Popayan

Continuing down the Pan-American highway from Buga the first major town that you get to is Popayan. This is also the place where you turn off the PanAm to get to San Agustin. We decided to spend a night here, explore the town and get some chores done.

It didn’t take us long to find somewhere to spend the night as we spotted a Parqueadero just behind the bus station. This was something of a find as it was a very cheap place to park securely for 24 hours (only 7000 Cop or less than $4). Not only was it a good place to park but we managed to get the Beast thoroughly washed – dirt tracks make us very muddy. Somehow we had managed to hit the top right corner of the truck on something at some stage – we didn’t know when – but the top edge of the truck had come slightly loose and we needed someone with a rivet gun to fix it.

Well in the parking lot in one corner was a ramshackle hut which advertised some auto-services and an old man was working next to it on a truck that looked like it was at its end of life 20 years ago. We chanced asking him and it turned out he could do it right then and there. What a surprise !

After getting these chores done we walked the 20 minutes into Popayan, which is an old colonial town and nicknamed “The White Town” – there do seem to be a lot of white towns around though.

A couple of hours wandering around was enough to see the town, including walking up to a church above the town, albeit with disappointing views because of obscuring trees.

We ended up having a very quiet night in the parqueadero and set off the next morning for San Agustin.