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Day 478 to 481 (2008-08-14 to 17): Colombia: Popayan, Pasto, Ipiales through a dry valley

Published

on September 21, 2008

. 7 Comments

Spending half the time of our 3 days stay in Popayan in front of ancient and slow computers with even slower connections and on the other hand watching “dolphin fast” Michael Phelps win one gold medal after the other at the Olympic Games 2008 (Juegos Olimpicos), we got enough and were ready to leave town.

The scenery south of Popayan was pretty hilly with a lot of green beside the road and we met quite some work-out road cyclists on our way towards Pasto. Half the day had passed when we began a final downhill in the muggy heat of the early afternoon. At the end we arrived in a dry and brown valley where the road started the hilly up and down we’ve already had more than enough from again. Elmar found a really nice campsite with a magnificent view over the dry valley and the mountain ranges to the east and west - the only drawback being the 10 minute walk through thorny terrain on a rocky single trail - a nice downhill ride with the mountain bike the next morning though! From the tiny little hill we could watch remote flashes illuminate the sky and thereby showing the silhouettes of the surrounding mountains - a truely impressive spectacle and nice reward after a day long ride on our bikes, covering almost 130 km distance and 1800 m gain in altitude.

Only 1.5 liters of water were left in our bottles the following morning and our map didn’t show a village for quite a distance to come. So we rationed the water and did our best to keep evaporation from breath and sweat as small as possible. But by the time we had arrived at tiny settlement with an even more tiny shop both of us had dry throats and we were angry about the engineers building all the ups and downs into the road - freaks! PONY Malta is a kind of beer without alcohol but a lot of sugar (corresponding to Maltin in Venezuela, if I remember correct); compared to the other soft drinks available it’s probably the one with most nutritional value. We couldn’t get a freshly prepared natural juice, but I told my father the German equivalent to the admittedly ‘not so vegetarian’ phrase “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” and he had to agree.

One and a half hours later, after a extended noon break with a lot of “limonada” (lemonade) and mountains of rice with salad, we found ourselves in a steep and hefty uphill, crawling up the steep road together with massive trucks and other vehicles.

Taking the frontal portrait of my Dad on the recumbent bike fighting against the mountain caused quite some pain as I rammed a 3 cm long thorn into the soft flesh of my left palm (the flesh below the little finger). And I was lucky to not break the thorn when removing it - I’ve been told that little parts like the tip of a thorn or some glass sliver can wander your body for years and even cause death.

As the scenery was not the most taking we were happy about every distraction we could find beside the road: One thing that caught our attention were the few roosters that had leashes attached to their feet. Probably these birds are a special breed for cock fights that are very popular in South America (even though we haven’t seen one yet).

When stopping for a freshly prepared orange juice we found a few puppies in really bad shape, only bones and skin almost. And even though they supposedly must have had hard pain in their stomaches the curiosity about the moving camera in front of their eyes still prevailed and so I got this wonderful shot documenting the triumph of curiosity:

After a long day of mainly cycling uphill we arrived at a fuel station with restaurant and motel just in time - Elmar had already suggested to pitch the tent somewhere beside the road and to go without dinner, but my stomach doubted that was a good idea; besides the doubts of my stomach we couldn’t make out a proper spot beside the road anyway. And with almost 8 hours riding time, little food and more than 2100 altimeters gained I surely don’t exaggerate by saying that our hunger couldn’t get much bigger.

Then the other day we cycled through Pasto. We didn’t consider stopping a good idea but continued straight through towards Ipiales - if I remember correct we’ve been in town sometime during the weekend and the traffic on the roads to and from the city were packed!

At a dairy shop close to a dairy product factory we bought a 1.75 liter bottle of yoghurt with strawberries (con fresa) and gulped it down like hungry wolves together with 2 pieces of cheese cake - yum-yum! And as we sat there drinking our glasses full of the creamy liquid I suddenly spotted a truck with massive gas tank rolling downhill 50 meters in front of us. I couldn’t make out the driver but one or two seconds later 4 or 5 men running after the ruck! AND this strange group headed straight towards a fuel station at ever increasing speed … wow, stuff for a Hollywood movie, I tell you! Now, what about the outcome you might ask. Well, that one was not too Hollywood like: One of the men made it and stopped the massive vehicle just before the fuel pump and the road just behind.

