An easy day trip from Popayán is to the small town of Silvia, nestled beautifully in the mountains. Silvia is famous for its Tuesday market, which is run by the indigenous Guambiano people who live in nearby villages.
As a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, one can’t visit Popayán without trying its unique local cuisine. The locals sent us to Mora Castilla, a small and simple restaurant in the historic city center that many regard as the best place to sample payanés delicacies.
Popayán has a nice collection of colonial churches scattered throughout the whitewashed historic city center. They were all closed until after 3:30pm on the Friday I visited but I was able to admire most of them from the outside.
While exploring the historic city center of the “White City” of Popayán, there are a few interesting museums to pop into. The only negative is that you have to be a Spanish speaker to get anything out of them.
Besides the local specialties at Mora Castilla and phenomenal meal at Hotel Camino Real, we found a good variety of Colombian and international restaurants in Popayán.
Popayán is known as the White City (La Ciudad Blanca) for its whitewashed historic colonial city center. It was founded in 1537 by Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar and is one of the most well-preserved colonial cities in all of Latin America.
Not too far outside Pereira is a great park for both kids and adults. Parque Consotá is a huge recreational area with sports fields, several swimming pools, a spa, nature trails, fishing ponds, paddle boats, a small zoo, restaurants, and a hotel. We took Marisol’s 6 year old nephew, David, to enjoy the park for a day.
Marisol, Lina, and I would like to express a heartfelt thanks to every donor who made this project possible. In just over a month, you were able to completely make over a school and change the lives of 30 students.
The school building, as mentioned in the video in the previous post, had several problems. It hadn’t been painted in many years, the roof had huge holes in it and leaked terribly every time it rained, and the school was in bad shape in general.