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Published: November 29th 2014
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Popayan
View of the white city The last two blogs have been less about my actual travels, instead focusing on various social facets you might encounter while on the road. But I like to mix things up a little, and in the end this is a travelblog, in fact this is
theTravelBlog, so I feel I should write about my actual trip every once in a while too. So here is my 'bloggie blog' post as I like to call it.
T'is a tale about my last ten days in Colombia, a story about Southern Colombia, about broken shorts, and broken shoes and things falling apart in general. About me forgetting my book in one hostel and waiting for it in another. It involves mountains and rivers, tombs and statues, rain and sunshine, jungles and waterfalls and travellers met and lost.
It all started in Salento where I last left off. And it began with a pair of shorts that had seen one too many travels and finally gave up on me. Actual this particular part needs a back-story, a prequel if you will, which is all the rage nowadays. You see these particular shorts had already started to fray before Salento. In Tyrona National
Popayan
So, yeah, white is the theme here Park a first tear in the fabric had appeared. But being frugal, I had fixed it. First by sewing it together with my trusty sewing kit. But stitching together a tear, unless it is at the seams, doesn't work well, and in this case it lasted all of two days. So the second time I decided to be more thorough and actually put a patch on it, both inside and outside. I was rather proud of my handiwork and it lasted some time. Until Salento in fact.
Salento, fateful Salento. Here my shorts died, there was no saving them anymore. A new tear appeared, right next to my patch. A tear to end all other tears, from the bottom to the top. Close to my crotch of all places, exposing my undies. And that at the start of my little hike through Cocura National Park. I looked like The Hulk after he has hulked out. Nevertheless I walked the circuit and endured the laughs. Back in my hostel, I assessed the damage and decided there was nothing to it but to toss them out and buy new ones.
Unfortunately the new ones I bought had holes in their
Popayan
A not so white church at night pockets, well in two of the pockets. I didn't discover this till later. Luckily they were not important pockets. Again I took out my sewing kit and did what I have begun to be quite good at: stitching up tears! With everything in working order again, I continued my trip.
To Popayan. Popayan is called the white city in Colombia, I think you can figure out why. If not, I will give you two hints, colonial and white. It is beautiful, and for some reason not very touristic. I didn't stay long, not because I didn't like it, but because I wanted to go somewhere more relaxed. Popayan isn't a big town, but it is big enough to be crowded. And I wanted quiet.
My destination of choice was Tierradentro, and to get there I took the first chicken bus I have been on in Colombia. Tierradentro sees very few tourists, possibly because most people go to San Agustin, which gets a bigger write-up in the guide-books. There was one other backpacker on my bus and he happened to be Dutch. Now there is a strange thing about the Dutch. There are only 17 million of us in
Popayan
Back to white again, at night... And that rhymes the world, and yet you bump into them everywhere. When I say you meet Dutch people nearly everywhere, I mean they are rather spread out over the world... evenly. Unlike other nationalities they don't congregate in certain regions or spots. For instance I have noticed that Australians, while travelling as much, or more than the Dutch, are often found in bulk in one place, mostly a beach or anywhere a party is at.
Now because we are evenly spread across the globe, there seems to be a bigger chance of meeting a Dutch person in places where there are less of the rest. I suspect that in a crowd they are hard to spot, because they are numerically in the minority, but when the crowd evaporates those that remain seem to often be Dutch!
I have a rule, which has been borne out of experience, which says, that when I am someplace where there are few to no other travellers, there is a big chance that the one other tourist I meet is Dutch. As examples I can give the fact that on my first big trip with an internal train from Moscow to Irkutsk back in 1993,
Tierradentro
Staircase down to the tombs the only two other tourists on that train were... Dutch. In Chad in 1994 the only other person getting of the plane in N'Djamena was a... Dutch, while on the same trip in Cameroon the only two other travellers my brother and me met were also... Dutch. Fast forward to 2014 in a bus from Popayan to Tierradentro and who steps in as the sole other backpacker?
Back to my story. So Tierradentro, nice, quiet, few tourists, great scenery, and somewhat interesting tombs, as long as you don't expect Egypt like mausoleums. The truth is that the hike to all the tombs is the best part of it, it is simply a beautiful walk. In Tierradentro I discovered that the zipper of my camera case was no longer functioning as it should. It was a double zipper thingy, now it is a single zipper thingy, and probably some time next week it will be a zero zipper thingy. I also found out that one of my t-shirts was more hole than shirt. It might have to go.
You may wonder how come all my clothes and accessories are falling apart. Well you see, I am not someone who
Tierradentro
Some tombs were just bare throws away items. No, I use them till they literally fall off my back. Old t-shirts are re-used as backpacking t-shirts, because I don't want to use a new one for that purpose. Travelling tends to be rather more detrimental on your clothes than normal usage, so why take something new? I have one good t-shirt, for the evenings and social occasions, the rest are decrepit at the start of the trip and progressively get worse until total failure occurs. My trousers and shorts often start off new, but they will be used till the bitter end, same with my shoes.
Which brings me to Mocoa, a town at the western end of the Colombian Amazon. There is a wonderful hostel situated right outside of the town on a river, with a great garden and hammocks for relaxing in. Nearby are such refreshing attractions as waterfalls, which you can jump off. Into crystal clear waters, so you don't have to worry about breaking your legs. Especially nice after the sweaty jungle walk to get to them. It was in Mocoa where my latest drama unfolded, the one which involved my shoes releasing their soles. Now everybody knows that a
Tierradentro
Others were painted with symbols sole is an essential part of a shoe and that without it a shoe is like a body without a soul. So my shoes, sadly, are the latest victims of my somewhat destructive journey. My loss of shoes means I shall have to continue my journey with flip-flops only, which is what I use 99% of the time anyway.
The same wonderful hostel in Mocoa, which houses my shoes in one of its bins, is also, at the moment, the proud owner of my e-reader, which I kindly forgot in their locker. But I shall be reunited with it shortly, if all goes well, as they have promised to send it with the next backpacker coming up to Pasto. And that will be today. I hope. I was going to climb up to Laguna Verde today, but I was told that it was unwise to do so without shoes. Something about rain and mud and cold, not being good for hiking in flip-flops.
That about brings an end to this tale. I realise now I totally forgot to mention San Agustin, except sideways, so it is hereby mentioned. San Agustin, statues, scenery, nothing broken, torn or lost, which
Tierradentro
And yet others had stylized faces on the pillars is perhaps why it slipped my mind.
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Tori
non-member comment
Awesome
I love this blog....the way you viewed it through your clothing's "eyes". And, of course all you meet are the Dutch. Yall are awesome and adventurous people. That's why I love you :) Happy travels. xxx