We camped not far from that spectacular incident 200 m away from the road on grazing land and would have had a wonderful view on the nearby volcano if not for the clouds.

The following morning held a nice reward for the previous day’s long uphill suffering: A 1400 m altitude drop down to 1800 m above zero, what a ride! The adrenaline from this fast race had to hold for the rest of the day because from now on we had to climb up slowly again, back to 2900 m, the town of Ipiales.

Half an hour’s ride before reaching our target we met Caro and Marcos, two Argentinian cyclists on their way around the world. We talked and exchanged information for about 15 minutes and then wished each other a “bien viaje”. Check out their website under www.mundoapedal.com (probably Spanish only).

These two have been the first touring cyclists we’ve met in all South America so far. But that should change the same evening! We stayed in a cheap backpacker hostel and by pure coincidence two Scottish touring cyclists, Nick and Vicky happened to spend the night in the same hostel. They had been on the road for a long time and suggested a nice route close to the Bolivian Chilean border - 5 days almost no people but wonderful scenery.

Ipiales is a border town between Colombia and Peru, so before leaving we checked the Lonely Planet South America guide for information on the border crossing, possible departure taxes and so on. But this time no departure tax, only the usual stamps and visa at the border - that scores second after the “no borders”-policy in Europe on my list of preferred border crossing procedures.

Happy birthday Papa!!!.

Published

Verena

on September 18, 2008

in Colombia, Countries, english and german

. 6 Comments

Hello everybody,

I’m glad to tell you that it’s Daniel’s and my Dad’s birthday today!!! We wish him all the very best and hope that he comes back healthily.We are very proud of you!!! Stay the way you are…

Best wishes

Andi and Verena.

Day 468 to 474 (2008-08-04 to 10): Bogota to Popayán, Rio Magdalena and more

Published

Daniel N. Lang

on September 16, 2008

in Colombia, GPS, english and recumbent

. 3 Comments

The happenings I’m writing about right now lie a long time back, about 20 days. And they mostly lie a lot lower than I’m sitting now: My father and I have just left Cuenca in Ecuador and are camping on 3400m at the moment. The temperatures have dropped a lot since the sun’s gone and I’ve pulled the sleeping bag up to just under my arms, so only my fingers are freezing. But now about what happened bag then:

We had good, sunny weather when leaving Bogota. First cycling west towards the airport on the bike path in the middle of the 8 laned Calle 26, then following the Bogota map with included bike paths we turned south arriving at the eastern end of the airport. Just before reaching Calle 17 we turned right, west, and cycled on a main road towards Funza, avoiding all the poorer and therefore more dangerous suburbs and all the traffic in Bogota’s south and on the main southern exit of Bogota.´

A nice little pass leading up to 2800 or 2900 m lead towards a massive drop down from Bogota’s high plateau first to 1300 m and later even further down to Girardot on less than 500 m altitude! Man, what a downhill. We flew down the serpentines, overtaking big and heavy trucks time after time, breaking down through dark grey clouds and finally arriving in a muggy climate in the city of Girardot.

The personnel in a hotel in the Girardot center told us the water would be warm, “caliente” anyway, even though they didn’t have a special heater. And they were not too wrong! Even throughout the night the weather was unpleasantly warm and humid and only because of my fathers skills as electronics teacher did we get the A/C which was installed but not working (and which we didn’t have to pay for) going. And as a result the night was by far not that bad as I had anticipated and as the following nights in the Rio Magdalena valley should get.

After an early internet session we started out into the stickyness of the early noon. The roads were crowded and filled with motorbikes, cars and trucks without catalytic converters and for the next few kilometers over the river and a bit further the roads were absolutely packed. A few school boys threw a water filled bag after my father but as I’d been cycling on the front I only realized that my father was missing after a minute or two. I thought something bad had happened but a few seconds later I could see him on the road again cycling towards me.

We continued into the early afternoon, refilling our water reserves whenever possible or refreshing ourselves with freshly prepared orange (naranja) juice, cooled down with a few ice cubes. The water went straight from the mouth to the surface of our skins to cool down the heavy working bodies.

