Popayan

While we were in Pasto we had an email from our friend Maria Velez asking when we would be able to get to Medellin, so we tried to find a flight from Pasto to Medellin. When we found that all the flights were enormously expensive we decided to take the bus from Pasto to Popayan, a six hour bus ride through more mountains, and through a part of the country that was not very safe in the past due to guerilla and paramilitary activity. It is not recommended to travel this route at night due to bandits who are sometimes active in the area.

For this reason our friend Diego, and the owner of the hotel we stayed in in Pasto, recommended we travel with the bus company Bolivariano because they have better security. Bolivariano has very new looking buses with a lot more leg room than any other buses we have traveled on. The conductor came through once everyone had boarded and took a video of all the passengers as a security measure. This was an express bus, which means it did not stop on the road for people waiting for a bus. They stopped half way through the trip for a bathroom and lunch stop, and the bus was locked up during that time so it was safe to leave our day packs on the bus while we had a snack.

The countryside between Pasto and Popayan taken from the bus window!

 

We stayed in Popayan one night and then continued by bus to Cali, a two hour ride on a much less fancy bus than the day before. From Cali we were able to get a reasonably priced flight to Medellin, which saved us another seven hours on the bus.

We spent a bit of time in Popayan looking around the old town, which has all white buildings lining the main streets around the square.

The tower in the main plaza

 

The Cathedral

 

The main plaza in Popayan is Parque Caldas

 

An antique footbridge, Puente Chiquita built in 1713, over the Molino river that runs through the town

 

White buildings in this style surround the central plaza and the street leading off from the plaza

 

The Iglesia de San Franciso did not get the memo about painting everything white!

 

Enjoying a dinner (with Colombian beer) that does not have corn and beans!