Blogs from Ipiales, Colombia, South America
May 21st 2012
"Killing the innocent with indifference" Amensty international is an global movement that promotes awarness of human rights, they provide real life examples and even provides a place to get involved if a person belives. This article outlined how a maybe innocent man was excuted. Columibia University is re opening this case to provethe man's innocence. Carlos Deluna was accused for the murder of a gas station attendent in 1989. he was given the penalty after it was reinstated in 1976. University of Coumbia researches are trying to prove that he is infact onnocent and did nit murder the gas station attendent.... read more
Coffee Plantation, Chocolate and to the Border
Published: May 17th 2012South America » Colombia » Ipiales
May 17th 2012
Day 212 Thursday 10th May We had an early breakfast and were at the hotel reception for the 9.00am Coffee Tour which was done by Tim the owner of the hostel and for the past 3 and half years the proud owner of a coffee farm. The farm was well on the decline when they brought it but is now slowly improving, with them implementing many new things e.g. worm farm for organic fertiliser, solar panels and water management making the farm more self-sufficient. The talk on the coffee production was very interesting and we learnt a lot and even thought of buying his neighbours farm for a split second a shame it is overpriced this is a beautiful part of the world. We learnt about some of the different types of coffee and ... read more
March 29th 2011
The trip from Bogota to Manizales was through some of the most consistently beautiful and spectacular country we have travelled anywhere in the world. Beautiful mountains, villages that made you want to pull up and stay a while – except that rural areas are subject to all sorts of (Australian and maybe other government) warnings around here. Green and lush for almost the entire length of the trip. It would have been nice to be able to pull up and take photos at many, many points. But we could only pull up for pick -ups and drop-offs. Not for photos. It was a long and, just a bit, gruelling bus trip but the scenery made up for it – most of the time. We walked into the bus station at Bogota with no settled view on ... read more
March 16th 2011
From Manizales we headed to Popayán. Here we happened on an excellent hostel called Hostel Trail. Sure, it had a fairly ordinary name for a hostel, and the Russian screamers in the room next to ours showed how thick the walls were, but the staff were great and it was in a good spot. Popayán was a town in the mountains with about 250,000 people, and offered climbs of nearby volcanoes and many other activities. We did none of these, being content to wander about the place and soak up the feel. It was a relaxed, friendly place, and we really only had a couple of nights there before we headed towards the border with Ecuador. All in all, it was a great town to just hang about and wander in. Popayán to Ipiales would prove ... read more
June 26th 2010
With reference to the amount of pilgrims that visit this site every year, Las Lajas is the second most important Virgin Mary sanctuary after Lourdes. And a spectacular one, as the little church is directly built into a small canyon.... read more
June 23rd 2010
The last city, Popayan, was to be the last Colombian city we visited. However, it was still quite a hike from the border with Ecuador. We tried to figure out a way to get down to Quito in one trip, but it was impossible. So, we ended up stopping for a night in Ipiales, the border town. I won't waste too much time writing about this city except to say that no one should bother staying here unless it is absolutely necessary. It is cold and blustery. It rains a lot... a cold, miserable drizzle. It´s rundown, grimy, dingy, unwelcoming. The guide book describes it as ¨uninspiring.¨ After spending about half an hour looking around town for a restaurant, we ended up at one of the only ones still open (and it was only around 7 ... read more
January 29th 2010
Despite the title of this entry, I set off from Quito this morning on a 7:20am bus bound for Tulcan, the closest city to Colombia any Ecuadorian bus will take you. Promptly at noon, we arrived at the Tulcanterminal from where I took an extremely expensive $3.50 cab to the frontera (My 5 hour bus ride cost $4.75). I asked around - both inside and outside of the terminal. There was no budging on the price. I didn’t feel too bad about paying that amount once I saw the traffic getting across the border. I’m not sure what the hold up was because at one point, my cabbie went renegade and drove along the shoulder to where he needed to drop me off - Ecuadorian immigration. Nothing much going here. I simply needed my exit stamp. ... read more
January 6th 2010
was a hilarious experience. It was basically two days of being dirty because as soon as you got out on the street, someone would come and paint your face (or sometimes by accident your clothes too...) with color, spray foam on you, or throw flour at you, especially if you looked kind of clean. The Carnaval was held over January 5 and 6 and represent the older days of Colombia when slaves were allowed to celebrate on January 5 and their masters painted their faces in black to show approval of the festivities. The following day, the 6th is the white day. However, as you can imagine, the colors were not respected and during the two days of celebrating, watching concerts and parades, I felt like a cameleont, going from black, to green, to orange, to ... read more
October 8th 2009
All very efficient - as soon as we arrived at Bogota airport we were picked up and taken to the freight terminal where the bike was waiting to be released from customs. It took a few hours to get the paper work sorted but at least we left the airport on the bike that day which means we have the next few days free to explore. The only slightly inefficient bit was that the only way out of the warehouse was down two sets of steps - not that easy on a bike!! Bogota is a very pleasant city - very modern and clean. I'm not sure what I expected but it wasn't this probably something more chaotic. There is clearly a lot of money here, there is a very smart BMW dealership where the bike ... read more
A bus and another bus and another bus...Getting to Quito
Published: May 1st 2009South America » Colombia » Ipiales
April 9th 2009
Day 735 (03.04.09) Having recharged our batteries it was time to make a move and face the bone thumping journey back to Popayan - not a prospect that brought joy to our morning. We could have carried on south from here but had been advised that both the condition of the road and amount of Guerrilla activity in the area made it better to retrace our steps to Popayan before heading south to Ecuador. Picking up the bus at a military police check point, it seemed that they had upped their activity from our previous journey down with everyone already travelling on the bus getting pulled off and searched before we could carry on. We were lucky enough to avoid the police pat down on this occasion. Another stop further on and we were not so ... read more