Suddenly I made out a strange sound and asked my father whether his tire punctured. But a moment later I realized that it was my rear tire that was rapidly loosing air. I immediately reduced my speed and started pushing the bike to the shadow of a nearby tree. I thought I’d fix the puncture there and we could continue in 5 minutes. But the job was a lot harder than that, even though I didn’t actually even fix the puncture: Swarms of mosquitos appeared right away and Elmar took out the Autan spray and applied it in massive showers all over our bodies. After 2 or 3 minutes the mosquitos were gone but a farmer with a small pocket radio had appeared and started watching us change the tube … we still had a spare tube left and decided to fix the puncture in a more pleasant place without all the “mossies” sucking our blood. It later turned out that the puncture again was caused by the bad rim tape the people mechanics from Kiwi Bikes in Rotorua, New Zealand, had used: The whole tube had small, 5 mm to 1 cm long slits on the inner rim side which sometimes just broke and let all the air through within a few seconds. That had happened in the USA once or twice and even in Venezuela, but back then I just didn’t realize that it had been the crappy rim tape.

In the evening we arrived in a small town and I bought a tool to tension spokes as I had lost the one of my multi tool somewhere. But instead of ending our cycling day with the sun we continued on: This was the first long test for the quad Seoul LED light my father had built with assistance from his students. And the result was stunning: about half the cars, trucks and busses on the other lane gave us light signals indicating we should turn down our bright headlights! The street in front of us got perfectly visible and more often than not the opposite traffic turned down their lights, too.

The temperatures got more and more acceptable and we didn’t think about stopping our night ride - three times we stopped at small shops or 24/7 truck stops, where at one occasion we even got a jugo natural (de mora), a freshly prepared fruit juice, just the right nutrition bomb to keep us going.

At 12 o’clock - midnight - both of us hit the wall. Luckily after a few more kilometers there was another shop open till late. Even though that tienda sold only crappy stuff we found some carbohydrates containing sweets and yoghurt to get us rolling again, at least to a place where we could camp. So after about another hour of cycling along what seemed like a prison between two parallel lines of barb wire, we finally found a entrance to an empty looking grazing field and pitched our tent about 200m away from the main road. The mosquitos were still active past 1 am so we jumped inside and killed a whole bunch of them, pressing the small beasts against the yellow wall of the inner tent.

But sleep we couldn’t: The temperature was still in the high 20s or even at 30°C, more like a sauna than a pleasant climate to sleep in.

Following the main road through the Rio Magdalena valley we arrived in Neiva the next morning after passing a few oil fields. Now the people began to stare at our eyes because of the not-black color - something rarely seen in this part of Colombia.

School children wanted to get photographed together with us and the people in general got a lot more open and shouted “hello” and “gringo” when we passed.

We stopped at almost every shop beside the road because of the short and sticky night and the terrible headwinds we encountered.

At one occasion I asked Elmar to go slow so I could take a picture of him with a nice little lake in the background. And I had just the right timing: Having the camera in my hand and the circular polarizer mounted to the front of the lens, two dogs started chasing my father on the recumbent. Just after he got rid of them a car driver stopped in between the two of us, so my father signaled him to drive away. So you see that sometimes it’s quite an act to get the right shot

In the evening we left the main route and took a right turn towards the mountains.

We had heard stories that further south the street would go through lonely FARC (terrorist, rebel) country and therefore decided to go a more northern route westwards towards Popayan, coming through the town of Inza and climbing over a 3400 m pass.

Just before Inza we had to flee the road from a wild bull blocking our way to the town of Inza.

The rainy weather these days converted the road into a sea of mud and we were not the only ones who had problems with these conditions:

At a tricky narrow passage we had to help out a tiny mini truck driver getting his truck out of the muddy mess.

Weakened from all the bad weather and harsh conditions I got a cold and we decided to take a few days of in Popayan, also using the time to upload pictures and follow the Colombian athletes at the Beijing 2008 Olympic games.

