Colombia tour day 7: Climbing out of the river

This morning we broke our rain duck and set off in the drizzle. We'd had an interesting night, and it wasn't like we could get much wetter. We'd woken up at 1am to find that the waterproofing on our tent ground sheet had failed for the first time in our experience. Wherever there was anything pressing on it, water was coming through. To be fair to it, at this point we were pretty much camped in the middle of a small lake, so it wasn't really surprising - most of the footprint in the porch area had a small river running through it. We discussed our options and went for the, let's just sleep on the thermorests without any bedding option and use our waterproofs for pillows. Everything else went into ortlieb panniers and the dry bag. The thunderstorm overhead with accompanying torrential rain made no signs that it would like to move on, and neither of us wanted to go outside in the rain. Surprisingly, it worked. By 6am, Joth had started to get a little cold as his mat was waterlogged, but we had both got more sleep than expected. It had started raining heavily at 7pm last night and while it was still raining at 10am, it was much lighter. Up until today the only rain we've seen was heavy showers, but over fairly quickly. The weather had clearly been lulling us into a false sense in security. This is Colombia's rainy season after all.

The restaurant at the campsite didn't open until 8am, so we opted to get a few km of climb in before breakfast. We stopped at a small deserted cafe a few km up the road for a traditional breakfast. Two minutes after we sat down a number of trucks turned up with their drivers all sitting down for their regular breakfast. We've not done so well for choosing places to eat over the last couple of days, but we seem to be getting the hang of it at last. We've been finding it difficult to spot places which are open and actually serving hot food. We managed a traditional lunch today too for a change: soup followed by meat, fish or eggs served with rice, vegetables, plantain, beans and sometimes potato or cavassa. Colombians traditionally eat a large breakfast, a large late lunch and a small evening meal. Trying to get a full meal in the evening can sometimes be difficult and get you some strange looks. Unusually, the truck stop hospedaje we are staying in tonight do serve a full meal in the evening, though we managed to resist it.

Today has been full of climbing. We've had a fair amount of descending too but we won't be dropping below 1000m above sea level again for several days. This is a good thing, as we both find the heat and humidity a challenge at the lower altitudes. We've spent all day on the Pan-American highway. The views are splendid, but the traffic and disappearing shoulder make things challenging sometimes. There are a lot of very slow trucks on the climbs, and busses and other trucks frequently overtake when they don't have visibility. Twice today we've seen traffic in one lane grind to a halt as an overtaking vehicle has come nose to nose with oncoming vehicles. In general the traffic is very courteous when passing, there have been a few close passes when a truck is overtaking a truck who is overtaking us. There isn't much spare room on the road in that situation. Tomorrow we'll continue on up the Pan-American highway to the plateau on which Medellín is situated.

Colombia day 6: down by the river side

In many ways today was quite unremarkable, which given the last couple was exactly what we needed. Caparrapí, being sat atop a huge ridge line, offered a fine 1200m descent to start of the day. Although the town was completely shrouded in cloud as we left, we soon dropped through it and never needed any layers. The road has relatively recently been sealed which made for a nice fun freewheel to test out our repaired freewheel. I was glad this worked as according to Strava's routing engine there was no way to connect through, as if the road didn't exist, but the last 2 day's routing was made entirely on the premise we could! (Google Street view plus some local knowledge had helped allay the worst of those fears).

We started the day up there in those clouds!

Once at the valley floor we were getting close to sea level, so the temperature rapidly rose to over 33C, and it  was still only 9 in the morning!

First we rejoined the Rio Negra, the same river we'd followed on Monday's epic decent through Pacho, but soon turned West from it to climb over to Rio Magdelana. This is the defining river of this valley, and of much of Colombia, running right through the country from the Andes in the South to the Caribbean sea to the North. Over it's history it had also carved a very wide flat flood plane, which was good news for us as it made for a couple hours of flat to slightly downhill constant paced riding. The wind was still but the pace was enough to create some cooling breeze to regulate our temperature so we made good time: in 50mins covering the same distance as we did all of of the previous day!

Fairly regularly throughout the day we passed small towns or roadside communities with many tasty looking food and drinks establishments, but alas our bellies were not synchronized to these services so it was just a few "motorway service stops" for us, but randonneuring style they did the job.

