Day 91 - Into Colombia from Quito to Pasto

It was one of those days that we were dreading somewhat, but both Ecuador and Colombia have upgraded their roads both sides of the border, and so the riding intially was "champagne" grade, with much divided road and great surfaces, plus a few corners to add spice, initially in sunshine. Two years before, JC had had a very tough time of it here, as they were still building the highway. The weather started off as cool and clear, then became hot, then rained steadily after the border. We had it all.

We had lunch at a restaurant just before the border, where I chose Tapia, a kind of fish with rice and really enjoyed it, in fact I chose to miss dinner later on.

The border was very busy, with lots of locals, plus chains of refugees from various countries like Venenzuela, and a few motorcycle riders from other countries such as Canada and Germany as well.  We passed out of Ecuador very easily, and negotiated with some local touts to change money from US dollars to Colombian Pesos, of which there are approximately 3,700 to the dollar! Older men and women were walking around the border waving very large wads of notes and calling out "Cambio!"

Getting the bikes through was another matter and took some hours. In essence we were applying for a temporary importation license for each of the five moto's. This requires applying online, and we employed a local lady at the border, to input all of our details, both personal, license and registration information which she did for $5 each, from a laptop in the front of her little shop in "no mans land" at the border. 

It was slow due to the large amount of data required (in Spanish), including third party insurance called a SOAT which we had luckily purchased before, just for Colombia. One challenge we had is that the Registration paper for each bike looks completely different from each State in Australia, and we had a truck from Victoria, and bikes from ACT, NSW and Queensland! Officials kept asking what all the differences were, and whether the ACT was a State! (For the purposes of the explanation we kept it very simple and said yes). So we then received an email with a password, followed by a second email that used that password, and later after a long review of our data by the Customs Officer, a third email of Authorisation. 

So it was almost dark when we took off in the rain, and an hour later entered rather hectic traffic in the town of Patos as we head north. I was first to arrive this time as Ned was slower in the rain, then Willy helped me diagnose a fault on my bike (in the dark street using a copied piece of software from BMW) which was a false earthing of the petrol pump, and which so far has not caused me any riding issues - pray it does not. 

The hotel was nice and new, and tomorrow is another day as we head north to Bogota over a couple of days, via Popyan.

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