11/29 After a layover in the town of El Pedregal, I’m now 1.5 miles from the border with Ecuador. Tomorrow morning I’ll cross over and continue on to Quito where a flight to Florida awaits me. I had 6 days left of my 60 in Colombia so my timing was good.
Ipiales is at 9500 feet so when the sun started going down it got cold fast. The pizza place I had dinner at actually had a heater inside. That was pretty sweet. The rain hit right when I got into the city which kind of sucked because there are a lot of hotels so I didn’t get to shop around. Staying at the Hotel Belmonte for $6. They have shared bathrooms but th shower had hot water so whatever.
Climbing up here from Pasto wasn’t too bad but there’s a stretch just before Ipiales that was a bit steep. Stopped and had lunch at a nice roadside restaurant where I met a Canadian guy riding a BMW motorcycle around South America. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen any motorcycle touring guys.
My bike seat broke today. 
Luckily it didn’t break in a way that infringed on my manliness. The padded part that you sit on broke off from the metal supports that attach to the seat post. It was still ride-able, I just had to be careful not to slide around on it. It lasted longer than I expected for a $5 purchase back up in Mazatlan, Mexico. Found a bike shop in town who happened to have one that is almost identical to the old one. It was only $5 too.
I’ve been really thinking about trying to get over and see the Amazon River. Unless something crazy happens I doubt I’m going to go to the Galapagos Islands. It’s too expensive and I keep reading how tourism is becoming a major problem so the river would be a good side trip. I just need to find a way to get over there. I’d love to ride but I don’t think that’s possible. There’s a Colombian city called Leticia that sits on the banks of the river and also happens to share a border with Peru and Brazil. They have lots of river tours available which would be amazing. I could also walk over to Brazil which I hadn’t planned on going to.
Saw on the news that Leslie Nielsen died. That sucks. He was a riot. The Wikileaks thing is all over the news down here. I guess the Colombian government had some documents leaked too. I love how the US government is all up in arms about private diplomatic conversations being exposed yet they don’t seem too concerned about the rights of individuals being taken away (illegal wiretapping and domain name seizures for example).
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