Popayán

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The journey from Pasto to Popayán led through beautiful landscape quite distinct from the regions I have seen so far in Ecuador. At times I felt like in Africa: the bus was filled almost entirely with black people (descendants from slaves brought to Colombia centuries ago), black people were walking in the fields and sitting outside the houses along the highway, and skinny white cattle were searching the dry steppes for something to eat. As we descended further towards Popayán the landscape turned greener and towards the evening was illuminated in fluorescent green and yellow, with a rainbow above it, very beuatiful.

Popayán is a beautiful colonial city, with stunning chalk-white facades all over, and thus also called 'Ciudad Blanca'. It´s very clean and relaxed, with students everywhere and extremely friendly people. There are cafés everywhere with delicious capuccino and ice coffees.

Last night, the hostal owner, who had lived in Stuttgart for 10 years and was married there, gave me an interesting background about the current political situation and reassured me that the FARC are no more interested in foreigners at all, and that Columbian hostages are of much higher value to them. In general, Columbia is a quite safe country now, as long as one avoids the guerilla areas and does not get involved with drug trafficking.

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