Powering our way along, in the ample sized shoulder of the dual carriage divided road, we had fun playing"guess the animal" for the road warning signs. Snakes, monkeys, anteaters, cyote, foxes all appeared on these signs but alas we didn't see any of those in the flesh.

In the afternoon we left the river turning west towards the Andes foothills and, eventually, Medellin. This meant end of the fast rolling roads (for today, and probably for the rest of our trip!) and into climbing mode. The road reduced down to single lane non-divided road, and then the shoulder mostly disappeared, meaning a bit more testing riding among the traffic. The previous road was toll road and surprisingly quiet, but now we had some more bursty traffic to deal with. As the rolling climbs started the afternoon temperature was really rising, hitting 37C at one point.

Eventually we made it to our chosen destination for the day, Rio Claro nature reserve. 130km riden was very pleasing progress after the snags of the previous day.

The nature reserve offered camping so we thought we'd try that - seeing as we lugged the tent all this way might as well use it. Somewhat mixed experience so far though: camping costs more than the onsuite hotel rooms of the last few nights, and for that we get a boggy litter strewn field by a rather buggy river (later with added tropical rainstorm!).  This is bit of a quandary for us, as hotels have worked so well we'll likely not try and camp again (at least not in an official site) which means we're lugging 15kg of unnecessary gear with us - putting extra load on that fragile freewheel hub. Oh well, benefits of hindsight and all that! (We'd been plenty warned of this, but just didn't feel right setting off in an unknown country without the backup of our own tent until we tried it for ourselves)

On the plus side the nature reservation does look fascinating if here in the right conditions and lots of time to spare, with some really well organized activities from canopy walkways to swimming into caves etc to take on, in the sub-tropical rain forest. We debated putting tomorrow over to sight seeing here, but it would mean either starting riding in the hottest part of afternoon or staying in the bog another night and squashing our schedule of a day. Instead we'll probably aim for a good early start to get in some distance before it gets too hot. We have several days of solid climbing ahead, but thankfully that means decreasing temperatures again.

Colombia day 5: The kindness of strangers

The most important lesson learnt today was: always make sure you've put bearings in your hub before reassembling it. It's been another fun day!

This morning started very like the previous two; leave our accommodation and climb straight up a hill. Fortunately it was paved, so there wasn't an immediate attack of the grumps. The views were also pretty amazing. We had woken up to see cloud swirling around the village and had expected to climb in cloud for a while, but by the time we had called in at the bakery and actually got onto the road it was clear. Very warm and humid though. The descent down the far side turned to a rough gravel surface pretty quickly with lots of landslides and washouts. The busses were still making it through though, one every half hour or so. It was soon clear to us on the descent that we'd got a problem with the rear wheel - we'd broken the freehub, again. The last time we were in South America it signalled the end of our tour. This time we had come prepared, or so we thought. We limped on to Caparrapi which perches high on a ridge between two steep valleys.

While stopped at one of the main junctions in the centre, one of the locals asked what we were looking for (in English), and directed us to a hostel. The very accommodating owner let us store Dobbin in the bar next door. After a quick shower it was time to tackle the freehub before lunch. The NBT2 (next best thing 2) had the cassette off without a problem, and the cone spanners had the bearing races off in super quick time. We had gained a helper in a local called Carlos by this time, come to check out what we were doing. We then hit a snag. The what remained of the freehub was held on by the body fixing bolt which required a 10mm Allen wrench to remove it. The largest size we had with us was 8mm, of course. Carlos came to the rescue and took us for a tour of the town, visiting businesses who might be have such a thing. The bicycle shop was unfortunately closed, as was one of the garages. We finally found one in the fifth business (a motorbike repair shop). As we had the new freehub body with us, it was a 30 second task to remove the remains of the old one and screw the new one on. We had been a little concerned that the body fixing bolt had been damaged, but a quick inspection showed that the damage was mainly to the freehub, with some relatively minor damage to the axle threads. By this point we were starting to get hungry. We were on a roll though, so it seemed to make sense to finish the job. After trying to work out why the hub was always either too loose, or binding and having reassembled everything for the 23rd time, Joth realised what was missing. In our excitement, we'd not transferred the drive side bearings from the old freehub to the new one, no wonder it didn't work. We didn't have any grease either, but fortunately we knew a man who did. Carlos went and fetched his pot of grease. After realigning the axle and reassembling for the last time, we were good to go. It would have perhaps been better if we had eaten lunch before attempting the repair! We had a quick spin around the block, then went for a large and late lunch across the road and shared a beer while discussing the food and the football with the help of Google Translate (England vs Brazil was on the TV). The Google Translate app has helped a great deal on this trip. It's amazing how often that you can't remember the right word in the right language when you need it. Having a written translate facility when offline is so useful too. 

