Unexpectedly bounced into Bogota

Well here we sit totally unexpectedly in Bogota a month before we were planning to get here and after the first major backtrack we have had to take.

After Mindo in the cloud forest we headed to the beautiful town of Otavalo which is in the bottom of a valley surrounded by stunning mountains which has a stupendous large market every Sunday which we had, through pure luck hit upon so we spent the day wandering and spending next to nothing.

 We were really impressed with the stained glass additions to the street lights.

 Otavalo square, immaculate as we have come to expect in Latin America.

We left Otavalo and caught the short 3 hour bus north to the boarder town of Tulcan where we planned to cross into southern Colombia.

The scenery as we climbed became the most English we have seen on the trip with hedges, black & white cows, and low rolling hills. Not enough to make us home sick though.

 Tulcan is a bit of a dump but it did provide the cheapest (and largest) room we have had in Ecuador as well as the weirdest meal we have had in Latin America. Wanting a small snack we opted for a slice of  pizza each, Mine - the tropicana came with glace cherries, sultanas, ham and caramelized pineapple, Liza's Hawaiian  just had the ham and caramelized pineapple. We didn't quite finish them!

The next morning we got a minibus to the boarder where we were confronted with the Ecuadorian immigration guard telling us with very limited English that there was 'trouble' in Colombia and although we could cross he advised us not to. When confronted with information like this one tends to think it wise to listen.

Milling around at the boarder we hit the internet and tried to find out more. Nothing in English seemed to give us any help and after fractured conversations and finally finding a Spanish language Korean student we worked out that there were farmers strikes all over Colombia but especially in the south which have blocked the roads and after working through our options discovered that we had no choice but to back track all the way to Quito and fly to Bogota. (curses and a flight we really did not want to buy!)

 Still it allowed us to take a couple of pictures I did not have the camera for the last time we were in Quito; me in this beautiful ceramic chair in the grounds of the Ecuador national museum and...

the store I have not told people I have been investing in for years just outside Quito's old town!

Since arriving in Bogota I have received travel alerts from the British gov. travel advice service telling us about these road closures, I'm not sure if better late than never applies here!

We are still not sure how much of the country is affected and if we are going to have to fly around Colombia or can go by bus.Hopefully the strike will resolve itself and luckily the planes are almost the same price as the bus so we are fine whatever we do.

In a years travel it is the only major blockage over which we have had no control we encountered (Our attempt to arrive in Myanmar overland was only due to us not doing the proper research.)

Now we are here in Bogota we plan to circle the country to return at the end of the month for our flight out on the 26th September.