As soon as we arrived in Tierradentro, we had checked with our hostel if the route to Popayan would take us back down the road that had fallen into the river. The good news was that we wouldn't need to go that way but the bad news was that the one bus a day that usually goes to Popayan had not turned up for the last three days. Nor did it come on our second day there. Our hosts offered to look out for an alternative and around 8 that evening they called us to speak to the owner of a camioneta. He told us that he would be leaving early the next morning, at 4am. We baulked a bit at that, but he then went on to say that he would pick us up at half past three and we must be ready to go at once. Still wondering what to do, he then informed us that he only had places in the back (the open truck bit with a tarpaulin cover).

Being a bit wary of being bumped about for 5 hours in the early hours of the morning, we suggested that we might get someone to take us to the next village and get the bus from there. He had a quick answer; "you can't do that because none of the buses are running". When we asked why he gave the cryptic reply, "There is a problem." Whatever the problem we certainly had no alternative and the single beacon of hope was that he said the the trip in his 4x4 would only take three and a half hours, small mercies.

So we set off in the dark just as he had said and the quality of road seemed no better than coming here although we were never actually forced to get out and walk. We were thrown around a bit in the back and we hadn't anticipated quite how cold it would get. Although some people got on and off, at least the driver was refusing to take more people than we had seats. There were only eight of us on the bench seats in the back! After a couple of hours we stopped at a house where the driver said that we could get some breakfast.

When we went in there was a small counter with some bits of fried meat but we asked for coffee, "It's in the kitchen" said the girl there as if we should have known. When we got to the kitchen it was jammed full of people getting various meals. We were soon served with tintos (the hot sweet black coffee that everyone drinks here), a warm arepa (traditional thick bun/pancake made from maize) and a big hunk of home made cheese. A handsome and filling breakfast for fifty pence each. We got back in for a bit more bumping around before we reached some real tarmac and got into town. The journey had actually taken four hours, not bad really!

We are staying in the delightfully well equipped and organised Hostel Trail Hostel that is run by a young scottish couple. They also run an information website (www.hosteltrail.com) which we have been using frequently during this journey and it was great to actually meet them at last. We visited Popayan a while ago on our way north and quite enjoyed the town. After all our recent excitement, however, we didn't really feel the need to do too much investigating this time.

There were a couple of museums or galleries that we had not noticed when we were here but neither turned out to be particularly exciting. In one, we were forced to politely listen while we were subjected to an extended guided tour about the life of one of Colombia's ex-presidents who lived in the house (and we had only gone in to see the art). The final straw came when we got into the gallery bit and found it was not the Anthony Caro scuptures that we had expected but some conceptual art by someone called Antonio Caro!