Colombia, We Are Officially Over Gurl.....Ecuador, here I come babe

Ricardo and I took a bus to an archeological town in the middle of Colombian country-side. The town goes by the enchanting name, Saint Augustine. Yeah, at first it seems like a town definitely haveing to do with Catholicism with the word Saint in the name. After 6 hours on a high elevation dirt road in a bus, we made it. St. Augustine, quaint and colonial, provided us a hostel at the top of the 2,000 person town. The hostel had a very Lost Boys, camping in the jungle sort of feel to it, even though we werent in the jungle. The owner reminded us of a mystical shawman living in the jungle. He liked to wear elaborate, colorful jewelry and talk about invisible spirits. St. Augustine had ancient, indigenous peoples, dating to 3300 B.C., that were extremly cannabalistic. What is left of the culture are these massive Stone heads, mounting the outside of burial tombs. The burial tombs were filed with riches, along with the dead. All of the human carvings has these long, vampire-like fangs, carved into the mouth. The fangs represent the cannabalistic side to these crazy bastards.
Ricardo and I hiked around the archeological park all day, snapping photos and getting some decent nature walking in, your welcome, Jon Muir, where ever you rest! We did laundry before we left for the park. When we returned from the park, the raining was pissing down all over our clothes. Darn, once agan we"d have to travel with a backpack full of mildewed clothes. We didnt have time to wait for the sun, we would just have to keep smelling like bums. The positivity would have to prosper. Our clothes would have the mildew syndorome, no question about it.
Nect, we were headed to Otovalo, a town known for its famous Saturday markets. We would travel about 24 hrs. to Otovalo from St. Augustine. Otovalo had the largest Market in all of South America every week. We left St. Augustine in an offroad jeep at 3 pm. That jeep took us flying through winding roads in Colombian backcountry to a town called Pipalito. We then took a bus from Pipalito at 530 to Popayan. We got to Pipayan at 1130. We then crashed at the bus station a but, waiting to catch a 1am bus to ipiales, a border town between colombia and ecuador. the security guard harassed us with his constanst maddogging. he looked quite bored. we were his only subjects to test his security guard skills on. i got on the bus and recieved the worst seat in the bus. ricardos was equally as bad, but a bit better since he was able to sit near to window. our seats were next to each other, but in the wee back of the bus, right nect to the bathrooms. ahh, icing on the cake! the seats were also made for the size of infants, so it was quite hard to not sit down and then upon wanting to stand up, one gets stuck. The motor hummed away, endlessly through the night. everytime someone would go to the bathroom, i"d get a whiff of whatever they had for lunch and maybe a door slam to the right knee. we didnt sleep all night. we arrived in ipiales at 9am. it reminded me of a more deserty version of tijiuana, with less people, yet far more apparent poverty. people were strewn across sidewalks. the pace was fast once you stepped out of a cab and the air gave me an uncomfortable feel. we then took a cab across the border, no search of any kind was included. we simly got a stamp on our passport and a bienvedidos once we got to ecuador. we then took another bus at the ecuadorian border to a town called tulcan. we then took a 3 hour bus ride to octalvo. we arrived with our eyes bloodshot, hair matted, mouth dry, and smelling like 3 bags of nacho cheese doritos. octovalo is 9000 feet high. we havent noticed the elevation much though. we scrored a sweet pad in the middle of town for 6 bucks. its got beds for once, hot water for once, and silence for once. oh yes, and we thought tosay was friday, but it was truly saturday. we planned on going to the market all day saturday, but we ddint know that at 3pm, we only had 3 more hours left until the market was closed.i gentleman informedus that it was in fact saturday, not friday, and we onlyhad 3 hours to catch the market. we viewed traditional ecuadorian men with the traditional long poneytail, with a black hat covering it up, and leathered sandals to cover the cauloused feet. ricardo and i scored some handwovenm giant andean designed, traditional cloth pants for 5 bucks. there were about 30 blocks everything from wool caps, and jewlry, to wooden sculptures and ecuadorian rugs

Colombia, We Are Officially Over Gurl.....Ecuador, here I come babe

San Augustine, United States