Settled between Colombia’s Andean peaks this old colonial city is for a lot of travellers the last stop on the way to Ecuador, for us it’s a break in the journey on our way to see Colombia’s number one archaeological site San Agustin.
It doesn’t take long to walk around the colonial town centre, its clean white washed buildings and many churches are a testament to the long history of this place.
Walking to the top of a nearby hill we mingle with the locals and take in the views of the town, following the back route down we check out the local artisan market.
Within a few hours we have seen most of what the town has to offer so we decide to book a downhill biking tour. We hoped to be driven to some thermal hot springs in the mountains outside of town and then bike the 30km back to down. What we didn’t realise was the following day was a national holiday. Not surprisingly the driver didn’t show up claiming that his van was broken, the two other drivers didn’t answer their phone. Clearly the driver pulled a sick day but who can blame him.
With very little else to do we enjoyed the 50p beers in the hostel and headed out to enjoy Popayan’s great selection of new food restaurants. With the exception of the incredibly large portions of grilled meat and exotic fruits Colombian food is incredibly bland and we were not expecting much. The local Italians fantastic lasagne dish more than met expectations but perhaps the huge jar of accompanying red wine had something to do with it.
The next morning we woke up early with a sore head and made the bumpy bus ride along cold mountain roads in search of San Augustin.