After a quick siesta, we met up with Carlos for a tour of the town followed by a beer in one of the bakeries. We were joined by Carlos's friend Julio and passed a pleasant couple of hours. We have met with nothing but friendliness in Colombia, and today was perfect example of why we love touring. Caparrapi is a town serving a large municipality containing 20 000 people. It is not somewhere which appears in any of the guidebooks or tour bus routes, yet the views are amazing, and the people as wonderful as you'll find anywhere. Visiting places like this, and meeting people like Carlos is why we do this.

Colombia day 4: Welcome to the Jungle

Today was on of those days of cycling touring where everything goes according to plan, but by the end of it you feel anything like it - because the plan toured out to be far tougher than either us realized. Blame rests with the NASA GDEM elevation data and it's low quality around deep gorges, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Our Zipaquira hostel provided a great breakfast in the bargain ($8 ea) but it did take a little while to get the cooking going. While scoffing it down our table neighbors, from bogotá, mentioned they were planning to cycle all the way from home to Ushua and back. Thus insued a lengthy discussion about the wonders and challenges of Patagonia. It was facinating they'd not considered that Patagonian winter is in June not December, leaving their planned dates (or starting next month) a full 6 months out of phase with the ideal. I guess seasons are hard enough to grok when you live in a country on the equator that has no seasons, let alone having to deal with southern hemisphere opposites. Anyway it was really fun to describe our time there back in 2011, and also quite interesting to reflect that that was the last time we were on a proper cycle tour until this one.

We eventually got away about 8.30, not too bad but did mean 3 hours, or almost one quarter, of today's day light had already passed us for the day. Another subtlety of being on the equator: day never lasts longer (or shorter) than 12 hours.  We were keen to get going as we knew we had a long day planned - even if the toughness was not fully known.

It started with a steep but we'll graded climb out of the West of town, for about 10miles and 2000 feet. Being a public holiday Monday, plenty of locals were out making this climb too, so we had a good steady assent shouting a Buenos each time we were passed. At the top we made the first of many soda stops for the day, before starting out on "the" descent of the day.

And what a descent! As we rounded the corner at the top of the pass we cut through to another valley, and found ourselves staring down a rolling green meadows and on to the top of a huge cloud bank, blocking the further view. Fascinating to be sandwiched between cloud layers!

The descent continued for 30miles and 7000 feet, so of course we broke through the clouds into spectacular view of the gorge we were descending into. Part way down we passed through Pacho, self proclaimed capital of oranges, with many stands selling them around the town. We hadn't planned to stop here but navigating was tricky and we happened to stop for map discussion right out side a bakery, so second elevensies was procured. 

As the road continued down, we'd been told how the temperature would rise; from about 15C to almost 30C. Another fact of being on the equator is the climate is largely dictated by altitude. But what we'd not been prepared for was the change in dominant foliage that went with it. Looking back the farm lands of Zipaquira recalled Scotland in a very lush year. But this one short freewheel downhill and suddenly we were in subtropical jungle plants, and associated changes in bird calls and other sounds. Really breathtaking to experience, doubly so as hitting the cloud layers we'd been bracing for cold but got this instead!

As the valley floor levelled out we passed many small shop-cum-cafes that make the roads here so amenable for cycling, but one really caught our eyes as it advertised "camping", first time we'd seen this. Too early to stop for the day, but we did stop for some lunch and another cold drink, and noted the location of the facility so I can add it to Google maps and generally make other cyclists aware of it via this blog. 

