Buga, Popayàn, and Las Lajas Colombia - Nov 12-29

Buga (population 120,000) is about 8 hours south of Medellìn.  We took an overnight bus and got to Buga about 6 in the morning.  It was a decent night sleep for bus travel.  As it turns out, Buga was one of our favorite places.  Part of it is definitely the name.  But most of it was the hostel where we stayed and the small town feel.

Buga, like so many places we´ve been, has so many churches!  And their bell ringing is not synchronized.

I realize the pictures may be too small to see it, but trust me...  These cows are relaxing in the middle of a humble soccer field.

Cool stick bug.

 

In the reserve we saw lots of interesting small creatures. We also saw some really cool red monkeys, but they weren´t so easy to photograph.

There is no regularity in sidewalk width, height, or stairs leading to front doors!

The motorcycle is the vehicle of choice in many parts of Colombia - and they have to make a way to roll their motorcyle into their house.  There aren´t garages.

This is a parking lot for motorbikes.  You pay the attendant to watch your bike - and put a piece of cardboard over the seat.  I guess that is to protect it from the heat?  From bird droppings?  This town had no car taxis - just motorcycle taxis.  Drivers wait in designated areas with an extra helmet for the passenger.

We fixed ourselves some tastey breakfasts and the rooftop terrace made for great dining.

The hostal kitchen area.

The hostal rooftop terrace view.

The Buga Hostal is in the 2nd story of the building in the middle of the photo - the one with the balcony.  They serve some great pizza!  And that is coming from someone who doesn´t really love pizza.

I love the juxaposition of new and old.  I doubt sports nutrition was around back when these wooden windows were  constructed.

This was a great site.  This horse is carrying wooden boxes on both sides.

We had some great interactions with people in Buga.  No pictures of these....  One was with the guard of a communications tower that was on top of one of the biggest hills overlooking the city.  With a 12 hour shift virtually alone, he was happy to talk.  Then there was the day we took the frisbee out in search of somewhere to throw.  We ended up playing a game of hotbox in a plaza with a 6 or so elementary school boys.  That was followed by a shorter game of hotbox with some elementary girls.  After a while they asked if we could just talk.  Ha!  The next day we returned to play again.  This time it there were a LOT more kids who wanted to play - and to talk.  It was a game with two endzones and a whole lot of mayhem in between.  I played with the kids while Duane talked with had a crowd of 15 kids.  Every few minutes a couple kids would come running over to where I was to ask how to say something in English....  It was a pretty funny scene. 


Popayán is about 4 hours south of Buga (population 250,000) and has the fame of producing 13 Colombian presidents.  We passed through Cali on the way to Popayán and the only time we spent there was in the bus station.  Ah, yes, and now I am remembering that the ride from Cali to Popayán was the one where the back of my seat was not stationary.  So I got a not-so-fun bounce with every bump.  Ah, good memories!  Popayán is known as a university town and so it´s only logical that we ended up making friends with some universtiy students.  I thought I had a picture of them, but maybe that was something they were going to email me... Popayàn also has some very well known churchs.  Of course.  But as you might be gathering, I may have reached saturation point on churches...

One of the 4 o5 5 notable churches.

Much of the non-artistic graffiti is speaking out against a recently passed law that would privatize higher education in Colombia. We saw a lot graffiti protest to this in many cities along with some demonstrations.  Not surprisingly, the university students in Popayán are currently on strike because of this.  We learned from the group of university students that we got together with a few times that the President recently retracted the law saying that he was willing to talk with the students.  There was not 100% consensus among the students as to if this meant that the President was truly going to be willing to reconsider privatization.  Oh, this is also the entrance to our hostal.

 

A highlight of our 5-6 days in Popayán was being driven an hour out of town with bikes to some thermal baths.  The idea is to soak and then return on bike.  We had met a scottish couple and the 4 of us went.  The day started out sunny, the baths were great.  There were pools of varying temperatures including a large one with a fun slide.  But, about the time we got out it started raining.  And the rain here is no Portland rain.  It is a serious downpour.  We decided to wait it out.  An hour and a half later we suited up knowing that even though it wasn´t raining anymore didn´t mean we weren´t going to get muddy.  The good thing here is that rain doesn´t necesarily mean ¨cold.¨ We very much enjoyed the scenery even though we got pretty dirty on the return.

An exciting occurence was an explosion that took the roof off of a building which houses among other things a military office.  This is right on the main plaza of Popayàn, so there was quite the stir!  The first reports pointed the finger at FARC - a retribution for the recent killing of their leader.  But it got much less interesting quickly.  Turns out it was a mishandled grenade by someone in the military office.

From Popayán we took a bus an hour northeast to the small mountain town of Silvia.  The attraction there is the market where the indigenous Guambiano come to sell (both agricultural and hardgoods).  The interesting thing is that many of them still wear their indigenous garb.  While we sat in the main plaza (picture) recovering from the windy road, a pastor of the tribe started talking with us.  He along with the ¨true¨ men of the tribe wear a long blue skirt.  I would have taken pictures but even the guidebooks say not to.  If you have a magnifying glass, there are several Guambianos in the above picture, but at a distance.  The market was one of the best we´ve seen.  Full of everything from food to furniture to fowl.....

Las Lajas, the last city in this post, is 10 or so hours south of Popayán and very close to the Ecuadorian border.  There was some very picturesque scenery in route.  Steep mountains and deep valleys.  Lots of up and down - but very beautiful!  Las Lajas has not official population - the only categorization I found was ¨very small.¨  But this place will probably be big in our memories for-almost-ever.  Three reasons:  the very amazing scenery of the cathedral, the rain and landslide, and the dog bite. 

El Santuario de Las Lajas was built here because the Virgen Mary is said to have appeared in the verticle rocks of this percipitous canyon.  Even though I had tired of churches, this was simply amazing.

There are thousands of plagues that people have placed along the walkway down to the catedral which give thanks to the virgen for miracles.

 And once again, it started raining.  We had descended from our side of the canyon, visited the church and then had gone way up on the other side to try to get a view of the area.  We got soaked.  And we were thoroughly amused by the river of water we were walking in by the time we were down toward the cathedral again.

These poor vendors!!

After we got dry clothes on and it had stopped raining, we ventured out again.  This was back on side of the canyon where all those plaques are.  A small but nevertheless impressive landslide along the walkway down to the cathedral. 

As we walked around the small town a bit more just to see what there was to see, we walked passed a boy and a dog.  The dog seemed to be with the boy, but we aren´t sure.  Right after we passed them, the dog suddenly turned around and bit Duane on the back of his knee - totally unprovoked and with no warning.  Don´t worry, we found the post-exposure shots and Duane should be fine.  But, there was some serious googling and consulting and worrying there for a bit.  Chances are the dog didn´t have rabies given very strong effort to vaccinate all dogs, however, rabies isn´t something to mess around with!

Ah, traveling....