The road from Popayan to San Agustin was scenic, but extremely bad. Imagine a rickety old bus with hard uncomfortable seats and poor suspensions going over a bumpy road for more than 6 hours. You wouldn’t enjoy travelling in this bus. I didn’t either. I just kept being tossed up and down almost continuously. One particular bump was so bad that my head hit the ceiling of the bus. The landscapes along the way were very pretty though.

Picturesque landscapes along the way

I had reserved a bed in Finco El Maco that Megan & Eddie had recommended. The hostel is about 4 km from the center of town, and is up a steep slope. Hiking up there with my backpack (and immediately following my back-breaking bus trip) almost killed me. The hostel had come with glowing recommendations so I was really hoping for my thus far terrible day to end on a high note. But sadly for me, the dormitory was really ordinary. It didn’t stink of sweat and wasn’t cramped for space like most dorms but was also not that special. I was to learn later that the private rooms in the hostel were totally out-of-this-world; which probably was the reason why Megan & Eddie were raving so much about this place.

At the hostel, I met a Dutch couple, Cris & Kim and a Aussie-English couple Stuart & Shastra. During our conversations, we learned that Stuart & Shastra had met Ed & Tanya during one of their hikes in Peru, and Shastra was actually planning to volunteer at Katitawa in a few months’ time.

The next morning, Cris, Kim & I joined with a honeymooning Colombian couple for a day-long jeep tour of San Agustin and the surrounding areas. The tour was quite interesting and we checked out the lush countryside, the huge carved stone sculptures, a few waterfalls, a jaggery making workshop and had a traditional Colombian lunch.

The river Magdalena gushes through this narrow gorge with tremendous force

Jeep trail

Jaggery making workshop

The jaggery being made into bricks

One stone statue

Another stone statue

A whole bunch of stone statues

At least one other Indian had come to see the stone statues

With the Colombian couple, Cris and some local kids

San Agustin had failed to impress me and I was ready to leave the next morning. Since the Dutch pair were also headed to Popayan, we decided to travel there together. But we hadn’t anticipated that there would be so few buses going our way, and those that did, would be filled to capacity. So finally after a long wait, and some to-and-fro camioneta rides between the highway and the center of town, we finally managed to get 3 confirmed seats on a bus to Popayan.

Travelling again on the non-existent road and having to endure the second 6-hour-long agonizing journey within a span of 3 days took its toll on my body. By the time we got back to Popayan, I was running a slight temperature and had a splitting headache. But instead of directly hitting the sack, I decided to join a Spanish guy, an Australian girl and a German guy for dinner. This turned out to be a great decision because the wonderful dinner with the 3 other solo travelers (with all four of us headed in different directions the next day) did a lot to alleviate my illness.