36 hours

Okay, first of all, yeah, I´ll admit it, I spelled Colombia wrong. Thanks, anynomous, whoever you are. Show yourself! I´ve been writing on the fly recently and blogspot does not have spell check, so cut me and my grammatical mistakes a break.

Anyway, back to the important stuff. Migrating from Bogotá to Quito was quite an adventurous day and half.

Hour 1 - Cab picks us up at our hostal and on the ludicrous route to the bus terminal that includes an accident in which the people just left their mangled cars in the middle of the road, we listen to Mariah Carey´s entire catalog.

Hour 2 - On the bus, our driver chooses some Jackie Chan movie. The previews, in English, were a tease, because of course, the film was dubbed.

Hour 4 - Tori and I wake up from a nap to a man wearing army gear and carrying a machine gun climbing on our bus. He spits something in Spanish, then turns his head a little to catch part of the flick. Everyone is forced to get off the bus and women are pointed in one direction, men to the other. I got a little less scared when I was given a hand to decend the stairs of the bus. They search our bags. Taking advantage of the checkpoint, vendors have lined the side of the road. Drug free, we are permitted to buy some plantains, which are delicious.

Hour 5 - We stop for chicken at a roadside cafeteria. It is salty and again, very delicious.

Hour 6 - Bus stops. For two hours, we are stuck behind an accident on a curvy road. Everyone gets out of the bus and watches the sun set over the banana trees.

Hour 7 - The lights are turned off, forcing us to go to sleep at 6:30pm.

Hour 10ish - The air conditioning is unbearably freezing. Tori wakes up and asks me to throw a pot of boiling water on her face.

Hour 19 - After a terrible night of sleep, I wake up and look out the window for several hours. We are slowly climbing mountains, taking the most circuitous (did I spell that right?) routes and then quickly decending, passing trucks and other slower buses on 1-lane roads. The paths literally melt into the scenery behind us, which consists of rolling hills perfectly divided for crops; cows, goats and chickens; tiny one-horse towns; homemade basket shops; and restaurants with plastic chairs. It´s literally impossible to tell where we´ve come from and, with the front of the bus sectioned off, where we are going.

Hour 20 - Fast and Furious, you guessed it, dubbed in Spanish.

Hour 22 - MASH. Tori marries a sexy Brazilian and rides around in the side car of his motorcyle. I marry my favorite DJ, who has become a trashman. Although, we live in NYC and are taken around in a chauffuered town car.

Hour 26 - We arrive in Ipiales. We run to see a beautiful church built into a ravine overlooking a waterfall while our cab waits.

Hour 27 - Dropped off at the border. Stamps from Columbia. Bags checked. Walk across a bridge. At some point in the middle, we leave Columbia and enter Ecuador. Bags checked again, this time in a little concrete structure. The guard asks us where we´re going and why, where we´ve been, where we´re from. Do we have a map? What´s next? Why? Why? Why? Ecuador stamps. They guy behind the window tries to charge me $96. I think he was joking, but his face was a little too serious.

Hour 28 - Cab to second bus terminal. The driver asks us if we´re trying to go now. We say yes, and he immediately switches it into 3rd gear and starts chasing a bus. We pull over on the side of the road, pay the cabbie and these two guys come running up, grap our suitcases out of the trunk and book it. We follow, laughing hysterically onto a bus with open windows, headed to Quito (we hope).

Hour 29 - The bus plays the best traveling music, loudly. At every stop, people get on and off the bus to sell us stuff. We buy plantain chips (can´t get enough) and water. We are charged $4.50 each for the 4-and-a-half-hour bus ride.

Hour 35 - In a cab in Quito, ecstatic that we are so close. Then the driver tells us we still have another 30 minutes. He also tells us to be careful.
We sleep.
Now, in daylight, Quito is fantastic, a beautiful, bustling town where lunch costs $1.50 and churches are veritable playgrounds. Tonight, we are going to eat at the best ceviche restaurant in the country and then going to see a German electronica DJ in an old historic theatre. Photos and more stories to come...