Colombia day 21: The last leg

Today was our final day cycling in Colombia. It's been a truly amazing experience, everything we'd hoped for and more. 

The day started unsurprisingly with some climbing to get us up and over the ridge into the Bogotá plain. We had originally thought that we might finish our tour in Honda and get a taxi to transport us and Dobbin back to Bogatá, as we'd heard that the climbs back up were heavily trafficked and uninspiring. In the end it was easier for us to cycle back, and with the help of Strava heatmap chose to climb up most of the way on a secondary road. This worked perfectly, the climbing yesterday was on one of the least trafficked roads we've had here, and the views were, of course spectacular. Being slightly off the main tourist and trucking routes also takes to smaller towns with a more authentic feel. The first hour today continued on the same road, where we had a couple of different cyclists ride with us and attempt to chat. Our Spanish is improving, but general conversation is still not really possible. We've got quite good at guessing the questions people ask about us and our trip and giving an appropriate response. Most of the time we have no idea if we've just answered the question asked though.

The last part of today's ride was on the busy autopista, and on a mixture of large roads and cycle paths into Bogotá. Standard fare for cycling into a major city, and while it seemed chaotic in places it's not that dangerous as everyone is moving along at around the same low speed. The segregated bike lanes (also segregated from the pedestrian paths), made a nice change from the chaos on the road.

We had a little change of plan when we turned up at the airport hotel we'd booked. They really were not happy about allowing bicycles inside, and insisted that it needed to be left outside. Given we were planning on leaving the bike at the hotel while we go and see the Amazon for a few days, this didn't seem like a sensible plan. Instead we made use of the free cancellation policy and rode in towards the centre, to stay at the hotel we stayed at when we first arrived in Colombia. About 10 minutes away from the hotel it started raining. Really, really heavily raining. Apparently it's been quite wet in Bogotá over the last few weeks, so it makes us feel good that we've been lucky with the weather. We pulled up at the hotel soaked through, but still received a really warm "welcome home" from the staff who quickly checked us in and found Dobbin a safe a dry place to sleep. 

We'll be resting tomorrow then fly to Leticia Saturday for 4 nights staying with an indigenous village in the jungle! This will likely be the last blog post of the trip, we'll aim to put a few photos and things on Facebook: http://fb.me/TandemThings

Tour summary: https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=16e7a59f417084160a&showInfo=yes&showHome=yes&hoursPast=0&fillFactor=40&zoomLevel=10&showAll=yes

Colombia day 20: from bogs to Bogotá

The trick with long distance riding in lumpy terrain is keeping in mind the total climb in the ride, not the absolute altitude you're heading towards. This is a mindset I learnt when randonneuring, but turns out it applies pretty well to cycle touring too.

Reason I mention this is that our day consisted entirely of climbing into the Andes for the third time, on the home stretch towards Bogotá. Our stretch goal for the day was Guayabal de Síquima, which sits at a sweet 1630m elevation, 1400m higher than we started the day. If that's all there was to it, we'd have reached it just after lunchtime. However, as the road topology works here there was a sharp 500m drop immediately after hitting that target elevation, and then we got to spend 2+ hours of the afternoon regaining that height sweltering meter by meter, in 28C heat. The Relive video actually illustrates this pretty nicely: https://www.relive.cc/view/1295945834

Had we just been focused on getting to 1630m we'd have had a shock, but fortunately we'd figured out today had at least 2000m of total ascent so keeping that in mind it's much easier to track progress to the goal. 

Anyway, the day could have gone very differently indeed. It started off at about 5mins past midnight with Emma rushing to the bathroom with upset stomach. Something we ate last night hadn't settled well. Possibly the impossibly large fruit salad hadn't been prepared with the cleanest of water. Or maybe just the long day of riding into the heat had unsettled things. Combined with the insanely hot and humid room we were sleeping in (drawback of being back down by the river at 250m - along with the bugs!) it wasn't a restful night. Fortunately come sunrise at 6am Emma was feeling more settled so we were able to get up and out for an early start - if only to get out into cooler air before the sun really got going. Breakfast was tentatively eaten by Emma, but she found eggs and rice went down we'll, and at 7.45 we started the riding - that is to say, climbing - for the day. The temperature was soon at 29C, but happily the higher we crept the cooler it got.

The climb went back through the layers of vegetation and fauna we're now used to seeing with elevation change. There's the coffee plants. Now butterflies - including a second sighting of a huge 6" wingspan electric blue Morpho butterfly. 

