The White City

The name of the city is Popayan and for about 8 square blocks in the center of the city, all the buildings are painted white. Not only that, by law, they have to repaint them white every year, just before Easter time. So needless to say there is much activity in the center of town with scaffolding everywhere. It is really very beautfiul and come Easter time there will be flowers hanging from all the balconies. We don't plan to be here at Easter time but it might be interesting as during the week previous Easter, Popayan has the second biggest Samana Santa celebrations in the world, the largest being in Seville in Spain. People come from all over the world to celebrate in Popayan and prices escalate. Our hotel that we are paying about $27 for right now costs about $200 a night for that week. It is good value at $27 but not so at the inflated price of $200.

Our hotel really is not as spiffy as this picture makes it out to be, but we have a huge room with comfortable beds and a hot water shower most of the days.
This fine gentleman from England had been riding this motor cycle for 20 months in various parts of the world and here in the lobby of our hotel, it is time for an oil change. Amazing things that happen in Latin America. Can you imagine asking a hotel in North America if you could bring your motor cycle in the lobby so as to be out of the rain to change the oil? We most enjoyed his company but he had to be on his way after day one for us.

Our second day in Popayan, there was quite a large and peaceful Indigenous protest that circled the central park and shouted slogans that dealt with justice and liberty. As we get nearer the Ecuadorian border, the Indigenous population is much larger than in the rest of Colombia.
Just more of the protest parade. There were probably 1000 people or more.
But close by and on every corner of the central park, were riot police in case things got out of hand. They were not really too serious as when I was taking this photo from our hotel window, they shouted at me and wanted me to come down and don their riot gear and join the fun. They also had great fun flirting with the girls going by.
We have sent many photos of central pàrks but the one in Popayan is especially beautiful and easy to obtain a shady bench.
A much older and much small bridge, crossing the same river as the one that is in a picture that is below.

We have many pictures of the white buildings but they all look the same so you only get this one.
Nancy needed her teeth cleaned so we located a dentist, made an appointment for the next day and 30 minutes and $15 later, her teeth were sparkly clean.
There are many of these in Latin America. It is a machine that squeezes the sugar cane juice from the sugar cane. They run it through cheese cloth and sell it on the street to drink.
Just a very old and pretty bridge that crosses a small river in Popayan.
And this is a park that was on the banks of the river.

Popayan is pretty flat and Nancy and I like that a whole lot. Maybe that is one of the reasons that we have been here a week and will be here a few more days before we move on. We have been trying not to rush from place to place on this journey, and so far we have been reasonably successful.

It looks as if the weather is improving in Ecuador so at this moment we do think we will travel in Ecuador for the last few weeks before we return home.