From Ipiales, I went to Pasto; and then the next morning to Popayan. Popayan turned out to be a laid-back town and I spent the whole day just walking around. I also hiked to the top of El Morro del Tulcán. El Morro used to be an Indian pyramid in the past but is now just a small hill with a statue of a Spanish conquistador on it. As you may guess, having a statue of a Spanish conquistador atop what used to be an indigenous monument is a bit controversial.

Statue of conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar on top of El Morro del Tulcán

It was a beautiful sunny day and I sat in the shade of the statue for a while watching a couple of young men practicing their parkour moves. One of them was clearly an expert, while the other was still learning the ropes. In the distance I also spotted several young boys starting out with parkour. The sport seems to be quite popular here.

Youngsters practicing parkour in Popayan

Later in the evening, as I was walking back to my hostel, I heard someone shout “Googie”. I was certain I had misheard something else as “Googie” (there was no way my notoriety had hit Popayan already). But when I heard it a second time, I turned around slowly. The sound I had heard was indeed “Googie” because out popped Pedro from a nearby internet centre. I couldn’t believe my eyes. When I had left Katitawa, the remaining volunteers and I had said our farewells with promises of meeting again some time in the future. But in our heart of hearts, we all knew we’d probably never see each other again. So I was overjoyed at running into not just an acquaintance but a good friend. We spent the next few hours catching up over dinner and a few beers.

Pedro told me about how spectacular it had been to see the recent Tungurahua eruption, an event that I had missed only by a few days. Apparently, the entire town of Baños had to be evacuated and the whole sky had turned dark for days from all the ash being constantly spewed out of the volcano. He also told me about how one of our fellow volunteers Morgane had been robbed in Quito. Apparently someone had passed her a piece of paper asking her if she knew where the address on the paper was. She couldn’t remember what happened next, but could remember brief flashes as if in a dream of her walking down the street, going to an ATM, entering her PIN and handing over money. When she came back to her senses, she rushed to an ATM to check, and indeed 200 USD had been withdrawn just hours earlier.

When we decided to pay up and head out from the lounge bar we were at, we asked the girl behind the bar for the check. But she obviously didn’t hear us over the loud music, because in a flash she had replaced our empty bottles with two newly opened ones. We chalked it up to providence wanting us to stay longer, and proceeded to down the two new arrivals.

Later Pedro walked me back to my hostel, and we decided to meet up again in Cali if possible, and then possibly in Bogota at the end of the month.

Popayan town square by night