Bienvenidos a Colombia

After losing the 13 colonies in a friendly game of cribbage with a Brit, I forced myself out of Quito and headed for the border with Colombia. Surprisingly, the border was very open. One could wander back and forth quite easily without being stopped by any kind of police or military people. In fact, you really had to go out of your way to get an exit stamp from Ecuador immigration and then an entry stamp into Colombia. Very easy to do though, no questions, no searches, just a printed entry stamp in the passport.

Spent the night in Ipiales, Colombia. Nothing too special about Ipiales, but there did seem to be many more upscale stores than anything I saw in most of Ecuador. For a border town, though, it really wasn´t too bad. The next morning I went to Las Lajas, a small town a few kilometers outside of Ipiales. There is really only one reason to visit and that is the Santuario de las Lajas (Sanctuary of Las Lajas). It is a pretty impressive Gothic cathedral built into a cliff wall on a bridge spanning a deep gorge. It was a pretty impressive sight. The front interior wall of the cathedral is actually the rock face of the cliff.

Supposedly an image of the Virgin appeared in the cliff in the 1700´s and in the early 1900´s the current structure was built. Pilgrims from all over Colombia, and the rest of South America, visit the site and many miracles are attributed to it. On the path that leads to the site, there are many ¨Thanksgivings¨in the wall, which are basically little plaques thanking the Virgen de las Lajas for various things ranging from success in sports to curing various ailments.

After getting back to Ipiales, I took a horribly long and horribly noisy 12 hour bus ride to Cali. very painful, but I met a guy from England who was working as an English teacher in Cali. He gave me some tips on how to spend my time. We´ll see how it goes.

To see more pictures from my trip, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/jmellgren