Colombia, Ecuador and Visa Trouble

This is the first part of a multi-part story of getting thrown out of Ecuador and our amazing race to leave the country in 7 days.

Part 1

It is about 4 pm on a Friday…we arrived in Quito, Ecuador a few hours ago having made the journey from Cotacachi this morning. This is our first bus trip in what will be a week of bus trips, traveling from Northern Ecuador to Northern Peru…part of our effort to leave Ecuador by next Friday or pay substantial fines. But I am getting ahead of myself.

We were enjoying our time in Cotacachi, Ecuador and were planning on staying another 3 months. We arrived in Ecuador on November 11^th, and our understanding of Ecuador immigration policy allows U.S. Citizens a 90 day tourist visa by showing their passport, and any time beyond this another visa needs to be acquired or you need to leave the country and re-enter.

We understood that you were only allowed to stay in country 6 months within a 365 day period.

So, this past Tuesday we decide to head to Colombia, spend the requisite 24 hours out of the country, and then re-enter and ask for another 90 day visa. We had only used 80 days of the original 90 days but wanted to give ourselves a cushion if anything unexpected should happen…and boy did the unexpected happen.

Cotacachi is only 3 hours from the Colombian border and seems like a logical border crossing, but when we were here last March people warned us about it and said not to use it. Well this time around we started asking about the Colombian border crossing at Tulcan, Ecuador and sort of got the same answer…but when further questions were asked it was clear that people were expressing an opinion based upon everything but the facts.

People are people wherever you go, and I find even seasoned travelers are prone to regurgitate what they hear from others without much consideration for facts. However, I figured that we would not be the first ones that we knew of to make this border run with a couple of kids in tow…so when we left Ecuador it would be thru Peru. We met a couple that happened to be from Portland that were staying in a small Casitas next door to our apartment. There visa was going to expire before they had some things taken care of and needed to extend their visa, so hearing the same info that we were hearing but not finding any facts to support it they decided to head to Colombia and give that border crossing a shot. They only needed to extend their visa by a couple of days, and the time and expense required to get to Peru and back did not justify crossing into Peru. Their experience was pleasant and they were given another 90 days in Ecuador.

A few weeks later we had another friend try the Colombian crossing, and while he was hassled by Ecuadorian Immigration when coming back in…the experience were generally fine.

We also spoke to the Bumfuzzles about their experience in Colombia in general and their experience with the border crossing specifically. They did not have any problems anywhere in Colombia and said the border crossing was the easiest they had anywhere.

Now most people don’t cross over to Colombia because of all the things we hear about drug trafficking and the violence associated with these crimes. The U.S. state department does not allow their employees to travel over the road or to travel at night. There have also been recent stories about clashes along the Colombian/Ecuadorian border that made headlines. We are told that there is lots of activity in the jungle areas along this border…but have no way of knowing for sure.

We would not be traveling at night, and from the border to our hotel was only about 3 miles. The other thing we learned is that there was a strong Colombian military presence at the border…so we figure that this was probably the least likely spot for fighting to break out between the military and the FARC. What is the worse that could happen…right?

So, based upon these experiences we decided to give it a shot…