TRAVERSE 120
century, something that we would take the time to visit.
Ipiales is the border town where we would make our last stop in Colombia. In addition to its proximity to the border, we decided to visit it for the monastery of Las Lajas, built at the bottom of a deep gorge and reachable by a stone bridge. The neo-Gothic cathedral was built on the spot where the Madonna is said to have appeared in the 18th century. Its walls are covered with votive offerings and today it is spectacular but also a little bizarre.
The sign that loomed over our heads indicated that we were entering the 12th nation of our journey, Ecuador. We were aware that each of these countries would deserve much more in-depth visits, but time is a tyrant and what we needed to do was to make our imaginary North-South line pass through the one that most piqued our curiosity as travellers.
We headed towards the capital Quito, alternating seamlessly between passes at almost 4000 metres and hot plains. But the weather wanted to remind us that we were in the rainy season and driving on the paved and narrow streets of the capital with their double-digit percentage gradients made us suffer quite a bit.
Quito is a huge basin, a megalopolis that is second in the ranking of the world’ s highest capitals, behind only La Paz. Surrounded by the volcanic peaks of the Andes, including the famous Cotopaxi, it hid the architectural treasure of the old city amongst the buildings and skyscrapers of the modern world.
Plaza Grande is the heart of the city and here stood the Inca city that the emperor Ruminahui, in order not to lose in battle, had razed to the ground before the arrival of the Spanish. With us was Roland, our Teutonic friend whom we had already met on trips to Mexico and Guatemala, and, as a retirement present, thought it would be a good idea to travel the Panamerican with his Vstrom 650.
On foot we crossed popular
TRAVERSE 120