15th March 2015 – Otavalo to Pasto – 2015-03-19 19:15

Today we leave Otavalo heading north for our 240 kilometer drive to Pasto. We aren’t on the road long and Shiraz starts to cough and splutter then it clears. It did this a few times driving along the motorway. When we get to the hills the car ran well for a while, but then on the downhill section she would flood with fuel and sound like she’s running on 3 cylinders. We stop in a small town and Michael changes the floats in the carburetors back to the original non adjustable ones. Ross checks all of the spark plugs and they all look OK. As usual we draw a crowd of locals who are curious about us and the cars. We take off again up and down magnificent hilly countryside and the car runs well for a while and then the same thing happens again as we come down a hill into a service station. This is our morning tea stop, so Michael decides to change the spark plugs. We head off towards the Colombian border where we exit Ecuador and meet Fernando & Gilbert from the classic car club in Ipiales. They guide us through Colombian immigration and customs, the whole border crossing takes us about 2 hours. Our new Colombian friends lead us to a town called Ipiales and our car is still playing up going downhill so we are coasting down all the hills to prevent the carburetors from flooding. We stop for lunch at a look out over a valley and an incredible church called Sanutario las Lajas. We draw a large crowd on the side of the road of people wanting photos and to talk to us. We drive into Ipiales to organise our compulsory third party insurance for Colombia, this time drawing an even bigger crowd of over 100 people and causing a traffic jam for 1.5 hours while each cars insurance is organized.Everyone is so friendly, we are getting an amazing reception here in Colombia as we drive through the towns, lots of smiles and waves! The car is still playing up going down hill as we drive into Passo and stop to refuel on the edge of town. Michael puts the bonnet up and discovers fuel leaking from the rear carburetor as the needle is sticking.We continue to our hotel and Michael quickly puts the original needles and the adjustable floats in the carburetors and takes the car for a test drive and all seems OK around a flat town, so we’ll have to see how it performs tomorrow.