It should have been easy to get out of Popayan, since our hotel was right on Panamericano Sur, but just south of the hotel, the road was closed for some sort of demonstration, and we had to divert into the maze of town streets, until we found our way back near the center of town, where it was a madhouse of traffic, market stalls, and donkey carts.\u00a0 Then straight back into nasty Colombian mountain road – narrow and poorly designed with very tight curves and limited sight lines.\u00a0\u00a0 Lots of bad road hazards like washouts and potholes.\u00a0 Very little traffic, thank goodness, but still very slow going.<\/p>\n
At one point, we pull up behind a line of stalled trucks and cars.\u00a0 When we go around to the from of the line, as all motorcycles are expected to do, we find that all traffic in both directions has been stopped for 2-1\/2 hours because a full tanker truck had slid off the road, into the mountainside, and a very poor washout patch.\u00a0 The police had three wrecker trucks hooked to this tanker, trying to right it back onto it’s wheels, but they were getting nowhere fast.\u00a0 A huge crowd had gathered to watch, and even help, but as we watched for about 45 minutes, no progress was being made that we could see.\u00a0 We did get to spend the time talking with many of the other stranded motorists, and that was very pleasant.\u00a0 they gave us a very different impression of what Colombians are like from what we had experienced elsewhere so far.<\/p>\n
The men working on the mess finally managed to get the biggest of the three\u00a0wreckers also stuck in the ditch behind the overturned tanker, and soon after that they decided to let the backed up traffic through, one direction at a time.\u00a0 We took off with a huge batch of motos at the front of the line headed south, and continued through more narrow curvy road.<\/p>\n
When we reached a town, we stopped for lunch at a little roadside luncheria, and had an absolutely fantastic fried fish meal cooked by a little old lady.\u00a0 The scenery of the Colombian mountains is beyond descriptions.\u00a0 There are no words that will do it justice.<\/p>\n
Then more wild curves and mountain road – for hours!\u00a0 More cloud-forest heights.\u00a0 Impossible to make any time.\u00a0 We climb above 12,000 ft. again, get very wet and cold, arrive just before dark in Pasto.\u00a0 Here our experience is completely different fron the other Colombian towns.\u00a0 Everyone we talk to is nice, friendly, helpful.\u00a0 We find a decent, cheap hotel (sans toilet seat), and excellent coffee.\u00a0 The entire vibe is different here;\u00a0 we feel welcome and comfortable.\u00a0 We explore the town, and except for finding a few too many ‘putas’,\u00a0 we have a very pleasant experience.\u00a0 People are curious and friendly, and it is fun to meet them and talk.\u00a0 Without doubt Pasto was my best Colombian experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It should have been easy to get out of Popayan, since our hotel was right on Panamericano Sur, but just south of the hotel, the road was closed for some sort of demonstration, and we had to divert into the maze of town streets, until we found our way back near the center of town, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[19,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1673"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1690,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions\/1690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.longridesouth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}