Soon after lunch the road turned away from the river and we started the last smallish climb up our destination town, La Palma. And here's where the challenge really started: rather than a small climb it was a fairly decent 1500ft ascent and at steep grade. And there was a second problem: ever since we summited the first pass this morning the roads had made a significant drop in quality, generally nicely paved but with occasional sections of 100m or more where the tarmac had been completely washed away and there was just the rocky and muddy base remaining. Aircraft sized potholes if you like. Well, the frequency of these holes increased as we progressed, and by these climbs it was more "spot the  patch of tarmac" in any given mile of rocks. Climbing steeply on this surface in the heat was tough work.  

Eventually we crested the climb, just as we emptied the last of our water, and sighed relief it was just 10km to go. Only, this was another steep drop still on rocky road, followed by another 1000ft climb. So the final 5km took about 1H20 to complete, with some impromptu stops to grab more sodas ("gaseosa") at the town swimming pool on the way in. So it was 5pm, just 30mins before sunset, that we stopped at the first of the hotels in town - Masion Rose. We must have looked quite a sight! But the landlady was just down the street chatting with neighbor, and came running up to welcome splattered us and grubby Dobbin in. Another bargain: $13 for onsuite double room. A much needed shower and Google translate jumped to our rescue in helping us get restaurant recommendations, a tasty parillia grill, and the land lady walked us around there, and went and found the grill owner who was across the street nattering in a hairdressers shop. If this sounds like the kind of town where everyone spends much of their time in each other's shops you're getting the idea. Tranquilo.

Feasting on pork and rice and fries really hit the spot, with some recovery drinks and pastries really rounded out the evening.

A totally amazing, and truly awesome day. Even tougher than expected,  and has truly taken us off the beaten track even for locals tourism routes. Tomorrow we have more climbs and broken roads to Caparrapí and then it's down to the Magelana River and busy highways. But for tonight, we'll sleep well and savor some well earnedmemories.

Colombia day 3: Look Dobbin, mountains!

The 6am alarm felt far too early, again, but we made it down to breakfast for 7am. It's nice to eat a hotel breakfast and not feel like you've consumed your regular calorie intake for an entire week. After running our errands and packing our bags we managed to get on the road by 8:45. The ciclovia was in full swing and the road was full of cyclists and the occasional runner as we made the turn for our main climb of the day: Patios! This is a famous local climb with thousands of cyclists attempting it every weekend. The road was still open to traffic, but was generally very tolerant of the bicycles weaving their way up. The range of cyclists and bikes was huge, though most were traveling faster than us. There were surprisingly large number of mountain bikes both hardtails and full suspension. Given the steepness of the hills, I can understand the desire for lower gears than you get on many road bikes.

Patios was a great way teave Bogota, as soon as you make the turn you are leaving the city behind and once through the crush of cyclists at the top it was into green open farm land. Despite the summit of the climb being almost 10000 feet, we never felt the need for more than shorts and a t-shirt although it would have been quite different if it had started to rain. There were still huge numbers of cyclists around and it was easy to spot our mid morning snack point by the number of bikes. Elisa had given us a great tip about a couple of roadside shacks selling the traditional arepa, a ground maize flat bread filled with cheese.

The road surfaces were quite variable, and there was a number of sections of road with roadworks, one way traffic and gravel surfaces. Dobbin of course ate them all up and we made it to Zipaquirá in time for lunch at a cafe on the main square. Colombia seems to have some similarities to France - plenty of grizzled old men on road bikes, lots of bread and many, many places to buy fresh pastries. I don't think I'm going to be losing My weight on this trip! Lunch was savory pastries filled with cheese and chicken followed by a delicious pastry with layers of honey custard between flakey pastry layers and topped with something incredibly sweet. Yum. After lunch it was a quick walk up to the big local tourist attraction - the salt cathedral. We had just missed the start of the English language tour, so it turned out to be a quick run up the hill to catch them. I haven't really noticed the altitude when cycling, but definitely know about it when walking or jogging up hill! Thus the first tourist attraction of our visit was achieved. 

 

Our first proper day cycling touring for quite some time has gone well, and we are getting back into the swing of it. Tomorrow we face some more rural roads and more climbs. We are looking forward to it.

