Shakira is everywhere! I mean who doesn't like Shakira but Colombia loves her as much as I love Colombia. The 30 day visa may have been a blessing because if I had 90 days I would not have left Colombia until September and been screwed for reaching Patagonia before winter. Cycling through southern Colombia started to feel familiarly Andean. Place names appeared in Quechua (language of the Inca Empire), music became flute heavy, people got shorter, you can have roast guinea pig (cuy) for lunch, and the mountains are getting huge.
We now talk about climbs and descents in the thousands of meters and breathing is getting difficult, as well as, sleep until I get acclimatized. I love flying down the mountains for over 25km passing every vehicle on the road banking through endless turns but you know you gotta pay it all back. My account is full and it is time to make withdrawals on the 'pain bank' (thanks Bob Roll). The temperatures are dropping as the road rises. I am keeping the woolies on top of the bags and it is back to knicker weather. Hard to believe that I am days from crossing the equator into the next hemisphere. But it means we are done with early starts and we can watch the morning world cup matches. In Pasto we watched Holland (orange) send Brazil home - I was disappointed/dismayed but the Dutch fellers went nuts.
Then out the door and through the city for our first climb of the day up to 3300 meters, stop for fresh yogurt, throw on a jacket and drop drop drop but you know we gotta pay it all back with interest. Good thing I like putting my head down and climbing for hours. The scenery has an immensity that makes me moan "fuck me. . . I am still climbing," but it is beautiful and I remind myself it is just more kilometers down.
My Colombian visa expired on July 3rd and I reach the border city of Ipiales just after dark on July 2nd. I do not like riding after dark, though all the locals do sans lights, and my biggest hazards are pedestrians and other cyclists in the road. After climbing nearly 50 kilometers I just 
want to crash in a hotel with cable so I can take a leisurely morning while Argentina is crushed by Germany, again disappointed. I watch the second half of the drubbing over my last Colombian bandeja for breakfast then head for the border less than ten kilometers away. I conveniently cruised past Colombian immigration by accident, meaning I neglected to stamp out of Colombia, and my faux pas did not fully dawn on me until I had been standing in line for Ecuadorian immigration for 40 minutes. I noted the immigration officer on the right was having a bad morning (probably an Argentina fan) and pissing people off at every turn so I went left, smiled, and he simply stamped me into Ecuador. I notice Matt and Dylan ride up to immigration so we head into Ecuador, together again.
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