July 12, 2018 – July 17, 2018

We had been a bit anxious about crossing the border from Colombia into Ecuador.  We had read that there could be line ups of thousands of Venezuelan refugees at the border, having walked, hitch hiked, and stowed away on vehicles across Colombia, hoping to land somewhere where they could restart their lives.  We had read accounts of it taking 8 or 10 hours to get across the border….a small inconvenience for us in light of what the Venezuelans are facing, but a daunting prospect, none the less.

All through Colombia, particularly along the Pan-American Highway, we had seen what we thought must be (and later were confirmed to be) Venezuelan refugees walking, a small knapsack on their back or with a little suitcase on wheels being dragged behind them.  We had given money to a few such people along the roadways.  It was heartbreaking to think about the number of people who had chosen to leave everything they knew behind; parents, spouses, children, relatives, homes, gardens, hometowns and villages, favourite places to sit…leaving everything familiar and heading into the unknown.

We planned on getting to the border early, and arrived there about 6:30 in the morning.  Already there were about 500 Venezuelans lined up to exit Colombia.  We, however, along with other tourists and native Colombians and Ecuadorians were put into separate lines.  We were stamped out of Colombia in about an hour.

We drove on across a bridge and into Ecuador, where there was an even longer line of refugees.  Families with young children sat on bags of belongings, wrapped in blankets while young men travelling solo slept wrapped around their small knapsack.   Some young men, one in a wheelchair, offered to watch our vehicle for us for a small donation…we were not worried about security at the border but gave them some money anyway.  Others stood in line…how long had they been waiting to get into Ecuador, I have no idea.  The mood, however, was surprisingly optimistic.  People smiled and said “Buenos Dias”, couples held hands, children played,…perhaps they saw this border as a new beginning or maybe they were pleased that they had made it so far.

And amid it all, we finished our paper work on the Ecuador side of the border in about 1.5 hours, and started our drive to Quito.

The landscape was spectacular.  Huge mountains, mostly bare of vegetation save for a few cactus, cut by deep river gorges.  Square patches of agriculture clung to the sides of mountains at various elevations….these farmers must be in incredible shape given the amount of climbing that would be required to plant, tend and harvest the crops in their steeply terraced fields.

All was going well and we were making good time, until we entered the town of Ibarra.  There, a three tonne truck moved into our lane and with its back end crunched our passenger side mirror.

We had read that in Ecuador if you are in an accident that you are not to move the vehicle, you should turn off the engine, even if you are in the middle of a four lane highway, and wait for the police.  Trouble is, the offender kept driving.  We were not sure if he knew that he had hit us or not, but we followed and Derek kept honking the horn.

Eventually he stopped, and when he did, 5 or 6 Venezuelans jumped out of the back of his truck.  Long story short, he told us he was an undercover narcotics officer (he never did show us his badge, or explain to us why he had refugees in his truck, but he did have a side arm strapped to his belt), and he then told us to follow him and before we knew it, he was back in his truck and had taken off, so we followed as best as we could with an almost useless passenger side mirror and no idea where we were going.  I would lean out of the window to look back and tell Derek if it was safe to change lanes, one time my expensive prescription sunglasses that I was wearing pushed up on top of my hat fell to the pavement and bounced across the lanes of traffic behind us.

We had thought that maybe we were heading to a glass shop so that we could get an estimate as to what the repairs would cost.  Instead the trucks pulled over on the edge of town, where the driver offered us an embarrassingly low amount of money to repair a side mirror that is electrically controlled and has defrost wires.  In the end, we knew we now had no recourse, so we took the bit of cash he offered, and made our way to Quito, a huge city with confusing roads and lots of traffic, with a passenger side mirror that gave Derek hardly any help with changing lanes.  Let’s just say, it was  a stressful drive, and we were very happy when we made it to our camping spot in the middle of the city.

We did visit the official equator before entering Quito.  We were finally in the southern hemisphere!

So, first order of business in Quito was to find a place to get the mirror repaired. It ended up taking about 8 or 10 hours of our time, between finding a place to do the repair, returning later to retrieve the mirror but not being able to find the same shop (everything looked so different and yet exactly the same),  and finally returning after the weekend to tramp up and down the street for kilometres until we once again located the shop.  Anyway, in the end, we got new mirror glass, Derek was able to repair the broken swivel and electrical adjustment feature and then after reassembling the unit, get whole thing operational and re-installed.

A bonus for us in Quito was that our friends Lindsey and Doug were staying in an AirBnB quite close to where we were camped, and so they met up with us one day and we took the cable car  up to Cruz Loma at 4,100 metres (13,500 feet) and then hiked up Rucu Pichincha, a local volcano. Derek, Piper and I climbed to 4,680 metres (15,400 feet), stopping just short of the peak which was at 4,696 metres (15,500 feet). It was a great day and helped to cleanse us of our earlier troubles.

 

 

 

Quito is a great city.  It has an old centre with colonial churches and narrow streets, but also a vibrant modern area with great restaurants and high end grocery stores.  We camped for 2 USD per night in the parking lot of a huge athletic park.  There was a large rubberized running track, soccer fields, volleyball courts, basketball courts, playgrounds for kids, a Saturday market….and 6 am Zumba classes with really loud music that took place about 50 metres from our truck and camper.  All in all though, it was a great spot to camp for our days in Quito, and it was interesting to see the literally thousands of people that would come each morning, afternoon and evening to enjoy the park.