Colombia day 2: Discovering Bogotá

Friday evening we went out for dinner with Elisa and Roland, relations of some of our SF Randonneuring friends, and new friends of ours. They are keen cyclists themselves and so were able to point out various suggestions and tips for our planned tour. Roland is also a Brit himself, lived in Colombia for 4 years now so interesting to get his take on life here. Describing the various adventures they'd taken his parents on when they'd visited I had to smile to myself at the thought of guiding my own worried mother around the Colombian countryside 😮😀

Elisa invited us on her morning cycle the next day, but a 5am start didn't sound appealing with our jetlag so instead we had a decent lay in before grabbing breakfast. Our hotel breakfast was quite satisfying but we were both intrigued by how petite we found it. Most likely five years in USA have made us come to expect breakfast portions that would do for lunch as well. I think the meal size here is what we'd have previously considered "normal"

Spent the morning doing a gentle shakedown ride on Dobbin, over to an outdoor store and back, to also get a few things we couldn't fly with (camping gas) or got confiscated in airport security (water bottle)

The plan for the afternoon was to stroll around Parque 93 area our hotel is in. On our second café stop I decided I could do with a more substantial wallet ("billetera") as rifiling through strange foreign notes in an audaxer's wallet (clear plastic bag) was feeling unnecessarily conspicuous. Thus began a journey to the El Retiro shopping area of town.
Uber is a fantastic invention of convenience for the taxi user, and doubly so when in a foreign country where taxi drivers all speak foreign and are frequently center of suspicion even for locals. However, while Uber is very common here it's the source of great animosity from said taxi drivers. Combined with the questionable to downright objectionable practices of corporate side of the company, we thought it time to try the highly recommended local taxi app, Tappsi. This was surprisingly easy to install and use: excellent English UI and good features rating and tracking rides and improving security. The one real snag we had with it was just as we were about to climb into our cab, a bird decided to crap right on my outheld mobile phone screen, so the initial interactions with the driver were extra challenging, trying to read the confirmation code and destination off the app without flinging or smearing more poo around the place.

Anyhow, despite that one glitch (which I can't blame the app for really) the ride and the trip were successes. Evening meal was a pizza washed down by a couple of fine beers courtesy of the BBC - that is the Bogotá Beer Company.

  

Colombia Day 1: Welcome to Bogata

Yesterday was busy. We woke up in an empty house in Sunnyvale, and went to sleep on a (4.5 hour) overnight plane from Houston to Bogota. In between we had wet-eyed goodbyes with neighbours and our landlady, took 1.5 hours to get ourselves, bags and the tandem checked in (the most nerve-testing tandem check in yet), and enjoyed the hospitality of the United Airlines club lounge.

Bye bye bay area

This morning I was woken up by the announcement that we were starting our descent into Bogota, and looked out of the window next to me to see a river of orange winding its way through the darkness shrouded landscape below - The PanAmerican highway! The clouds soon covered the landscape again and we spent most of the descent in some of the most amazing cloud formations. A good start to the day.

So far our experiences in Colombia have been brilliant, and everything we've led to expect and more. The queue for immigration was not short (but took less time than it did to check in), and negotiating customs was interesting but everyone was friendly and helpful. Tip: Having a receipt for high value items like a tandem is a good idea. We had arranged a taxi through our hotel to transport out mountain of luggage and it was wonderful to exit customs to have the driver waiting to help us transport the boxed Dobbin, two overweight suitcases, two duffel bags and two laptop bags to the car. We are not travelling light on this trip! The journey to our hotel was longer than we expected as we were crossing the city in rush hour. It was great to see the high quality and well used bike paths, and watch the mopeds and motorbikes weave through the nose to tail traffic with the jam packed busses of the rapid transit bus system travelling in their own lanes.

Today has mostly been about getting ourselves oriented and organised. After checking in and a quick breakfast at a coffee and bakery store we headed over to the google office for the first of three visits. The googlers at the office have been amazingly friendly and have been a great source of information. Dobbin appears to have survived the trip, so the remained of today will be spent getting him ready to ride around locally tomorrow, and finding an evening meal before getting an early night and some well much needed sleep.

LEL is go! Rides of inappropriate distance

Sat at louth, 240km into our 1450km ride. Lovely morning but hit by a huge storm 30 mins before this control, now drying out a bit

To track us, use:

this link
or

https://londonedinburghlondon.com/tracking-chart-distance-time/