Unemployed & Unimpeded: Popayán, San Agustin, and Mocoa

Before making it into Ecuador, we stopped in three small towns that other backpackers had highly recommended. Once again, we didnt have any plans of stopping until we spoke with some travelers who convinced us otherwise. The first stop, Popayán, was only two hours south of Cali and is usually a pass-through town since it doesn't have any major draw outside of its laid back atmosphere. We only spent two days there, however, we enjoyed this town since it had a genuine and non-touristy feel. We'll remember it for the whitewashed walls, great cafés, and the best empanadas we've tasted in a while. We'll also remember it for having some of the worst pizza we've ever had. They couldn't make a regular pepperoni pizza taste normal if they tried. It was our punishment for ordering American food outside the states.

Side street led us to this small square

Whitewashed walls and colonial architecture

Looking down the main street

180 degree view of the town

Common area at the top of the hostel

The mini empanadas that changed our lives

The second stop, San Agustin, started with an extremely bumpy five-hour drive through the mountains. Shanta was saved by her motion sickness pills, but we were still crammed in the back of the bus shoulder to shoulder in toddler-sized seats. San Agustin is an archaeology buff's dream in the middle of breathtaking scenery. The outskirts of the town are strewn with carved stone statues and tombs from the 1st to 8th century. While there is still a great deal of mystery surrounding the ancient indigenous people, it's widely agreed that they were one of the first complex societies in the Americas. We took a few days to explore the amazing statues and enjoyed our daily "menu del dia" from a restaurant in town. For $2.50, you get a soup, salad, entrée (rice, beans and beef/chicken/fish) and a fresh fruit drink. We explored the surrounding waterfalls and hiking trails the last day before taking off down the road.

The mountains on the way in

Looking upriver

Wish we went down this

Getting a tan with a view

Looking downriver

Good spot for swimming

This shows how narrow these roads are

...and how steep

Archaeology!

Ancient tomb

Interesting since no crocodiles were ever in the area

Tomb entrance

Tomb for a lesser important citizen

One of the smaller falls in the area

View from the top

Everyone wants to see the view

Quite a fall to the bottom

My lunch on the way out of San Agustin

We left our hostel planning on going straight to Pasto, a border town, but changed our agenda once we realized we'd arrive there well past dark. Mocoa is the midpoint between San Agustin and the border, but it isn't typically found in guide books. In the next few years, it will become a backpacker hotspot since the town is quickly building a reputation as a waterfall mecca. When we got off the bus, we ran into our friend Martin from San Agustin and opted to book a few nights at the same hostel together. The three of us took off the next morning to see Fin Del Mundo, a huge waterfall that drops hundreds of feet into the rocks below. While hiking to the waterfall, we passed by several smaller falls that people were jumping from. The drops were about 15 to 20 feet and we immediately joined in. This made the grueling hike worth it. Right before we made it to the end, I slipped on a rock and got a nice cut on my hip (which required a few stitches) but after a day or two it was water under the bridge.