Pasto

Hello from Pasto. We left Popayán yesterday in hopes of catching the 8:00A.M. bus, however I made a big mistake and went to the wrong bus company's window. I accidentally bought tickets and we were lead to the bus only to find out that it wasn't a luxury bus as we had expected, but a small bus with standing room only and no air conditioning. This didn't sound too fun for a 6-7 hour ride, so I convinced the (somewhat less than honest) bus sales guy to give us back our money. We went over to the more luxurious bus line only to find out that their 9:00 bus was delayed and probably wouldn't arrive until 10:15. We bought tickets anyway and waited. About ten minutes later the lady let us know that it looked like the bus wouldn't be coming until 11:00 or later and we could wait or she would give us our money back. We checked around, and another bus line was leaving shortly, with available seats and similar to what we wanted, so we switched. Unfortunately this bus was not a direct bus so we stopped in a dozen towns, but we eventually made it and checked into our hotel. We had a big lunch, since it was 4:00P.M. and we hadn't eaten anything of substance, and wandered around the neighborhood.
Today we took a cab to the city center and went to the main cathedral, as well as a cultural artesania heritage musuem. Pictures will be up at some point, but the internet here is a bit slow, so you will have to wait. We also bumped into a very friendly old retired guy in the town square who gave us a brief history of the Nariño region. He used to manage an auto parts store in town. It turned out that his son now lives in the small town in Holland where Sarah's father went to college! This afternoon we went to a lake called La Cocha, about 30 km outside of town. La Cocha is a lake with a small town next to it at about 2850 meters above sea level. We took a boat tour of the lake and visited the flower sanctuary on the island in the middle. Sorry, but you will have to wait for pictures once again. It is a very nice little town and all the homes seem to have a unique architectural style. Anyways, tomorrow we head to Ipiales, and the next day Ecuador!