Its Friday and we aimed to leave Quito by 7am in order to miss the traffic. No such Luck! It took us an hour to get to the outskirts of the city and the entire days ride thereafter was twisty mountain roads.
We only had 380km to do to get to Pasto in Colombia where we are spending the night but the road conditions, border crossing and rest stops made this a 9 hour journey. We also crossed the Equator just north of Quito. This was a milestone because the last time I did this on a bike was back in 2010 in northern Kenya.
![CIMG0706_thumb[1]](http://www.capetocairo2010.co.za/wp-content/uploads/CIMG0706_thumb1.jpg "CIMG0706_thumb[1]")
Ecuador 2013 on the left, Kenya 2010 on the right.
S 00’00.000’!!!
The border crossing into Colombia was a frenetic tangle of traffic and people. That said, the process of getting out of Ecuador and into Colombia was smooth and without any hitches. The Colombian immigration and customs officials are super friendly and think this stems from the fact that the Colombians are trying to boost tourism because its been affected for such a long time because of the Farc.
Frenetic border crossing..
The Colombian countryside continues to be beautiful and mountainous. Countless waterfalls and jaw dropping vistas consistently reveal themselves around each bend. Pasto is a small town with an equally small historic centre. Cute but unremarkable relative to some of the other south American towns or cities. Colombians are however super friendly…the ones we have met thus far anyway.
