Sanctuary after a roller coaster bus trip!
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2010
1
70
366
Trip End
Jul 13, 2012
Where I stayed
Popayan, Colombia
Friday, March 25, 2011
The 6 hour journey was through beautiful mountain scenery that you could enjoy all the time you didn't have your head in a sick bag. The roads were pretty rough, pot holed and sinking here and there and made even the strongest stomach turn. Sam was the worst followed by Cat and once I'd moved up to the front , I felt better. Glyn on the other hand was unaffected by the roller coaster bus and at some point was sat watching a movie on his laptop. All in all though, the scenery along the way was well worth it and watching huge lorries coming right at you because the road was half blocked by rock slides kept the driver on his toes! We thankfully arrived in Popayan at 4pm and took a ten minute breather before catching a taxi to the hostel. Once we'd checked in we had a rest for a few hours. Later we walked into the centre to find a supermarket for some supplies and then went back to the hostel for cheese spread on toast. After that we had a nice relaxing evening reading books, catching up on emails and getting a good nights sleep.
26th Mar.
Got up at 8.30am for breakfast and then headed into town to have a look at the sights. On the way we walked over some lovely old bridges on the outskirts and back in by the natural history museum. While Sam and Glyn went for a look round the natural history museum, we did a circuit of all the impressive churches including Belen which sits on top of a hill on the edge of the city. We met up again at the main plaza that is so covered in trees that you couldn't see the centre until you reached it, but has some nice places to sit and chill. This is surrounded by huge white painted buildings including the cathedral. As it was lunchtime we found a little restaurant and tried the local speciality Pipian which is a small empanada served with a chili peanut satay sauce. As these are quite small we headed back to the hostel for cheese on toast passing the supermarket for some things for dinner. Late in the afternoon we hurriedly walked to El Morrow for sunset and just managed to get there before it got too dark. On the hill there were lots of people (mainly teenagers) sitting waiting for sunset, playing music and mainly being teenagers but there were plenty of tourist police around to make you feel safe. That's the one thing we have found in Columbia, there are plenty of tourist police around and are quite happy to help and are the first to say hola or buenas dia, and also the people that walk by seem very friendly, the most we have seen throughout SA. When we got back to the hostel we made a slightly bland chicken curry and as I hadn't been feeling to good for most of the afternoon (it had nothing to do with the meal) went up to the room early. We watched a movie (the Darjeeling Express) and then got to bed.
27th Mar.
Got up rather late this morning at around 10am and decided that it would be a lazy one. After some breakfast (that I wasn't really hungry for) we went back to our room and sat and read until around 1 o'clock. We thought it best to go for a walk to get some air and bumped into Sam and Glyn in the centre returning from having their hair cut. We wandered back to the hostel for something to eat and made a plan to go to Las Tres Cruzes. On the board in the hostel it mentioned that we should check with the tourist police if it was safe to do so as it was a bit out of town and so we headed there first at around 3pm. When we got there, they advised us that it was not recommended to go with as few people as four of us and taking their advice we started to walk only as far as Belen church for Sam and Glyn to have a look at. On the way my stomach started playing up and Cat and I headed back to the safety of our rooms en-suite where we stayed for a few more hours. Later Cat (with Sam's help - she rescued it with some tomato puree) made spaghetti bolognese for dinner and we had strawberry ice cream for dessert. We then watched a movie called Outlaw and then got off to bed.
