Our Great Adventure: Laguna de la Cocha Day 305 20/07/2015

After a very leisurely breakfast, chatting to Jaime in a mixture of Spanish and English, we made our way out to travel to Laguna de la Cocha. We expected to be greeted to a noisy spectacle as we left but all seemed very quiet and serene (although busier than yesterday). As we wanted to get to the laguna independently and travel like locals we got a taxi to the hospital from where the local minivans waited to go to our destination. They have no timetable, leaving when they are full and as we took that last two seats we set off without delay. The van climbed 500m to go over the 3000m pass that separates Pasto from La Conda and as we dropped down we had some great views of the laguna. On arriving at the small, touristy village at the lakeside we decided to take a small boat out to the island straightaway as it looked like rain was on its way. We jumped in the small boat expecting another 8 people to join us and were surprised as we immediately set off down the narrow waterway going under very low bridges (you had to really duck to avoid banging your head). Whilst it meant we had to pay the full 35000 Cops ourselves it was only £8 and we had the boat to ourselves. Although the sky was overcast we had a great panorama of the many volcanoes and ten minutes later we arrived at the packed jetty at the island. The boat driver told us to back in 30 minutes (an extra 5000 Cops was payable for every extra 10 minutes) and we headed inland. There was a lovely little church and we then paid an additional 2500 Cops to walk through a cloud forest for 10 minutes to the mirador at the end. The views were pretty without being spectacular across the lake. We were back in the village in no time, had a wander around looking at the many restaurants. We stopped for a drink at one and then decided to head back to Pasto, still full from breakfast. We had to wait a short while until the van filled up at both the lakeside and in the village centre nearby and we were back in Pasto just after 1300. We were dropped off less then 1km from the bus terminal and decided to walk there and successfully bought our bus tickets for tomorrow, electing to travel the 7 hour journey in comfort with the most recommended carrier Bolivinaros, at the princely sum of 38000 Cops each (about £9). We got a taxi back to Plaza Nirvano and found a cafe for lunch. We walked around the surrounding area to see if there were any restaurants where we could go for dinner. All were closed so we wandered back to our hotel to look online to see if any are open in the town hoping we wouldn't starve tonight! As everywhere was closed (even Jaime couldn't find an open one for us) we found a chain of "Pollo Sor-presa" ("chicken surprise" - think KFC!) 3 blocks away so at least we got something to eat and they served beer too. All for less than £7. The rest of the evening we chilled and read up about our next stop Popoyan and hopefully our first Colombian meal.