We had a mad plan to travel around South America without using planes, which meant crossing every border by land or water. However, it all went wrong a few days before heading to the first border crossing between Colombia and Ecuador, and this is why…
Route we planned
The plan was to break the journey up into steps. (Route in Grey not blue)
Bus 1: Bogotá to Cali, taking 11 hours and 50 minutes. Staying two nights in Cali.
Bus 2: Cali to Ipales, an overnight bus taking 10 hours. Staying one night in Ipales.
Walk across the border to Tulcan.
Bus 3: Tulcan to Quito, taking 8 hours.
Much did it cost?
Buses were booked via Redbus.co and Lineas de Los Andes.
The total cost of the 3 buses for 2 adults and 1 child was £150.
Why didn’t we go?
All was booked, and we were excited about making our first bus journey in Colombia. I check the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website all the time for advice and warnings. I had a panic, when I spotted this. How did I actually miss this?!
Obviously, getting this document at this stage would be impossible; I was told it would take 20 days to get one. Other people advised that there would be no issues and that it was highly unlikely we would get stopped. If I were travelling on my own, I might take the risk, but travelling with Megan I wouldn’t be popular because we would have to return to Bogotá to fly elsewhere.
What we done instead?
We could have flown directly from Bogotá to Quito, but this requirement annoyed me, and I can be stubborn, so instead of booking flights into Quito, I decided to bypass Ecuador and book flights into Lima, Peru. I do hope to cross the land border between Ecuador and Colombia at a later date on this trip, once I have gotten over missing this rule, that is!
How can you save yourself making this mistake?
We watched numerous YouTube videos and read numerous blogs all about crossing this border. All we heard was that it can be a dangerous border and to be careful. Not one person mentioned this regulation about needing a 5-year police check. I read the FCO website all the time, but either I didn’t notice this regulation or I lost it amongst all the other borders I read about crossing. All I can recommend you do if travelling around multiple countries and crossing land borders is to write down everything so it is easy to reference and you cannot miss or forget anything.
Thank you for taking the time to read about Not Crossing from Colombia to Ecuador by Land Border.
If you have ever had issues like this with border crossings drop them in the comments below.
Read about our other border crossings.
The Lewis Family.
