Still Monkey-ing Around in South America (Part II)

POPAYAN AND OUR ENCOUNTER WITH A MACHETE WIELDING MADMAN!

After our fulfilling stopover in Pasto, Rebekah and I head north 7 hrs to one of Colombia´s most beautiful colonial cities, Popayán. The city was pretty, peaceful and full of yet more friendly locals. The cobbled streets and whitewashed buildings created a clean, inviting and easily navigable town...so easy to navigate in fact, that Rebekah and I found ourselves walking the same set of 10 streets over and over, all day long.
We wandered about the town indulging in (fairly) fine cuisine, (actually we found a place that had scrummy pasta-pesto so you know I was gonna be happy!) and taking photos of the sights and delights of the place.

Rebekah and I found ourselves at the main square, decided to take a left and walk up to a church a couple of blocks up that was on yet another narrow, cobbled street surrounded by pretty whitewashed colonial houses (it is nice honest!) Once up there, we snapped away and as Rebekah took a photo of the street we had just walked up, a cute little ole man walked out of a house close by. I was just about to say...."Aww, he´s just been made a member of my ´Grandad Club*´"
No sooner had that thought come to mind, the grandpa stalked up to us and picked up a smooth yet very (very!) large stone. I thought it was a bit strange for him to be picking up stones to put amongst the rubbish that he had just brought out, but then he came right up to Beks and waved it above her head continuously. He had seen her take the photo of the street and had either been upset as he thought she was talking a photo of him, or perhaps knew she was photographing the street and he wasnt happy about that either!
So, as the madman continually threatened to crack Beks over the head with the stone, Beks maintained her cool, reasoning with the clearly crazy and most unreasonable madman, I grew bloody frantic and urged Beks to move away. FINALLY....my request reaped results and we started off back down the street, had just enough time to chat to a guy who had witnessed the heated exchange, before I happened to glance back up the street and realise that the madman was in hot pursuit of us, this time wielding a machete!!! Oh great!!! I was NOT impressed as HE was clearly NOT stable, so I picked up speed and recommended that Rebekah, who was now milling about editing her photos, do the same. She STILL didnt seem alarmed by the situation whereas I had already played out the beginning, middle, gorey end and had her eulogy ready in my head.....goddamit...how DO we get ourselves into these bloody situations!

We turned a few corners and crossed a few roads and within no time at all had lost him..phew, close call!! The rest of the day was alot less shocking and we were soon lulled back into the sleepy, slow moving pace of Popayán. It was a nice city and a hit (for most part) for us!



[*Note: The Grandad Club, was a club founded in the 80´s by my late Grandad Sodhi, he was a very cute grandad and I felt that all the cute grandads of the world should have the opportunity to be a part of a society that enabled them to mix with other cute grandads and also provide them a forum with which they can be represented -ok thats rubbish, I just derive great pleasure from looking at all the cute grandads and having them in a club! So no sooner had the club been founded, the members began to flood in. Grandad Roy was obviously the 2nd member (and is actually on the board at present!) playing an important role and challenging people´s stereotypical impression of grandads. As the treasurer of the local Gurdwara, a board member of Kingston´s Racial and Equality Committee, until recently a Sikh minister at a number of (both men and women) prisons and often seen cycling about town and countryside on his pushbike, Grandad Roy has given rise to the age of the "Active Grandpa"..! The Grandad Club continues to thrive, almost 20yrs after first being opened, with more members than ever before. Since coming to South America, I have noticed a marked increase in the number of Latin Grandad memberships and only hope that this trend continues to rise!]

posted by Priya @ 8:56 AM