(Not our photo)

Cambao had also been awash with stray dogs, mostly docile but we had to deal with a persistent begger while we were breakfasting. Poor thing obviously had a litter of pups somewhere, but seemed wrong to encourage it in someone else's town. Anyway all the way up the climb we saw regular ferrel perros ducking in and out of the undergrowth. Majority were tame but occasionally a pack of 3 or so mught take too much interest in the strange double headed tandem beast passing by and come barking and chasing us. Happily Emma has finessed her loud "NO" with teacher quality finger point, which does wonders in stopping them in there tracks (if occasionally nearly causes me to leap off the bike in shock).

We climbed slowly in order to not stress Emma's belly, and it seemed to work as she got stronger as the day went on. We were rewarded with great views, and a great lunch.

Our hostal tonight is one of the more unusual arrangements. The first hotel we stopped at wad locked up and banging the door gave no answer. Same with the second, but this time a hand written note said to call a number. I have it a go and got through first time. The guy that answered seemed a bit surprised, got the gist of what I was trying to ask in Spanish, then thankfully realized English would be easier for us both and he could speak it. And then he got a friend to come around and open it up for us. So we don't just have a room but a whole hostal to ourselves, including the front door key to come and go as we like. It's a very nice building with a roof terrace overlooking the town square. Interestingly the rather eccentric chap who cooked a burger for us at the nearest hole-in-the-wall eatery also spoke great English. This is in no way a tourist town so I guess just a sign we're getting back close to Bogotá.

Speaking of which, only about 65km remains to get back to the airport, with about 1000m of climbing. So we should be there sometime tomorrow afternoon! Can't believe this amazing tour is coming to a close, but it will leave us a few days free for the next chapter of our Colombia adventure, which Emma might write a bit about tomorrow.

Colombia day 19: Ups and downs, lots of downs!

Today has been dominated by Nevada del Ruiz. Last night we were staying in a hotel with hot springs provided by that volcano and this morning we cycled up over the closest road pass to it before descending almost to sea level where we passed through the ghost town of Armero. This poor town was destroyed in the the eruption of the volcano in 1985. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the volcano today due to there being a lot of cloud this morning. 

We started out a little late having been unable to resist spending some more time feeding the hummingbirds and mockingbirds at the hotel. That was one of the most amazing and unexpected pleasures we've had on this trip. After a 500m climb taking us over 4000m altitude while cycling for only the second time - the other time was on our previous South America trip. We then had to descend before climbing to the Letras pass which was 300m lower than our highest point. There were a number of other climbs of 100m or more on the first half of the descent. Overall, it was definitely a day of descending though.

Due to our ever changing plans, we departed from our originally planned route on the descent and then turned South at Mariquita. This town marks the official start of the Letras climb 'the longest climb in the world'. There were plenty of bike shops in town which enabled us to pick up an spare chain in case of more failures. It took a couple of attempts to find though as the first shop we visited didn't carry anything so old fashioned as a 9sd chain! This road also took us through Armero. I remember covering a little bit about the tragedy there in Geography in school. A disaster which claimed 20 000 people out of a population of around 29 000, and occurred through a tragic combination of circumstances, miss-communication and lack of resources. There were several more thousand killed elsewhere in the same eruption, most notably in Chinchiná close to the coffee farm we visited a couple of days ago.

Our target destination for today was Cambao, a distance of 152km. A long day, but we made it into town as the sun set behind the mountains behind us. Tomorrow we start the long climb up to Bogatá.

Colombia day 18: getting into hot water via buckets of cold water

Today's ride went up. And up. And up.

Getting out of Manizales was exciting, as they don't do shallow inclines in the slightest. We plummetted down to the main road to Letras, the famous high pass to the west of the city as featured regularly in Veluta Colombia and known as The Longest Climb In The World. That's with regards to the Eastern side, which we'll have the joy of descending tomorrow. But first we had to summit it. 

We decided not to crawl up the main road but instead take a secondary road, that passes by some thermal spring areas on the edge of the volcano range we were hiking on 2 days ago.

We were encouraged at first to see a group of 8 road cyclists heading up past us: suggests paved roads! An hour later we passed them again coming back down. They'd reached the end of paved roads no doubt. Indeed at 13km mark the road gave way to gravel, which we'd be on for the remaining 12km to our destination for the day. The maths is pretty simple from here: 12km across and 1200m vertical assent, so a 10% average grade. Fortunately it didn't fluctuate too much, a few flatter bits and a few ramps in the 13-15% area but otherwise very constant.

