The best-laid plans of mice and people traveling by bus in Latin America.

• Mon – 19 May:
• Cali: awoke to a group of Barranquillan uni students storming through the hostel at 6 a.m. They have their own bus, but still thought that leaving at 4 a.m. to arrive 26 hours later and waking up everyone in the hostel (read: ME) was better than leaving at 10 a.m. and arriving after checkout. The hostel owners – don’t stay at Sunflower Pacific – apparently concurred. Bad case of the Mondays.
• Popayán: Checked into the very lovely ParkLife Hostel and dined on the worst pizza in the entire world at a popular dive called Toscana.

 

• Tue – 20 May:
• Silvia: Tried not to openly stare at the indiginous people’s outfits – even though that’s the whole point of going! I also bought a fake llama sweater (as in real hecho-en-Ecuador sweater with knitted llama pattern using not-llama/alpaca yarn), did the mini-hike to a church for a vista, and ate a delicious ice cream.
• Popayán: Breakfast was lots of beans and rice with some eggs and “toast” (ie: stale bread); dinner was decent Mexican food and a great margarita at Tequila’s.

 

• Wed – 21 May:
• Coconuco: Hot spring pools at Aguatibia. Kind of gross owing to the slime; it was hot and stuff, but not worth the $6 they charged. That sounds like I’m being cheap, but I’m not. For perspective, it’s almost three-times the cost of breakfast.
• Popayán: Bfast was a repeat of the previous day … as was dinner. LOL

 

• Thu – 22 May:
• Popayán: Chilax-to-the-max day. Also, I determined that my “Scrubba” is little more than a $65 collapsible bucket and that laundry detergent in sheets removes neither dirt nor stink. Guess who bucked up for some over-priced laundry service? Lovely chats with a lovely couple over a lovely bfast at Medeira. And then I read most of the day.

 

• Fri – 23 May:
• Popayán: Repeat un-lovely bfast because they are the only place open and I hate cooking, especially first thing in the morning. I packed up all my stuff except for my pjs, an extra undies, an extra pair of socks, and facewash (and maybe a couple other toiletries but definitely no other clothes) and walked to the bus station to start my 48-hour Tierradentro adventure. The ticket agent promptly shut it down: la via esta cerrada. Indeed. (I would later learn it was closed due to campesino-led protests ahead of the elections.) Instead I spent an hour in the grocery store looking for the perfect-sized package of laundry soap and a container to keep it in (I settled for “good-enough”) and decided to head to San Agustín instead.
• San Agustín: The bus ride was a couple hours longer than usual and the restaurant at the hostel was a bit of a misnomer, but I arrived and was fed. And I definitely splurged an extra $3 for a private room with a double-bed.

 

• Sat – 24 May:
• San Agustín: Upon learning that the buses wouldn’t be running due to elections, I decided to stay two extra nights at the very nice Casa de Nelly. Please let’s remember I have one pants and one shirt. Oh well. Four hours at the archeological park. I got lost walking back but did not panic – the next day would be Towel Day after all. =) I arranged with Christián to do a jeep tour (which may or may not go off due to elections) and had the most expensive ever chicken breast for dinner.

 

• Sun – 25 May:
• San Agustín: Jeep tour (take that elections!) – it sounds better than it was, but it was okay. Mr Gustavo at the hostel made a nice bfast. Both lunch and dinner were left-over most expensive ever chicken and cheese and bread and pears. Dessert was an inexpensive and DELICIOUS lemon-cream tart thing, yumm!