Border Crossing: From Colombia to Ecuador

By Connected Horizons

After spending a while exploring Colombia, we decided to move on to the next country and hit Ecuador. Like many other people before us, our plan was to do cross over from Ipiales, a small town very close to the border, which host what has been described as “the most beautiful” church in Colombia (the Sanctuary Las Lajas) but this crossing was nothing like we’ve experienced before.


Getting to Ipiales

Usually, your journey to get to Ipiales would start from Popayan, a big city located a long 8h bus ride away. Unfortunately, given the current safety status of this part of Colombia, taking a night bus (and hence saving time + a night at a hostel) is a no-go, so the obvious other option is taking this journey by day.

At the Terminal de Transportes of Popayan, there are three companies running buses/busitos back and forth on a daily basis. Supertaxis and Taxi Belacazar both have busitos running from 5am to 5pm every hour but make sure to check in person cause timings often change slightly. Transipiales is the only company which actually run big buses but unfortunately the first bus leaves pretty late and in total runs just four times per day (11.30am, 1.30pm, 3.30pm, 5.30pm).

Independently of which one you choose, 50’000COP/pp and 8-9h of ride will be the common factor.

Visit to Sanctuary Las Lajas

Whether you arrive by day or by night in Ipiales, visiting the nearby gorgeous Sanctuary Las Lajas is definitely something not to be missed. With its beautiful architecture and edgy location, the church is surely a once-in-a-lifetime sight! If you can, try to pay a visit the day before you plan border crossing or just wake up early the next day: getting late at the border is to avoid at all cost!

From 6am till late afternoon there are colectivos leaving only when full from the bus terminal in Ipiales that drop you right in the front of the path to Las Lajas for 2’500COP/pp. Alternatively, if you don’t fancy waiting, you can just flag down a taxi on the road or get it at the terminal and for 8’000COP you should get yourself a private ride.

Considering the 15min ride to get there, the 30-45min of wandering at the site and the 15min ride to come back, expect this short trip to take you at least 1h. If you plan on visiting the same day of the border crossing make sure to be at the terminal no later than 7am.

Situation at the Border

The colombian border with Ecuador is referred as Rumichaca and getting there from Ipiales is just another short 15min ride by either colectivo (3’000COP/pp) or taxi (10’000COP).

Once at the border, exiting Colombia, walking over the bridge toward the border and entering Ecuador should not take you more than half an hour in total but recently things have changed a lot.

Due to the current Venezuelan crisis, for the past month and a half (UPDATED July 2018) the border is being flowed by thousands of people that on a daily basis try to either enter or exit either of the two countries. As a consequence, even though there are different cues for Venezuelans and foreigners, being able to enter Ecuador is something that could take you a whole day. Not even getting the visa at the Madagascar border was so time-consuming!

Just consider that to exit Colombia it took us only 15min but to enter Ecuador we had to wait the beauty of 4h45min. By being at the border at 10am, we were eventually ready to take a taxi to the border town of Tulcán (on the Ecuador side) at 3pm: a total of 5hrs of cueing!!!

On one side though, you gotta feel lucky; while cueing we had the chance to meet plenty of Venezuelans that were telling us about how bad their country was and how they had been cueing for the past 4 days in the cold. Try to imagine that!!!

Travelling on to Ecuador

When you’ll eventually manage to reach the Ecuador side, the last step of the journey will be to get to Tulcán, pretty much the ecuadorian version of Ipiales. Colectivos to Tulcán run frequently for 0.75$/pp (2’000COP) but sharing the price of a taxi (3.50$) with other people can also be a convenient way to travel there.

Remember that before heading to Tulcán you should change the last colombian pesos you’ve got left cause once in Ecuador they’ll be worthless (should you plan not to go back to Colombia) and nobody will be changing them. Finding street money changers here that give you a decent rate of 2900COP/1$ should not be a problem.

Once at the Terminal Terrestre of Tulcán, simply go to the ticket office located at the first floor of the terminal and buy the pass for your next destination. Buses in Ecuador are pretty cheap (more or less 1$ per hour of travel) so expect to pay 6$ to Quito, 3.50$ to Otavalo or 3$ to Ibarra.

Congratulations, you managed to cross the border !!!


PLANNING A TRIP TO COLOMBIA? CHECK MORE POSTS BELOW!


[pt_view id=”db48597kjy”]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *