Six meet in Ecuador.

K-Nine, Mog and Mel are now all parked together at the delightful La Luna hostel and camp site, about 4km outside Otavalo in Ecuador (on the road to Lags de Mojanda). There is only just enough room for three campervans, it is not very level, the sign was a bit low, but it is highly recommended for the great food and atmosphere (N 00.196617 W 78.285817)!

K-Nine and Mog got here by an uneventful (but hard) three days driving in Colombia from the fine Bambusa Hotel. We spent the first night parked outside one of the many small motels. We spent the second night in the gated and guarded car park of the Country House/Carbon Parrilla restaurant a few kilometers south of Pasto (Free parking, water, loo dump, and great food. A recommended stop in Colombia N 01.164915 W 77.293625).

We crossed the border from Colombia into Ecuador at Tulcan. We had been warned that this border was slow and the Ecuador side difficult. In reality it was our fastest and simplest border to date. We took only 15 minutes to leave Colombia and less than 45 minutes to enter Ecuador, using our Carnet de Passage for the first time.

Mel's trip to Otavalo was somewhat more frustrating. Mick and Mo shipped Mel to Guayaquil from Europe on a flat-rack. Unfortunately it took over two weeks of waiting in Guayaquil before they were able to extract Mel from the port (a customs strike did not help). When they did finally get their hands on Mel they discovered that at some point (when being loaded onto the flat-rack?) the rear left underside of Mel had been damaged. Probably as a result of this damage one of the external lockers had become unlocked and the contents stollen. This left Mick and Mo with an insecure locker, only one spare wheel, no jack, no CB antennae and very few tools.