars in Ecuador due to the fact that gas is $1 USD a gallon.\u00a0 Ecuador uses the USD and we learned where all the $2 bills and Susan B. Anthony coins are \u2013 Ecuador.\u00a0 We were headed to Otavalo and Americas Overland <\/em>said there were two conveniently located parqueaderos near the market but we never know what that means.\u00a0 We hired a taxi for $2 to lead us to one and we arrived at a huge parqueadero right next to the market with bathrooms and a nice level cement pad we got to park on.<\/p>\n Otavalo<\/strong><\/p>\n Otavalo has one of the biggest (or perhaps the biggest) market of indigenous crafts in South America.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Colombia We had planned on spending a short time in Colombia.\u00a0 People say that you can drive from Cartagena to Ecuador in a day or two as it is only about 700 miles.\u00a0 Our initial plan was to drive straight to Ecuador \u2013 but that was before we all fell in love with Colombia.\u00a0 The… Continue reading Beautiful Colombia<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[195,210],"tags":[348,208],"class_list":["post-1371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colombia","category-ecuador","tag-colombia","tag-louie","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1371"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/beautiful-colombia.jpg\" "\\"beautiful")
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We spent wonderful and relaxing days in the beautiful town of La Pinatada.We saw a parquedearo with a hotel and a pool and it turned out to be one listed in Americ<\/em>as Overland<\/em> but the name had changed to Mirador del Rocio.\u00a0 We were not really looking for a place to camp but this looked so wonderful that we had to stay.\u00a0 It was $20,000 pesos a night ($11\u00a0USD) and that included the pool, the bathrooms and showers and a nice lobby patio with hammocks and ping pong and a pool table.\u00a0 The hotel overlooks the coffee fincas.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n