Dressing the Part

When in Silvia.... dress the part. About 1.5 hrs away from Popayan is Silvia, a small town that is most well-known for the local Tuesday indigenous market of the Guambianos who wear their traditional handwoven blue dress while spinning wool. The market is not touristy, but the tourists come for the photo opportunities as I clearly did.


When I arrived, the town had police crawling through the city checking IDs, patting down guys for guns, inspecting buses and just looking quite menancing until I spoke to them. They regularly patrol the towns and this just happpend to be the day they patrolled Silvia. They explained that their presence ensured safety and gave people a sense of security. True, I felt secure with an entire town full of machine gun and grenade toting police men. Although I wanted to see the grenades in their pockets, I decided against asking since they looked quite busy, but they did graciously pose for pics with me.

In the afternoon, I joined a Chiva bus tour of the Guambiano region. Children came out to greet us and even sang to us at the urging of our tour guide. My favorite photos are always of children who usually look quite inquisitive.