We successfully made it on and off the right bus to the small town of Cuellaje, where we soon found someone in a pick-up truck to take us the majority of the distance to Finca San Antonio. We asked if the driver could call Ned (the Englishman who owns the farm with his Ecuadorian wife Patricia) and were somewhat surprised when he produced a large, reasonably old-fashioned handset. It turns out that everyone uses these bulky satellite phones round here. The pick-u...

We started exploring the famous Otavalo Saturday market by visiting the animal section first. It was a bit of a way out of town but we followed the line of animals being taken or being dragged away - the pigs in particularly didn't like being dragged and made a horrible squealing noise. On offer were cows, chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, pigs, puppies and sheep - unfortunately no llamas. We also saw many people dressed in traditional clothes which is a big differ...

San Agustín was our last real destination in Colombia before we headed for Ecuador and the Otavalo Saturday market. We left San Agustín on Thursday and caught a bus to Popayán for an overnight stop. We went with a new bus company that our hostel owner had set up, which was billed as a better travel experience - it even had seat belts; what a treat. The company was so new that we were its only customers that day and the driver stopped for us to take pictures on...

Travelling from the sunny, sweltering desert, we got out of the last bus/ large car into rain and a cooler climate once again. Fortunately the rain soon stopped and the sun came out for our afternoon jaunt. From the town we got a taxi (actually the same vehicle that had taken us the last 40km or so) up to the place we wanted to stay. We'd taken a gamble by not booking as the place was out of town and up a steep hill but luckily they had rooms available. All the ...

We left Salento after our free breakfast and got the 8am bus out of town to the Armenia bus station. Katy was uncharacteristically decisive and chose to take an earlier but non direct bus towards Neiva. A few hours later this bus unceremoniously dropped us in the dust out of the town we were meant to change at but the bus driver paid for a taxi to take us into town (we're not sure if this was part of the service or he was just kind). Anyway we made it to Neiva an...