La Cochia

About 45 minutes from the city there is a beautiful lake called La Cochia that we got to visit. Our hotel owner set up a little bus with guides who speak some English. Then us and a Dutch family who also speak English went to the lake. The town is really interesting because the houses and the inn that we stopped at have some Swiss influence. The elevation of the lake is quite a bit higher than that of Pasto. The "highway" according to the tour guide was a good road though it was gravel most of the way and one of the most bumpy gravel roads that we have ever traveled on. The town is set up for tourism with people beside the road selling thier goods. The guides told us we would probably need warm coats and rain jackets because it is always cold and rainy at the lake. We had a few drops of rain and it was warm and sunny most of the day. Perfect weather. From the little town we got a boat (glorified canoe) ride across the lake to a island with a rain forest and we hiked to the back of the trail to a place with a 100 meter drop off into the lake, with a beautiful view. We ate lunch, the speciality, Rainbow Trout, agian with the heads attached and again Tatiana ate it, she actually cleaned her plate, I have no idea where she put it all. I got a couple fish bones and had a hard time finishing my trout becuase of the bones. The heads must be pretty common, because the Dutch couples little boy also ate his own, his mom's and my fish head. Maybe we don't know what we are missing.