The Andes,
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| salento |
After a weekend of resting my bones from cycling and using
them for heavy farm work instead I left Salento in the same state I arrived but
met many great people in the process and enjoyed the few days I spent in the
Hostel. The volunteer quarters were home to some local artists, a lovely young
couple who sold their art every week in the town. There was a very chilled atmosphere at that
place which I thoroughly enjoyed. I left to return to Calarca ,a very short
afternoon of cycling through an empty back road, and take up the offer from my
amigo Nando of a tour round Quindio district, the zona Cafeteria (the place
where they do coffee and stuff). The next day we left for the tour, Beautiful empty
country roads and a vista of rolling hills and coffee plantations. It was a
great day up until we were about 40km short of arriving back at Nandos place.
We got caught in one of the worst rain falls I can remember, the problem was
that the last 40km were pretty much all downhill and it didn’t take long to
discover that my brakes didn’t exactly do their job in the wet, that combined
with the fact that the rain was so heavy we could hardly see anything for water
in our eyes made a rather uncomfortable ride. We stopped in Armenia in a bike
shop where I changed my brake pads for some all-weather ones and waited a while
for the rain to stop (which it didn’t) in a state close to hyperthermia. But the
climb back home warmed us up again despite the rain.
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| a quick bath on the side of the road |
The next day was great, I set off early after being fed a
ridiculously heavy breakfast and the day was pretty much all downhill, 110km. On
the way I met another cycle tourist going the other way, there was a strip of in between the two lanes so we stopped for an Exchange, he was coming
from Chile, had a great rig which he had bodged together, using big oil
containers for his front panniers, cutting
the tops off for lids. He was a juggler and tried to earn a bit of money here
and there by busking at traffic lights, He had 6 clubs so we attempted to do
some club passing in the middle of the road, I was a bit rusty so we were not
good enough to impress anyone but it was a fun encounter none the less.
I arrived in a place called Buga, a very religious city with
more churches then people I think, I treated myself to a hostel as my body had
been complaining a lot that day, and was very glad I had made that decision
because by pure chance I met another cyclist, who had come to the hostel just
for a beer and some pizza, a French guy doing the whole hog right from Alaska down
to Patagonia. Drank some beers, swapped some stories and planned to meet the
next morning and continue on together, we have been travelling together for the
past 4 days.
We had a short day from Buga to Cali only 50km or so and
made big plans for the night, to discover the Salsa scene in Cali, we scoured
the city for the cheapest hostel without finding anything cheaper than the
first place we looked, but had a nice tour of the place in the process, after
cooking an enormous pasta dinner in preparation for the next day which probably
doubled my weight we both fell into food comers and our plans were over. |
| stole some bricks for the hell of it. |
Our plans for an early start failed and we didn’t leave the
city until almost 10 due to roadwork’s blocking the main route south which we meant
we had to negotiate the backstreets as if trying to exit a ginormous maze. The day
started off easy but become more physical as we began entering the andes. But cycling is certainly more enjoyable with
some company, toward the end of the day we were climbing a fair bit and began
trying to catch the big lorries and steal from free kilometres, it was very fun
and we have decided that its not cheating became its almost as difficult to
keep hold of the trucks with all our weight than it is to pedal, but it ended
in tears when Simon got to big for his boots and tried to grab one going a
little bit too fast with tired arms and lost control, he was sent down and got
some nasty grazes but incredibly lucky not to be hurt more than that. We
stopped to tend to his injuries and ate some dinner at a roadside restaurant
but Night time approached and were we still 15km of climbing away from a town
so we started looking for a place to camp. After asking at a military base they
declined us on the grounds that it was very dangerous (we are travelling a region
of conflict with the FARC guerrillas), which we couldn’t really understand as
there must have been 25 armed military to protect us. I guess they didn’t have
much faith in themselves. We climbed another 2 km and spotted a nice looking
farm up on the hill, I went to ask permission to camp on their land and after
being very cautious of at first they offered us an empty outhouse to camp
out in, which was much appreciated as it rained most of the night. The old lady
there was lovely and gave us a tour of their small coffee farm and talked lots
about many things that neither of us really understood but it was very
interesting none the less. We got off to an early start mainly thanks to the
chicken house behind us housing a gang of very persistent cockerels who started
their cock a doodle doing way before sunrise. We were very kindly treated to
some breakfast and sent on our way. |
| the coffee factory |
we arrived in Popayan, it was great, all the
roads were closed for cars and for some reason there were groups of people on
the side of the road clapping and cheering and giving us support. We soon
realised when 50 spandexed cyclists passed us at speeds so fast they were
barely visible to the human eye that we had arrived during a national cycling
race. We had lunch in Popayan which incidentally was a beautiful city; In the
centre every building was as white as the average American supermodels front teeth.
