We arrived at the bus stop at 6am, as we had been told the day prior there was a bus at 6.30. Unfortunately there was not, the first one was at 10! There was a share taxi though, and we jumped on that having been told it would take 7 hours to Ipiales, the town closest to the border with Ecuador. The drive was beautiful, past some amazing green scenery, with patchwork fields, high mountains and gullies. We only stopped briefly a couple of times for bathrooms and...

We took a van from San Agustin to Popayán. We had read horror stories of a bumpy 8 hour journey, but the road is improving, some of it even tarred, so the journey took us about 4 hours. That was great as we only had one night in Popayán giving us the afternoon to explore. Our hostel was right on the main square, which was really nicely maintained, busy with locals, and surrounded by whitewash colonial style buildings. We set out to find some lunch, and stopped...

San Agustin is the scene of a very important Pre-Colombian UNESCO World Heritage Archaeological site. Two native cultures in the area used large volcanic boulders to carve huge sculpted figures, some anthropomorphic, some realistic. When we arrived in San Agustin, we were immediately spotted getting off the bus and approached by a man wanting us to stay at his hotel. We explained we had a booking elsewhere, so he offered to arrange us a taxi, though at a high c...

In a town called Zipaquirá about 50kms from Bogotá is La Catedral de Sal, The Salt Cathedral. The Cathedral lies around 200m under the surface in an old salt mine. As the story goes, the miners were deeply religious people, and decided to create and underground sanctuary to pray daily. This developed into the construction of the original church which opened in 1954, but was closed in 1990 due to structural concerns. After this a new Cathedral was built, under...

Bogotá is a place that fellow travellers had little to say about. Sort of a necessary stopping point with not much to offer. Our opinion didn't stray far from the general consensus, though it wasn't completely devoid of charm or attractions. We got into our hostel and were told our first night would actually be in their apartment around the corner, in a twin room not a double, then move back to the hostel the next day. Normally this wouldn't be such an issue bu...