http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from South America , Colombia , Ipiales en-us Fri, 24 May 2013 01:04:23 +0000 Fri, 24 May 2013 01:04:23 +0000 Monday 31212 We were keen to get our first glimpse of Cartagena and our first sight of South America from the boat this morning unfortunately all I can say is it looked almost exactly like Surfers Paradise in Australia with a thin strip of beach and huge towering highrise hotels. But still being excited to be in South America we scoffed down our breakfast with the rest of the crew and http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-765181.html My last few days on this side of the Atlantic involved a trip up to Colombia thanks to the Ecuadorian government who have tightened up visa requirements ridiculously and my own inability to find a flight before my visa ran out. While I have no issue with an impromtu roadtrip it is annoying having to travel 10 hours just for the sake of a stamp in my increasing full passport. Four stamps ever http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-719087.html Killing the innocent with indifferenceAmensty 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 man39s innocence. Carlos Deluna was accused for the murder of http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-717865.html ltstrong stylemsobidifontweight normalgtDay 212 Thursday 10th MayWe 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 http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-717233.html Adobe has very long been recognized as a star in the electronic picture editing entire world and the Adobe Photoshop Album Starter was excellent for editing sharing and arranging picture files for windows users. While a Mac version was planned it never materialized. This software program contained the essential tools which would allow an novice photographer to talk about their treasured recollect http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-709060.html From Manizales we headed to Popayn. 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. Popayn was a town in the mountains with about 250000 people and offered climbs of nearby volcanoes and many oth http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-634416.html 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 tri http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-590085.html 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. http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-509642.html 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 unle http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-508764.html Just over the Colombian side of the border with Ecuador is the small city of Ipiales. It is a frequent stopover for backpackers traveling between the two countries. Few are aware of the tiny village of Lajas just 20 minutes away. Here you can find the Las Lajas Sanctuary a gothic cathedral built into the side of a mountain gorge with a bridge extending to the other side. It is not to be missed. http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-488806.html Despite the title of this entry I set off from Quito this morning on a 720am 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 http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-471566.html 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 allow http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-466550.html 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 ware http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-457910.html Day 735 03.04.09Having 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.P http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-388299.html I have just crossed the boarder from Tucan Ecuador to Ipialas Colombia and it was surprisingly easy. We had absolutely no problems for the first time everything went incredibly smoothly.The night before entering Colombia I sat at the bar in the Secret Garden Hostel Quito Ecuador nervously discussing the safest approach into Colombia. We talked to other travellers heading south and got http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-347935.html The crossing from Otavalo Ecuador to Ipiales Colombia went very well 20 min taxi journey to Ibarra Ecuador 3 hour bus ride from Ibarra to Tulcan Ecuador then a 5 min taxi ride to the Ecuadorian border. No queues whatsoever so we were stamped out of the country within 5 mins. A short walk then over the bridge where the Colombian flag and sign welcomed us. Again no queues so we were stamp http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-269678.html will add blog soon http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-199082.html For more photos including some of actual people check out Katies flickr site KatiesPhotos Colombia has always been something of an enigma to me. Growing up I believed as Im sure most you did too that it was an inherently dangerous place like it was usually portrayed within the media or by popular culture. In researching the country before I came I even found one red neck American webs http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-146082.html To get our Ecuadorian Visas that will allow us to stay in Ecuador for more than six months you have to leave the country and file the paperwork in a consulate located in another country. They prefer that we do this paperwork in the states before we come to Ecuador The closest US consulate was in San Francisco. The closest consulate to Quito is in Ipiales in Southern Colombia. We had heard http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-145883.html First thing was a 'collectivo' shared minibus taxi to the border. Then getting an exit stamp from Colombia before walking through noman's land to the Ecuador side. Here you pay 200 if you forgot to get your exit stamp but we were obviously fine so went off and found another collectivo for the few miles to the first Ecuadorian town. When we pulled up in front of the almost deserted bus stat http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Ipiales/blog-93063.html