We left our hostel in Bogota yesterday morning, early again, for the bus station with the intention of heading south towards Ecuador but without having a firm destination in mind. We could have done one trip all the way to the border but there has been guerilla activity in the south in the past so after giving it some thought we decided not to travel through the night. This decision was probably vindicated when a guy came on the bus before we left to video all the passengers, we assume it was so they knew who to look for if we got kidnapped. We eventually decided to take the 12 hour bus to Popayan, despite the length of journeys bus travel in Colombia is great as you are almost always staring out at some of the most beautiful landscapes you can imagine.

Popayan is another of the many colonial towns we´ve visited although slightly different as all the buildings in the centre are painted a brilliant white. We have had a little wander round the town (mainly trying to find postcards for Steve´s Granny but they are almost non-existent in Colombia) and also took the bus to the nearby town of Silvia where it´s market day and all the locals in their strange costume of bowler hats and ponchos do their business.

Tomorrow we plan to get any early bus for the further 8 hours to the border and bring down the curtain on our Colombian adventure. As regular readers will probably have gathered we have really enjoyed our time here, it really has been a great place to visit. From the Caribbean coast we´ve seen desert, paraglided, rafted, visited lots of towns, visited the Amazon, walked in the Andes, been too museums and bars in Bogota and met some great people along the way. We missed Medellin, Cali, the national parks of Tayrona, coffee region, lost city, the whole Pacific coast and so much more, we could probably have spent a year here and still not done everything.

It´s been a while since you´ve had lists from us so, not including the obvious nights in the Amazon etc, here are a few things we´ll remember about Colombia:

1. Set lunches for just over 1 pound, soup (testicles optional), followed by meat or chicken and rice, beans and plantain with a drink;

2. Cold showers;

3. Jugos - everywhere you can get really cheap fruit juices (with milk or water) and they have loads of fruits we had never heard of but which are great, Lulo is our new favourite;

4. No toilet seats;

5. Great coffee, neither of us were great coffee drinkers at home but now we try to get our tinto (expresso) as early as possible in the morning;

6. Election, the presidential elections have been in full swing and interestingly as well as closing the borders on polling day etc they ban the sale of alcohol for two days before the voting, can´t see that catching on at home;

7. Soldiers/policemen everywhere, although a lot of them seem to be about 14 and doing the job of traffic warden, guess that is a good sign as they need something to keep them busy at the moment;

8. Needing Spanish much more than the southern countries we visited, certainly getting better at understanding although speaking still tough.

9. Non-existent health and safety although we prefer it that way, individual responsibility is a good thing, and finally

10. Crazy ass drivers (although that also applied in Brazil and to a lesser extent Argentina).

Don´t feel too sad that we´re leaving Colombia though, we´ve still got Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile to go before Sept/October and we also want to squeeze in a short visit back into western Argentina if we can. It´s tough this travelling you know.