A Day at the Baths

About an hour east of Popayan is a popular weekend destination for the locals, two hot spring baths high up in the mountains. On the weekdays, you can have them mostly to yourselves.

Getting there is not easy. We had to go to the bus station and find a little local bus to a village called Coconuco. Once we got to Coconuco, the guidebook said to find a "mototaxi" to take you to the hot springs. We thought a "mototaxi" would be a little rickshaw like vehicle like we have ridden in Mexico.

Wrong.

Mototaxi means you hop on the back of a motorcycle without a helmet and ride about three miles up a rough gravel road to the hot spring. Had someone told me I was going to have to do that I might have balked, but in the moment I hopped on and somehow managed not to fall off.

The hot springs at Aguas de Herviendo were worth the trip. We spent most of the day soaking and reading before getting back on the "mototaxis" to head back to Popayan.