20 - Border Crossing, Ipiales, Cali

I woke up early on Tuesday, December 21 and took a 6 hour bus ride from Quito to Tulcan, Ecuador. At the immigration office I met another gringa from the states who was also on her way to Colombia. Together we walked across a bridge crossing the border from Ecuador into Ipiales, Colombia. There we had to wait in line for over an hour to get our passports stamped for Colombia.


My bible, Lonely Planet, told me about a really cool church in Ipiales that was built over a canyon. I shared a cab with my new friend Sally, and together we visited this incredible Church. It was really an amazing site to see.



Next we had our cab drive us to terminal terrestre and together we took an overnight bus to Cali. Before getting on the bus we walked through a group of young boys who were on their way home after winning a big futbol tournament. They were really excited to meet us and kept asking if we had ever met any celebrities and how to say different things in English. It was a lot of fun talking with them for a bit. They were so funny.
The 10 hour bus ride to Cali was fairly uneventful until about 4 in the morning when our bus was stopped by the police for a drug search. All the men had to get off the bus and get patted down. The police went on to search every single bag and all over the bus for drugs. They didn't find anything, so after the 45 minute delay we were back on our way. We arrived in Cali around 5:00 AM this morning. It was still dark, so we stayed in the bus station and had a snack and tea while we waited for the sun to come up. At the bus station we met Alistair from London. Sally had to continue on her way up north, but Ali and I spent the day together exploring. In other words, I drove up to Cali with Sally and then spent the day with Ali.

Ali and I walked all around the city checking out the sites. There's a river that cuts right through Cali and all along the river there were tons of Christmas decorations. The entire area alongside the river was filled with these dancing people, musical notes hanging from trees, fake waves going across the river... the list goes on. There were so many decorations, and by day it seemed a bit excessive.


However, at night when they were all lit up, it was really beautiful, and one of the most impressive city productions I have ever seen.



This lit up boat was on cables and moved back and forth across the river. Beautiful.

Here's a picture of one of the churches lit up at night.

Ali and I also walked to the Cali Zoo, which is the largest zoo in Colombia. It was a lot of fun to see all the animals, and we had a great time taking fun pictures.






This is a picture of me and Ali in front of the Aquarium part of the zoo.

The next day another backpacker who was also staying in my hostel invited me to join him and his friends to go hiking up one of the small mountains that surrounded Cali.


The hike was a lot more intense than I expected and the blazing sun didn't make it any easier.


We discovered an awesome cave and went exploring. We kept going deeper and deeper into the cave until it was so dark I had to use the flash on my camera to see where to go. We were excited to see where the cave would lead us (I was hoping for buried treasure), but unfortunately the end was nothing exciting. The cave just stopped. I guess whoever dug it out got bored.



At the top of the mountain were three giant crosses (like 60 ft) and an incredible view of the city of Cali.
The hike was tough, but well worth the effort. I was exhausted, which was a good thing because that night I took an overnight bus to Bogotá and I was able to sleep the entire way. The guy next to me had to shake me awake when we arrived.