Crossing the Border: Eccuador to Colombia. and also Ipiales

After hearing that the border crossing is pretty sketch along the coast of Ecuador to Colombia we decided to do it from Quito. We took a five hour bus ride to Tulcano, stamped out of Ecuador with no line to wait in. Walked across a bridge and stamped into Colomia with no line to wait in, no paper to fill out, nothing. It was for sure the easiest border crossing we've done. If only it could be that easy for Nick to get into the States!
We then took a Taxi to the center of Ipiales because we heard there was a pretty cool cathedral outside of there called El Santuario de Nuestra Señora de las Lajas. It was being built from the 1940s till 70s so it's quite new as cathedrals go. We took a shared taxi from the center. It dropped us off at the top of the hill and we walked down a road, passing stands with all sorts of food, toys and religious paraphernalia. As we got closer the wall became crowded with plaques from families for dead members of the family or with prayers on them. The church itself was pretty impressive. There were two weddings just coming out as we got there, that was neat to see. We spent about half an hour there then went back and watched a movie in our cheap hotel.

Colomia welcomes us

crossing the bridge between countries

wall of prayers

inside catacombs

the church