By 15km the mist had turned to light rain, and another km it got heavier. Only the second time we'd needed to don rain jackets this tour, which is not bad for 18 days in rainy season! At 20km / 3000m elevation, there was a short flatter bit where water was really starting to pool up in giant muddy puddles, then it went steeply up again. As I shifted back into lowest gear there was a BANG and the pedals went limp under us. Broken chain. Fortunately we'd packed spares for such an eventuality so was only a few minutes job to pull out the mangled link and put in a quick link to replace it.

As we crept upwards we could feel the air getting thinner and breathing more difficult. The temperature also dropped to 7C, along with the heavy rain we were starting to get pretty cold if we stopped. Keep moving to keep warm! Thankfully the rain never turned torrential - not enough to form rivers in the ripio - so it was quite manageable even with occasional patches of slippery muddy sections.

At last the Termales Ruiz hotel and hot springs came into view! A glad sight. Just as we were checking in, a large group of French pensioners rolled in. The same group we saw at the coffee farm doing a tour yesterday afternoon! We're clearly still on the gringo trail then, despite our adventurous routing choices of the day. We'll try the springs and sleep here today, then head over the top of the pass tomorrow at about 4000m! The highest point of our tour, and all down hill from here to Bogotá (except we dipn below its height and will need to reclimb 4500m back up to it...)

Colombia day 17: Coffee break

Today we learnt why the coffee you get to drink in Colombia is generally poor. The big cooperative which the vast majority of the coffee is sold through only exports the highest quality beans, keeping the second and third class beans for domestic use. Coffee is probably the most popular hot drink we've seen, but hot chocolate (made with water or milk) has always been an option for breakfast, and herbal tea and aqua de panela (made with sugarcane) are often options. When coffee or chocolate are made with milk, they seem to be served scoldingly hot. 

After a relative lie in we had time to squeeze in a hot breakfast provided by the hostel before the jeep transporting us to our coffee farm tour arrived. It was a pretty tame 45 minute journey compared to yesterday's epic adventure. The tour group was pretty big but worked pretty well. It was almost an even split between the British, Canadians and French with a couple of Greeks and a German to complete the mix. The first part of the tour was learning about the history of coffee and the processes used to make it. Central Colombia seems to be a bit like the Goldilocks of coffee. Not too hot (or cold), too wet (or dry) or too high altitude (or low). Being close to the equator means that they harvest beans year round, although there is still a peak season for berries. We learnt a lot about the way coffee is grown in Colombia with the vast majority of producers growing only one or two hectares. The farm we visited was one of the largest in Colombia with 120 hectares of coffee plants. Colombia still manages to be the third largest coffee producer in the world however. Like almost all the coffee plantations we've seen on our travels here, coffee plants are mixed with other plants like plantains to provide shade and additional soil nutrients. 

Producers can sell direct to markets but most choose to sell through a cooperative which will guarantee a sale. Price is broadly set by the central coffee market prices (for Colombian coffee this is in New York), but is adjusted for quality and transportation costs. The cooperatives also fund research into more pest and desease resistant plants as well as more efficient machinery for processing the coffee beans. Due to the wet climate, beans here are wet processed. The fermentation part of this process has caused the smell we've frequently found on our travels. The beans we've seen on grids and on sheets on the road have been the final part of the process before the beans are bagged and sold. The cooperative generally then performs the final shelling process before the beans are ready for export. This farm sells a proportion of its beans to the tourist trade locally so has a roasting facility here. As coffee beans are best used within around three weeks of roasting, the vast majority are shipped before roasting.

After an exhaustive morning learning about coffee it was time for a relaxed lunch, before some serious hammock time before traveling back to Manizales. Much more restful than yesterday!

Colombia day 16: Colombia high on the white(ish) stuff

That's right: we went in search of snow.

The 4.15am alarm seemed very early. Guess we need rest days like this to make us appreciate the cycling days all the more!

The part of Los Nevados park we were headed to can only be reached by some 3 hours of dirt road (more like offroad) driving. Along with the altitude gain and distinct gasoline fumes in the aging and abused Land Cruiser, we were all a bit bleary and weary before any hiking started! We were in a small group with 3 other English speakers - a mother and preteen daughters from Canada who moved to Colombia in August. Fascinating to hear their stories! (Dad is busy studying for Masters so they get out the way every weekend doing something fun). There were probably 10 jeeps heading up in all, the rest with domestic tourists I believe.