Day 462 to 467 (2008-07-29 to 08-03): Tunja to and in Bogota

Published

Daniel N. Lang

on September 1, 2008

in Colombia, GPS, couchsurfing, english and recumbent

. 6 Comments

Watch my Colombia Slideshow with all pics till Popayan on flickr

Because we had a few more things to do this morning, including the final lines of an article for the website, the sorting and downloading of the pictures to the iBook (over USB 1.1!) and because we hadn’t seen anything of the city center yet, including some of the most beautifully decorated churches of Colombia, we decided to use the room all the time till 2 pm.
Additionally there was the breakfast buffet and we used all the endurance from cycling to gulp down almost everything they had on the buffet and to keep the 4 people in the kitchen employed (there were only 2 other guests in the restaurant that morning).
An interesting feature of the elevator in the Hunza Hotel was, that one could push a small button and it was locked! So for about 20 minutes one of the two elevators was ours as there were not a lot of guests and the staff didn’t get the old needle printer going to print us our receipt - Elmar fixed the printer within 2 or 3 minutes! We put all our Ortlieb bags inside so there was just enough space for two more people, our private elevator - almost like in the Borat movie when Borat enters the elevator and tells the hotel employee that he won’t take a smaller room

If time can pass slowly, then the rest of the day on the bike it definitely did so! Dark clouds, a lot of up and down with nothing special, just the usual green and brown fields, and the heavy traffic made time pass at snail speed today. Two or three times we had to flee from rain and we didn’t really get into cycling today. After every stop the legs were heavy again and just as we got going the next “rain interruption” came over us.
On top of that we got a brown-slippery two kilometers stretch at the end of today’s ride. I escaped from that with brown dots all over my face and clothes and the usually green panniers also got a brown touch in this 3 minute downhill beside the roadwork.
Lucky us that we got accepted in a small posada that evening - but on the other hand the bed turned out to be way too soft and when we got up early the next morning I felt even worse than the evening before! That’s the time when you need a one or two hours lasting massage, like my colleagues at the Tour de France get it every evening - I guess I should slightly adjust my profession And yet another day along the packed 55 road towards Bogota. Not a pleasure to ride here at all and the high peaks of the Andes I had imagined, the snow covered ones and the dry brown altiplanos (high plateaus), the large almost empty areas, where are they? Instead we get a lot of green, wet and populated places with traffic and bad weather … after yet another day of that mess I was really happy when we turned left in Sesquile to take a less frequented alternative route into Bogota.

This road first brought us through a tiny village where we could stock up for dinner and then lead to a lake, the Guatavita Laguna. This man made lake is about 10 km long and we found a nice spot after about 2 km, just 15 m beside the road behind trees and bushes and right above the lake.

Now Elmar went for a photo shooting session down to beach - and got some quite interesting results with real educative value (see above) - while I pitched the tent and prepared everything for dinner, a three course meal starting with a nice champignon creme soup followed by a pasta course with tomato sauce and a dessert of bollitas, strongly spiced and golf ball sized round globes.

Then came the final day to Bogota and as usual the last stage looks a lot easier than it actually turns out to be. I knew that cities are a serious stress factor if you’re on a heavy loaded bike, especially if there’s a lot of traffic and if you have to take a lot of care for your luggage. With light bikes you can move a lot easier through traffic and the crowds on the bike lane, you can cycle up and down the pedestrian bridges and don’t have to lift the bike up and down the sidewalks. But to make things worse we only arrived in the city at 3 pm. First we had to cycle along the lake, cross a small mountain range into another valley and finally climb up another 300 or 400 height meters to reach the north eastern outskirts of Bogota.

A normal sight in Bogota, and in fact also in minor towns or villages in Colombia, are camouflaged soldiers walking through the streets or protecting special places. They often carry a machine gun in their hands. And I guess they’re not there for no reason!

Luckily we didn’t have to cycle to the southern part of town, the part where the poor often live in slums. Instead we cycled to the home of CouchSurfer Mauricio close to the shopping center Grand Estacion and the central university. On the way we got to see a lot of scary things, the scariest being a rasta cyclist with long hair doing a wheely non-stop besides us on the narrow cycling path, then standing up on the handlebars of his bicycle, surfing the bike through the crowded streets of Bogota! Totally crazy but extremely entertaining for us

After crossing a railway line we had circumnavigated the place from three sides before we finally found the right address and Stefan, also CouchSurfer and good friend of Mauricio, received us at the entrance and greeted us with a “Na, wie geht’s?”. He told us that he’s come from Vienna for half a year to Bogota to improve his Spanish and study and teach German at the nearby university.

