26/05/2019 – Travel day Cali to Pasto, Colombia

Early doors today as we had a long bus journey ahead, and with only outdated blogs to structure our plans with we figured the earlier we got going the better! We grabbed our laundry (we didn’t realise the hostel had no tumble dryer so we now have clean but damp clothes in our bags for the next two days!) Had a quick coffee that our hostel host kindly made for us and into a taxi to the bus station. We found the company I had read about in said blogs ‘Bolivariano Expreso’ bought our travel tickets, and waited in the appropriate boarding lounge. We had an hour and a half to kill, but with wifi, a snack hunt and a few toilet trips to make so it was no problem at all. We boarded on to a huge coach with lots of leg room and seats that recline so far that we both fell asleep almost immediately for the first couple of hours of the journey. Along the way the coach got stopped by some police and a policewoman boarded, checked everyones bag and patted all the female passengers down. Not sure what that was about! Then it was back to back episodes of Narcos via the headphone splitter until we pulled up at a little café on the side of the road for some lunch. We had some rice and chicken and a quick toilet break before we were back on the road. We continued with Netflix until we were out of downloads then both fell asleep again to a podcast. I really think these two solid days of travelling are actually welcome days of not doing much, the 9.5 hour journey went in a flash! I woke up to the bus swinging round narrow mountain bends, a little sketchy but absolutely amazing views! We pulled into Pasto bus station and got a taxi to our hotel which was only a couple of minutes away. We are in a hotel called ‘Hotel Riviera Confort’ I think it is built exactly for what we are using it for, a little overnight rest before continuing your journey to or from the border. It is very basic, a double bed with a small en suite, but perfect for what we need. We have read that it is best to avoid night buses across the border as they are more likely to get hijacked so we have opted to have another early start tomorrow for a similar day of travel again. It is a Sunday night and I’m not sure if it is a bank holiday as it is in England but there is certainly not much in the way of food available nearby, so we have done as we always do in this situation and asked the guy at reception to order a takeaway pizza for us!