While planning this part of the journey we heard over and over again how crossing the border from Ecuador to Colombia is dangerous and to only do it in the day time. I must admit I was expecting something a little more intense, but the crossing itself was really easy, friendly and quick; get a bus to the Ecuador side, walk across a bridge into Colombia, get a stamp and you’re away. Still, I wouldn’t do it at night.

That night we stayed in the Colombian border town of Ipiales. It’s a bit of a nothing place but the nearest nice town – Popoyan – is about an 8 hour bus ride from the border and you do not want to be doing that drive at night. I think the general rule in Colombia is to not do night buses. So we stayed in Ipiales in a pretty rough but clean hotel, and had dinner at about 5pm so we could be back in our room before nightfall (yep, it was that kind of place).

Early the next morning we headed to the Las Lajas, which is a stunning church in a valley about 15 minutes out of town. The story goes that a woman and her young daughter were walking through the valley towards Ipiales and the little girl told her mum she heard a saint calling to her. The woman went back and told the priest and the church was built. It has been through many iterations, and it’s current form is really really beautiful. Underneath there is also a really cool museum. Also, on the walk back up the hill we saw a top three strangest thing  – a full cow hoof turned into a drink bottle.

After that we got on the bus and ventured the 8 hours to Popoyan. This journey was probably where we saw the biggest difference between Colombia and Ecuador. At the beginning and end of every tiny town along the way, there were military guys and police with the biggest guns I’ve ever seen, lining the streets. Quite surreal.

We finally arrived in Popoyan and walked down the main street to find some accommodation. We spent the next full day walking around the quite cute little town with its stone streets and white buildings, eating and chilling. The next day we went to book our bus to Salento – the coffee district – but the woman behind the counter just said ‘no’. Our limited Spanish meant we were very confused. Everyone just said no. We managed to find a girl who motioned out a strike of her hand. Uh oh. Turns out there were roadblocks all over the country as farmers were striking for pay rises. And in this part of the world it seems the way to strike is to get as many people as possible to sit on a road, putting a country that relies heavily on bus transport in to disarray. We asked when it might be better and they just laughed at us.
So back we went to our hotel and checked in again.
This happened the next day too. Popoyan was nice, but not for that long – Salento would have to wait – we changed plans and flew to Medellin.

At the airport there were swarms of army and police officers, again just walking around with shotguns swinging at their hips.
We didn’t feel unsafe but we were glad to get out.