Colombia and Ecuador were our first and second countries on our Round the World trip, and therefore the border between the two was the first border crossing we got to experience. It’s a weird process and from what we noticed, no two border crossings are ever the same.
We decided on our last stop in Colombia to be Salento, a small, beautiful city full of coffee farms, wax palm trees, and rolling green hills in the famous Cocora Valley. Our first stop in Ecuador was to be the country’s capital, Quito, nestled high in the Andes Mountains. On Google Maps, the distance boasts an impressive 571 miles/920 kilometers and 17 hours by car. And we planned to travel by bus since it’s the cheapest method, which means you have to add a few more hours on top of that.
So how we did it…
There were no direct buses from Salento to the Colombia/Ecuador border, so we had to take an hour long bus from Salento to Armenia for COP 4,200 per person ($1.47 USD). From Armenia, we took an overnight bus to Ipiales, the city bordering Ecuador, which took 13 hours and cost another COP 85,000 per person ($29.69 USD). Upon reaching Ipiales, we took a taxi from the bus station to the immigration office at the border for COP 8,000 ($2.79 USD). We got our passport stamped out of Colombia and then walked across a bridge to the Ecuadorian immigration office. The immigration office on the Ecuador side was a lot busier than the Colombian side. So we waited in a line that extended outside the building for about an hour. Once our passport was finally stamped and we were welcomed into Ecuador, we again got in a taxi and told the driver to take us to the nearest bus we could get on to get to Quito, which was still about 5 hours away from the border ($4.00 USD). He said we could get on a bus in Tulcán, which wasn’t too far away. In Tulcán, he flagged down a bus that was about to leave and convinced them to let us on – or else we would have to wait a while for the next bus to Quito. The bus from Tulcán to Quito took a little more than 4 hours hours and cost us $6.00 USD per person.
Total cost for us to get from Salento to Quito: $81.10 — $40.55 per person
It wasn’t a super hard journey (just a long one), although it did help a lot that Carlos speaks Spanish. At one point, on the bus from Tulcán to Quito, he got pulled off the bus by a customs officer doing a random baggage check. Other than that, everything went pretty smoothly.
We would highly recommend being prepared for this long journey by bringing plenty of water and food and/or snacks. There are not many options for food once you start, only occasional vendors that hop on the bus trying to sell things like chips or soda.
Let us know if you have any questions about crossing the border from Colombia to Ecuador in the comments! We’d be happy to help you out!
A few things you might need for your trip to Ecuador:
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Ashly is the founder of reversible travel clothing brand, SPLICE clothing, and half of the budget travel couple, Happy Nomad Couple. She is from Las Vegas, USA and has been to 32 countries on 6 continents. She’s the mastermind behind this blog and does most of the traveling planning and dreaming for her & Carlos.
