Welcome to Colombia - 7th May 2011

Popayan's Santo Domingo church

Popayan
After two arduous, overnight bus journeys (Quito to Tulcan, taxi to Ipiales, Ipiales to Popayan) we arrived at our hotel, sleep deprived and utterly miserable at 4am. We went straight to bed.

Next day we had a chance to explore the city and all of it's colonial splendor. Much of the wonderful architecture in Popayan was destroyed in an earthquake lasting only 18 seconds on 31st March, 1983. It took local residents 20 years to restore most of the incredible churches and cathedrals, and today it's hard to believe that such a disaster ever occured.


The San Francisco Church

Popayan is nicknamed 'The White City' and walking around the small, white coloured, colonial streets is a pleasure in itself. We do what we do in every city we visit - photograph local people (preferably without annoying them) going about their every day lives, visitng the sights and sampling the local food.

There are also loads of great museums to visit to. We opted for the Natural History Museum which housed some of the best stuffed animals we've ever seen. We finally got to see animals that we should have seen in the Amazonian jungle but were hiding when we were there. Also, they had an Andean Condor which has the largest wingspan of any other land bird at 10.5 feet.


A real, live Condor. (Honestly!) That's a stuffed version of me though.


Looking mildly confused on the Mirador, overlooking the town


Colonial splendor


The sweaty, Colombian hillsides surrounding Belén Church


A badly cropped colombian fella selling some fruit