We also enjoyed the excessive amount of applause as we explored the city
apparently full to the brim with budding cycling enthusiasts, it made us feel real
special.
The afternoon was difficult, lots of climbing and the roads
were as wholly as Swiss cheese. We finished the day with a very steep 8km climb
up to a town called Rosas which unfortunately didn’t reflect the beauty of its
name, it was a bit of a dump, we found a hospedaje (a cheap motel) for about £2
each, ate, and then I for one slept like little baby. These past few days I
have noticed my body adapting to the task at hand, as if it’s coming to terms
with what I am making it do and starting to give up complaining and just get on
with it. Hills are becoming easier and I am starting not to notice the weight
so much, saying that it has been far from easy, just slightly easier than it
was at the start.
The next day started perfectly, 15km of downhill with a view
that was so beautiful that it stole way to much of my attention and almost sent
me flying in to the abyss. Followed by a short 6km steep climb, the rest of the
day was pretty flat so we planned to smash some kilometres but by midday our
flow was disrupted by a flat tyre on my back wheel, which was followed 200
metres later by another and then the realisation that my back tyre had worn
itself a massive whole after only doing its job for 3 weeks (that’s what you
get for spending £3 on a tyre) luckily I bought a spare in Popayan the previous
day so changed it over, another 100 meters later and my tyre was flat again, crappy glue
patches I think, so I chucked on a fresh tube and that was enough to satisfy
the greedy thing. Needless to say this ate us a good part of the afternoon. We
arrived late afternoon is a town consisting of not much more than a gas station
and a restaurant and decided to by some food and some beer and find a spot to
camp. As we were organising our evening in the one store in town a guy rocked
up on a fully loaded royal Enfield, with a ton of character. A very British man named Harry with a British
accent that made me sound American he was on a round the world trip trying to
run his diesel engine on veg oil but apparently not having a whole load of
success, he was on his fourth engine of the trip, It seems the veg oil isn’t great
for the health of the engine. We invited him to join us in our camp in the
field behind the hotel for a beer and swapped stories of our travels. He spent
the night sat in a field next to some cow shit after paying for a nice comfortable
room but it’s the company that counts.  |
| camp |
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| Robertos reserve |
That brings us to today, Today we really started climbing,
this morning I think we started around 500m and are now at about 2300m. The
heat this morning was unbearable it must have been in the mid thirtys but as we
started to climb higher and higher the climate started to change with the
altitude, After having climbed about 50km a beaten up old jeep stopped and a
friendly looking old man offered for us to stay at his ecological reserve
located another 80km up the road, We knew that it would not be possible to get
that far so he offered us a lift, which we quickly accepted due to the heat
which by that time was started to wear me down as well as causing rust to form
on my bike from the constant stream of sweat that was running off my nose. A
lovely old man, Roberto, we somehow crammed ourselves along with our bikes and
gear into the little jeep and enjoyed a very easy and comfortable 80km climb,
this brought us up to 2300m where the climate is far more manageable. The views
as we drove up the valley were stunning; we are well and truly in the Andes now,
Roberto stopped at a few viewpoints to give us some lessons in geography,
explained the lay of the land, how it was formed, and when, which I almost
understood with my desperate but ever improving grasp of Spanish . I am writing
to you now from Roberto’s reserve it is a research centre for reforestation and
as far as I understand at the moment he is working on repopulating the forest
with orchids. He dropped us here, told us to feel at home and left, so we have
the use of this amazing place at our disposal, a kitchen full of food, warm
beds and electricity. The extent of human kindness I have experienced on this
trip so far has been really touching, we are now only a day away from the Ecuadorian
border.
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