We weren't in a rush to get to Ecuador since the bus rides weren't crazy long so we slept in a bit. We hit up a coffee shop before we got on the road. I was interested in trying a new pastry so Alyssa went with the waiter to look at the case. She said they had a mushroom quiche which I thought sounded great, so I ordered that. Of course, it was not mushroom quiche but some sort of flan cake with a fruit in it I had never seen before. At first I was wary, but after trying it I actually really liked it. Their coffee of the other hand was instant and tasted like crap. Alyssa had tried to order a small carafe of milk on the side since when you ask for a cafe con leche it is always 90% milk/10% coffee, but the guy brought out a full hot cup of milk which was almost more expensive than the coffee, hahaha. I also ordered an "Arepa" (which is a cornmeal pancake with a layer of cheese inside about the size of an English muffin) for the bus ride.
We took a cab down to the bus terminal. As we drove, the cab driver made sure we locked the doors since we were driving through a bad part of town and he didn't want anyone robbing us. There was some construction around the terminal, so he dropped us off a few blocks away and made us walk although he clearly could have driven us up there. I need to learn how to argue better in Spanish! We inquired about tickets to Iquitos, which was the town on the Colombian side of the border and there happened to be a bus leaving in 10 minutes for $6. Perfect. We boarded the bus and chose our seats. Of course Alyssa's seat was broken so we ended up sitting apart. A large man got on the bus and sat next to me in the broken seat which sucked because for the entire 3 hour bus ride he took up the right side of my seat which forced me to hunch over to the left.
We arrived in Iquitos and had to get our exit stamp from Colombia. They hardly asked us any questions and we were stamped in no time. We then decided it would make sense to convert our money to Ecuadorian currency. We were surprised to get US dollars back as apparently that's the currency that they use, although that does make things much easier for us. We walked about 30 steps to the Ecuador border to get our entrance stamp. We were worried that they would need documentation for a flight exiting Ecuador but luckily they didn't ask us for anything and there was no hassle. Once across the border, we weren't sure what to do. There were no big busses waiting like there usually are but instead tiny passenger vans. We inquired with one of the drivers and he said these were the vans that took you to the bus terminal. We paid the $0.75 for the van and crammed in with the other local passengers. Once at the terminal, the ticket saleswoman informed us that there was a bus leaving in two minutes for Quito, Ecuador and we should get on that one. We purchased tickets for $5 and quickly boarded the bus. It was completely packed and some kids were sitting in our seats and refused to move so we had to sit apart. Luckily, a guy got off the bus to transfer to a different bus so we were able to sit together. This bus had an entire sports team of Colombian teenagers on it and we soon realized that this was not going to be an enjoyable ride. They were extremely loud and annoying. The bus did play all three of The Expendables movies during the drive which shut the kids up for a little bit.
At one point, the bus stopped and the driver told me I had to get off because of our bags. I had no idea what he was talking about but I got off to talk to the drug enforcement officer outside. He asked for my passport and went over each stamp and visa in my passport, asking me about the countries I had been to. I always feel guilty when people look at my passport since it obviously shows that I have the means to travel a lot. He took a look at my bag but didn't ask me to open it. Instead he asked me whether or not I smoked. He asked this in English though which I couldn't understand because of his accent but I finally put two and two together. When I laughed and said no, he seemed amused and let me get back on the bus. The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful and we got into town at 8:40pm.
There are two bus terminals in town and we weren't sure which one we needed. The driver told us to get off at the North terminal so we just hoped that was right. We took a cab from the station to "Casa Canela" which had gotten good reviews from TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet. It was a very cute place and definitely in a good part of town. Luckily, they did have a room available- in fact, we were the only people staying in the entire place!
Since we hadn't had time to meet a meal all day, we walked down to a cute Italian place that the hostel owner recommended to us called "Cosa Nostra". This was the sort of place we had been looking for the night before. We split a pizza and salad and felt a little underdressed for the classy establishment. The pizza wasn't great but it was so big that it would provide us with dinner the following night too, so it was ok. It was cold in Quito, like it had been in Pasto, but now we were a little more acclimated to that. We took hot showers, made sure we had plenty of blankets and went to bed.
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