Ipiales

The border crossing to Colombia was uneventful. This was the last trip in the truck for a while and Tamar and Noel handed the keys over to an ex Dragoman driver who was arranging the transport through Colombia. On the way to the border town of Ipiales we stopped at a church which is built at the bottom of a valley, the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Las Lajas. There is a stone in the wall of the valley which is apparently able to perform miracles, and the church is built around it. There is also a small museum which we didn't go in but apparently has a dead 5-legged cow inside. I'm not sure what that has to do with either the church, God or miracles, but maybe its the next evolutionary step for cattle. It would certainly make the Sunday roast go further.

If there is one thing you must learn about Ipiales it is that it is a dump. We went out to a restaurant for a group meal and to our dismay it was as expensive as Chile. A steak dinner with 2 beers was over £10 - and this was a cheap & nasty local restaurant. Our £15 a day budget wasn't going to go very far in Colombia.

On the way back to the hotel we noticed a lot of armed forces around our hotel. We were thinking Colombia is taking this crackdown on crime seriously and when we got into our hotel it was full of men in uniforms with huge AK47s. Some people were visibly very scared by this, as the men were banging on doors and demanding loudly in Spanish to see passports. We had been warned that the national guard sometimes take tourist's passports and demand money to return them, so we were hesitant to hand them over. Tamar explained that kidnapping from Equador into Colombia is common, so they wanted to see our passport stamps to prove lawful entry. Once we started to show the passports they got disinterested and left, but, for a while, we thought we were in some big trouble.