Our rough plan for Colombia is to head north to Medellin, east to Bogota and then north to the Caribbean coast, via San Gill. After another excellent breakfast at Casa Lopez we packed and headed back to the bus station. Jaime helped us to get a taxi which was lucky as it was extremely busy now that the holiday is over. We'd booked our tickets with Fronters, a more luxurious and expensive bus company but we decided it was worth the premium given it was a seven hour journey to Popayan where we were staying for the next 2 nights. We left the bus station at 1030 (not 1000 as per the ticket) after the police boarded the bus to check passengers identification documents. As we headed north we soon realised why it was going to take 7 hours to travel 248km. The road clung to the valley sides winding it's way up and down across the high mountains and along steep sided ravines. We dropped down to c1500m, out of the cloud forest and to a more arid landscape. As we continued to head north the landscape became much more tropical and there was a strong Afro American culture evident. We stopped for lunch in El Bordo with most of the bus passengers tucking into soup followed by meat and potatoes. We opted for pepsi and crisps! It was extremely hot and we were glad to get back on the bus to the air conditioning. We arrived in Popayan by late afternoon, checked the time of buses to Cali, our next destination, and jumped in a taxi to La Plazuela. It's a lovely hotel, a converted mansion set around a courtyard, recently restored but keeping many of it's original features. We dropped off our bags and walked to tourist information office to get a map of the town. The offices are run by the local tourist police and a very chatty young man in full uniform gave us the low down on where to go. On the way back to the hotel we stopped off for Colombian coffee and cake at a lively cafe. It certainly couldn't be more different to Pasto here! We were keen to have our first Colombian meal and in the evening went to La Cosecha Parrillada. Simon enjoyed a huge steak and Diane had chicken in mushroom sauce, washed down with a bottle of Chilean (no Colombia wine here) red.
 |
| The scenery on route from Pasto to Popayan |
 |
| Lunch stop |
 |
| The courtyard at the lovely La Plazuela |
 |
| Enjoying a rather large steak and glass of Chilean red |
Gosh the winding roads look really scary. Hotel looks a nice place. That steak, wow hope it tasted as good as it looked. Hopemyounhad some veg or salad to add to it.
ReplyDelete