The drive up probably did have the best views of the day, both stunning and precarious roads on sheer mountain sides, and up towards the central range of volocanos we were heading towards. The most famous cones are relatively active so have an exclusion zone. Santa Isabel on the other hand hadn't ereupted for some 8000 years so odds were in our favour for a quiet trip.

This volcano is also home to Colombia's lowest glacier. 100 years ago Colombia had 19 glaciers, it's now down to just 6 and expects all of those to be gone in the next 20 years. Santa Isabel, being the lowest, is retreating fastest and won't last 10 more years. So we were fortunate to get chance to see it, or what's left of it.

The drive back down was equally tiring, riding in the Fume Cupboard as I'd now dubbed it. All the excitement brought out my annoying cough into a full blown cold, so tomorrow we'll take a much more restful rest day!

Colombia day 15: It's a long way to Manizales

After a short day yesterday, we decided to go longer today and made it all the way to Manizales. The roads were busier than the previous day's, but mostly in good condition. There has been a lot of rain in this area in the last few days and there were multiple landslides on the roads. You can tell we are in a wealthier/more touristy area as there were crews out with diggers and trucks clearing them up. We actually had a couple of rain storms while riding too, and quite a lot of grey overcast skies. It makes the climbing a little easier to handle than the intense sun. There were many more jeep taxis on the roads today. These seem to be something like a bus, but a little more flexible. Some were incredibly overloaded with the front seats filled, people squashed into the bench seats in the back with goods piled between them, 3 or 4 people standing holding on to the back and more goods piled on the roof rack, possibly including a couple of sacks of coffee beans. The negotiations when they were picking up and dropping of customers could get quite involved!

Unlike entering Medellín, it's quite a climb up to Manizales. Thankfully it didn't loom over us in the same way as Salamina did yesterday - because it was short day and much shorter as the crow flies we could see our destination for much of yesterday's ride. Manizales is both the northern most city in Colombias zona cafeteria (coffee country), but also the main entry point for a couple of national parks. As we have arrived a day early, we managed to book on a tour to enter the Nevados national park tomorrow and walk up a volcano. A nice relaxing day off. I'm not sure that it will feel that way when the alarm goes off at 4:15am though! Hopefully it will mean that we will get to see snow (or the remains of a shrinking glacier at least). For the last couple of years black Friday has marked the start of our ski season - making the most of REIs #optoutside campaign. So it seems appropriate that we should see snow this weekend.

Colombia day 14: not a turkey trot

A short day, but not a totally easy day. We're heading south along a secondary road towards Manizales for a few days, which means variable quality road paving and an awful lot of sheers drops and climbs. But the views are Spectacular Spectacular.

We rolled out of Aguadas about the same time as Stefan, the German cycle tourist we'd met yesterday afternoon. We rode together for a while but had slightly different speeds and stop cadence on the climbs so leapfrogged most of the way. The ride was basically a small down, small up, big down, big up.

We were barely out of town and about to start the first down when I saw a nice hairy tarantula crossing the road. She was particularly slow moving, perhaps because she'd lost a leg (or two), poor thing.

As we'd seen many days, several houses had large hauls of beans laid out on the tarmac (at least, where the road was blessed with it) to dry in the sun. It's so humid here that it's tricky to air dry products, but with the help of the blacktop they seem to manage it. A few places the beans looked less like eating beans and more like coffee beans. A couple times yesterday we'd caught the distinct smell of coffee gently toasting on the vine, so we're definitely getting into that region.

The long climb to Salamina was punctuated by frequent stretches of washed away rocky / gravelly road. Happily they didn't extend for long - unlike the prior 15km desent which was almost all on dirt and so very slow. The roads remained quiet. I've got the hang of realising when a climb is going to be very sustained and long as many of the mopeds/motorbikes coming the other way will have cut out the engine and just coast down past us. Gasoline is not cheap here, maybe 3 times USA prices? So guess it all helps.

We got to town soon after midday so got a good coffee and fruit salad snack then looked around for a hospedaje. Stafan decided to push on 23km to the next small town, but we're definitely in holiday mode so decided to just stay here in the larger places.  I doubt we'll find any turkey for dinner, but we will look! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating it today, and all the best to you and your family.