Together with Mauricio and Stefan we had a really pleasant time in Bogota. Stefan often prepared delicious meals in the evenings and without him only half the entries on our TODO list would have been finished at the end of our stay in the capital. He knew how to get around town and his Spanish skills helped a lot!

We didn’t only go for a visit to the old city center, to the place where Bogota was founded, but also went outdoor clothes shopping to the northern parts of town and partying till midnight in the city center.

And Mauricio didn’t only prepare magical fruit juices (jugos naturales) but also gave some lessons in Salsa dancing!

On sundays more than 100 km of Bogota’s roads are closed for motorized traffic and pedestrians, skaters and cyclists take over the street. There are small shops where you can buy food and drinks, there are big public dancing lessons on public places and ramps for stunt skaters are put into place to make it attractive for young and old to go out. Together with my father I set out to enjoy big part of my birthday on the road with thousands of other cyclists - it couldn’t have been any better, just the right timing! A wonderful big birthday party for a cycling nut like me

Day 458 to 461 (2008-07-25 to 28): Cycling from Malaga to Tunja

Published

Daniel N. Lang

on August 29, 2008

in Colombia, GPS, english and recumbent

. 2 Comments

So after spending 2 hours on the Plaza in Malaga, enjoying the friendly and communicative people and deeply breathing the atmosphere of this small town in the mountains we got going again, starting into a long downhill, passing SAN JOSE DE MIRANDA after five minutes and descending faster and faster on a steep road towards Tipacoque. But not too fast! Elmar’s break pads had been through and we had to stop and exchange them - you don’t wanna go into a steep downhill on a pretty bad road with no power on the brakes!

The countryside changed dramatically again, descending down from the green fields and green trees into a valley where cacti grow and people dry tobacco plant leaves. Down in the valley on 1200 m altitude it’s hot, there are no trees but bushes and a lot of brown soil.

In Tipacoque we had a short lunch dinner and tried to sit out the heat in the restaurant and make it less wearying by drinking a lot of cold drinks.

But we hadn’t been in the valley to stay: just after the village we cycled on a bridge leading over a small river. In the corner after the bridge there was a fat layer of dust on the road, 5 to 10 centimeters at times. This reminded me a lot of the situations in parts of Kyrgyzstan and Tibet, only the color was a bit more brownish, not the same gray I had a year ago in the Pamirs and on the Tibetan plateau.

Climbing up the western side of the valley we got a few nice views, especially when suddenly (after one hour of climbing of course) a vertical wall appeared falling down 200 m into the valley. We continued a bit further along this wall to our left and found a nice spot to pitch the tent, just 50 meters away from the vertical drop on a part of a previous version of the road we’d been on. But we were not alone: A friendly farmer, his wife and friend and a dozen cows were curious about the strangers with the strange bike and watched us pitch the tent and cook dinner.

IMG_2723 by you.

Just in time to watch us bring down the tent the next morning the friendly old farmer came back from the nearby village. In many other nations, especially the western developed countries it’d be unimaginable to just take off one or two hours from work, but down here in South America life goes at a different pace with obviously different priorities - an observation we’ve made several times now. If people are interested they just interrupt their work for a while, watch us pass, shout a few questions (mostly “de donde van” and “de donde son ustedes” - they want to know where we’re from, like the “atcudda” that still echos through my head from passing Uzbekistan) and wave as a small thank you for the change in their probably often quite monotone workday. The policemen change their schedule to see us cycle by a second and sometimes even a third time and car drivers stop, turn around or even follow us at a slow speed.

Evening campsite on the way to Tunja, Colombia by you.

