15th June 2018 - Ecuador to Colombia

Today we set off early to cross the border from Ecuador into Colombia, Quito to Cali. The flights and direct buses were so expensive so we decided to get buses to border towns, taxis to the border and then walk across the border. I was initially concerned about safety but people I spoke to previously had no issues and I didn’t feel threatened or uncomfortable in any way.

We started by getting a 6 hour bus from Quito to Tulcan from Carcelon Bus Terminal. As soon as we got to Tulcan there were taxis that took us to the border for $3.50. At the border we noticed a massive queue which seemed to be venezuelans trying to cross so we spoke to the police man that was stood at the door of the border control (the queue went on around the outside of the building) and he told us to stand in a different, shorter queue. It still took some time to get through but not too long. We then walked to the colombian side and again stood in a different queue (this side was quicker). The whole border process probably took 2 hours. We then got a small mini bus to the colombian border town Ipiales for $1, got cash from BBVA (Seems to be free to withdraw) and headed to the bus terminal to find that there was a bus leaving at 15:00 to head to Cali (arived at 02:00).