July 18 - Quito to Ipiales, Colombia

It was 11 am and we were just leaving Quito city limits.... lets just say we are slow getting up and moving and besides, what's the rush!  We were back in the mountains behind large trucks and making slow progress, but I'm getting the feeling that will be a big part of this trip....

We drove by Imbabura Volcano, the picture does not properly show the size and impact the volcano has... absolutely  awesome.

We were about 2 or 3 km from the crest of the last mountain before we descended into Tulcan, Ecuador and crossed into Colombia.  There was a hissing sound coming from the engine, power was down and the turbo gauge was not moving.  It sounded like a hose had broken, but of curse I started thinking of the worse....Marnie pulled over and I was under the hood.  

When the guy's in Brasilia installed my turbo gauge they had to place a "T" in a small turbo nose...well the cheap plastic T they had installed failed and the hose was now disconnected. Ok, so I wasn't overly worried and could have fixed it myself but decided to finish the climb without the turbo and coast into Tulcan.  I went to the Hyundai dealership and of course they didn't carry spare "T's"...so they sent me down the road to a hose shop.  For those you live in Brasilia know that there are stores for everything.  The guy found me a brass "T" and installed it in 10 minutes.  In total it cost me US$20 and one hour of our day but we were back in business!  Disaster averted.

Border crossing are and will continue to be the most stressful part of the trip, perhaps other than being pulled over by jean wearing, gun totting guy's out of a truck in northern Peru.

We waited 30 minutes to get our passports stamped (leaving Ecuador)...5 minutes to clear customs (in Peru) then we drove into Colombia.  Again, immigration and customs for a total of 1.5 hours...but it all worked and we were officially in Colombia. 

It was now dark, so we pulled into Ipiales and found a hotel, paid way to much for a small room and certain I was ripped off in the exchange....oh yea...we also all had our worse meal.