Cali, Popayan, Pasto

Cali is the home of salsa and well worth a visit. I stayed in the barrio of San Antonio which is the old part of Cali. It has some lovely old houses containing artisans workshops and there are lots of interesting little restaurants. I stayed at cafe Tostaky, a lovely little hostel. I was there on 2 week nights when it was quiet but I think it is more lively at weekends when the restaurant is open.www.cafetostaky.blogspot.com
I enjoyed walking to the nearby city centre and discovering lovely old buildings and exploring shops. It isn´t a touristy place and it´s great to just wander about and see people going about their normal business.
I took a taxi to the shopping mall of Chipichape. It´s a large, modern mall with lots of designer, as well as other shops, food hall and cinema.
Fom Cali I caught a bus to popayan. This is a pretty coloial city where most of the buildings are white.
Agai, it´s fun to explore the streets, admiring old buildings with solid wooden doors and intriguing coutyards.
There are plenty of diversions near Popayan - going mountain biking or visiting Tierra Dentro (pre-Colombian tombs) but I wanted to keep moving south to Ecuador. I stayed at the hosteltrail.com, on of the original Colombian trail hostels. It´s well worth a visit and you can get a lot of travel info, including how to cross the Colombia-Ecuador border. I took yet another bus south, to Pasto, the capital of Nariño province.
This area was liberated by general Nariño - the people wanted to belong to Ecuador but had no choice in the matter of being included in Colombia. It is a big, bustling town. I stayed overnight at the hostel, Koala Inn. Once you´ve stayed at a hostel, they grow on you. It´s great for getting travel advice and meeting other travels. And it´s good for the budget.
I was up early on Sat 8th May to get another bus, this time to Ipiales near the border. This was a 2 hr bus journey hurtling through the mountains (not unlike the journey fom Popayan to pasto). I think the driver´s challenge is to see how many passengers throw up, how fast to take a bend signposted "dangerous curves",
how many blind rises to overtake on in a trip.... They do the trip every day so their driving skills must be good, mustn´t they ...?
From Ipiales, I took a taxi to Rumichaca at the border. It was straightforward leaving Colombia and entering Ecuador. Then a taxi ride to Tulcan where I caught a bus to Otavalo. The bus picked up numerous passenegers on the way and there was hardly standing room. It was somewhat difficult to manoever myself and my large backpack off... So I arived at Otavalo in time to see the big Saturday market.