17 June 2006 - Popayan..

Hola todos..Guy and I are currently in Popayan, southern Colombia. Its quite a pretty little town. It feels nice and safe and our hostel a few doors down is nice and convienient. There doesnt seem to be that much to do here except soak up the mild weather and nice architecture. We´v decided to get a bus to Pasto at 1am tomorrow morning so we can get to Quito in time for the last England game. Colombia has been interesting, some nice parts, some not so. Standards here are very very different and sometimes come as a bit of a shock. Cartagena was a bit disappointing after the LP bigged it up as being the "must see" place in Colombia. But sitting on the beach drinking a few beers and watching the sun go down was great...From there we flew to Periera, which has been the best thing so far.

I cannot praise it enough. We stayed on a working coffee farm in the hills. Its one of the most beautiful places iv ever seen. There were endless hills of coffee and bananas. Humming birds swarmed around the bushes in the garden, parrots laughed in the trees. By night, huge thunder storms rolled in across the valley, the only lights provided by the fire flies circling the trees.

On the second day we climbed to the top of the biggest hill iv ever seen. We were so determined to get to the top and it was very worth it. Our ears popped as we got higher. A massive pair of eagles flew right over our heads. When the path ended we had to do a bit of off road climbing, which was kinda scary but the views at the top were breath taking. The walk down was just as hard, but waiting for us on return was a lovely swimming pool, fresh coffee from the hills and a 3 course home made lunch. In the afternoon we had a little tour of the farm from one of the workers called Hector who was only too pleased to help us out in anyway he could.

We were really sad to leave the finca, but we had to move on! We got a 7 hour mini bus journey to Popayan which was utterly mad. We just about survived....just! Which brings me up to date with where I now am...Best go. Dont want to be stuck in an internet cafe all day!

Missing you all

x x x