Chapter IX & X - Sashy equator and last bits

Quito (Ecu) - Otavalo - Quito - Ipiales (Col) - Bogota

So finally it is time. Time to return to South America and to write about the last part of our journey. We should have known that if we don't write about the trip while being on the trip, it will never be written. After over a year of pondering we took the time to tell you what happened in the last week of our trip. (One week!! Damn it we are lazy!) In this week we travelled about 1050 km and got to know two capital cities.

Our busdriver on the way to the equator told us the story of his life
 because we pretty much sat on his lap the whole trip. He was from
 Spain and had moved to Ecuador because of the unemployment in Spain.
 A cool guy who tried to get us party with him. We passed. 

This old man seemed to be doing some kind of strange rituals,
where he summoned spirits and people around him threw coins at him.

Although we had made the decision that we would not fly inside of South America, we realized that we didn't have enough time or energy to sit in a bus for days to travel from Lima to Quito. We were sure we would die in  a plane crash, but ended up flying anyway. The flight costed about the same amount as a bus would have, or even less.

The magical border of south and north (Mitad del Mundo)! Fun Fact, the actual
 border is not here. The construction workers just moved the border,
because the soil in the actual spot wasn't suitable for a big ass monument.

We arrived in Quito late and spent the night in a picturesque hostel that had a really homey feel. For some reason that we don't remember anymore we decided to change to another hostel the next day - great decision yay! because we met some very nice people. The new hostel keeper told Anneli he had even visited Finland couple of years ago (must have been a rich guy :D).

There were two things we wanted to do while in Ecuador: visit the equator and the Otavalo market. At the equator we wanted to do something memorable and asked two random guys to film us. We went to have a snack and incidentally the same guys came in to eat aswell. While eating we found out they were staying at the same hostel as we. Because of these guys and their friends we ended up staying in Quito longer than planned because we wanted to join them on a trip to a thermal spa.

OMG we are in the south and north hemisphere at the same time!!!

Wonderful breakfast just around the corner from our hostel.

Weird local figsandwiches. White bread with roasted figs.

Anneli bought a wooden warrior mask (as you should do when travelling)
that probably supported that artist a whole year. 

Otavalo is a little town about an hour away from Quito. Every Saturday there is a huge market, where local people sell their products. It's usually packed with tourists trying to find the best deals. We went there to check out the atmosphere and ended up buying some artwork. During our travels we had seen the works of the artist Nativo a couple of times, but at Otavalo he was everywhere and every salesperson said they were this person. Then we found a small tent that only sold Nativo art. The woman told us she was Nativos wife. We asked around and found out she was telling the truth, so we decided to buy his art from her. Sanni bought some paintings and Anneli a wooden mask. Our official "we were in South America, belive us" items. 

Four days before our flight back to Finland we decided it was time to continue the trip. Since wise travellers know everything, we knew that it'd be better to cross the Colombian border during day time than in the middle of the night. We hopped onto a bus and travelled the night from Quito to the border. There we hopped off, crossed a bridge in the morning sun and checked ourselves into the wild country of Colombia.

A friend of ours gave us something to disguise ourselves with, should the situation
get too heated or some kind of trouble occur. We thought the border between Ecuador
and Colombia would be the place. Thank you Tuomas, these really saved our lives.

Town of Ipiales just across the border on the Colombian side

Santuario de las Lajas, perhaps the most beautiful church we have ever seen.

After some touristing-around in Ipiales, the town at the border, we continued our journey: only 800 km to go until we reached our last destination, Bogota. It wasn't even our longest bus ride, but it still took half a day and a whole night.

Waiting for the taxi at around eight in the morning. We tried
to find somebody who would like to share a taxi with us.
Eventually a kind young man told us, that wasn't common
here and not wise to do, but ended up sharing his taxi with us.

We were wondering, what to do in a city where it isn't safe anywhere. We found out a bike shop close by our hostel did bike tours in Bogota and joined along. And what a relief it was when we mounted our bikes - they weren't broken but nice and sturdy. It was a great way to see the city; the market places, bull fighting arena, graveyards and coffee roastery.

Yummy yummy fruity fruits!

They told us Colombia is fairly safe for tourists, but the people living and
 having their own opinions are the ones in danger. The graffiti is
a tribute to a comic artist who was killed because of his views.

Delicious Colombian coffee (to be honest neither of us was a coffee
 addict back then so it didn't taste much different than Juhla Mokka).

A square near by the hostel was home to maybe one thousand pigeons and to this handsome man and his handsome llama (at least during the days). Riding the llama costed a peso or two and was sooo worth it!

Since we had a lot of time to spend in the city, we went to see some local art. We found some magnificent works by Fernando Botero, a world-famous Colombian artist who specialises in portraying his objects, well, fat. We saw fat Mona Lisa, many fat families and a fat horse. Among other fat things. To make sure we were snobby and European enough, we also went shopping for real clothes (clothes that we can actually wear in Finland too). After 3 months of just looking at things and never getting to buy anything so we wouldn't have more stuff to carry, this was heaven.

Fat bananas

Fat cat

Some traditional local food. No idea what it is.

We will be posting once more, and let's hope it will be soon! We'll write about how it felt and feels to be back in Finland, what one might want to know before travelling to South America and what to take with you when travelling for a longer period of time.