One especially for my father on the recumbent extremely annoying thing is the continuous usage of their horns to draw our attention towards them. But I have to admit that I’m impressed by the endurance with which my father still explains everything to every interested person in detail: Maybe it was similar with me but by the time I had arrived in China my patience had gone down extremely and the only things I continued explaining to the Uyghur, Tibetans, Chinese and Mongolians were the strange pedals and the “san” (three) headlights. I wonder whether that’ll change during the next few months of cycling. The way Elmar holds out his left hand while cycling reminds me a lot to the pope in his special “Papamobil” when taking a bath in the masses

Sitting in a small cafe at the morning a young neighbor boy had birthday and got a big present: a bicycle! The only problem was they couldn’t find a pump … so I had to help out with my small one and inflate the tires. But something still didn’t work out and two soldiers sitting nearby took part in getting the bike going - at the end 8 or 10 people stood around and participated in getting the bike going!

IMG_2728 by you.

To refill our water reserves we bought a “5 litros bolsa de agua” - yes, true, they are selling their water, juices and sometimes even milk in bags. Water comes in 300 or 350 ml and 5 l bags and milk in 450 or 900 ml bags. Later on in Soata we bought a lot of fruits for refilling our energy storage on the road and filled up a last time in Susacon, now on 2600 m altitude already.

IMG_2657 by you.

(election advertisement between cacti)

But the day was not over yet! We heard loud bangs from the mountain in front of us and pessimists could have thought the FARC, the major guerilla group in Colombia, would attack - far away from that! A group of men were throwing hand sized metal cups towards a target, namely a box aligned in a 45 degree angle and filled with mud. In the center of the mud there was some kind of explosive that caused the bang when hit.

IMG_2735 by you.

IMG_2747 by you.

The day ended on 3400 m altitude in a wide valley. We put the tent on a green field next to a farmer house and hoped for a reviving night. But it was not that easy! One of the dogs of the family we camped beside was totally upset with us pitching the tent in his empire and when we’d just finished dinner and writing diaries the dog approached us barking with no end. When he came to close I got up and threw a massive stone after him. But that only brought temporary relief and only 5 minutes later he came even closer to the tent. Elmar was right when he said to me that he might bit the tent and damage it thereby, so I got up a second time and swore to myself that this time I would do the job right. So I chased the beast for 10 minutes in the wet and cold night, throwing all the stones I could get in my hand. I was so angry about this monster stealing my sleep that I fired the stones after him like from a machine gun. Finally when he had fled several times around the house and decided that that wouldn’t increase the distance between the two of us he ran away and I could only see the reflections from my LED headlight in his eyes - not a K.O. but I was definitely the winner! Silence.

IMG_2756 by you.

Unbelievable! Just 2 hours after starting the next day another beast declared war with us, but I still had some of the totally “unbuddhis” dog-hate from last nights devil in my heart and already 3 spare stones in my pockets. I managed to land all three stones in the dog, a 3 - 0 win, strike!

IMG_2765 by you.

Somehow we had the 150 000 city of Tunja as a unspoken target, but we didn’t know what’s been in front of us: 1400 altimeters with an unending up and down, 70 km of road works and extremely crazy drivers, dark congestion clouds from factories beside the road and as if that was not enough my father hit the wall (”Hungerast” in German) and we had to do a quick “cookie recharge” beside the road as there was no restaurant for miles and miles! The altimeter didn’t show 1400 altimeters but 46 4000! And that was only after it had hit the 99 999 altimeters 10 minutes before arriving at the restaurant - the reason for that: almost empty batteries of the VDO MC1.0 caused the altimeter to disfunction.

IMG_2769 by you.

Half an hour after dark we eventually made it into the city center and inspected two hotels. Dad decided to stay in the Hunza hotel and I was absolutely fine with that decision: a 4 star hotel with warm water like from a waterfall, almost like a water massage! The room was big and we had a nice view on the western part of the city. And breakfast was included, so we had something to dream from during the long night

IMG_2772 by you.

And we ordered a vegetarian family pizza, bigger than my father, together with 1.65 l of pepsi to the room and wolfed more than two thirds of it down within an hour - what a filling experience.

Day 453-458 (2008-07-20 to 25): First kilometers in Colombia, Cucuta to Malaga

Published

Daniel N. Lang

on August 14, 2008

in Colombia, GPS, english and recumbent

. 1 Comment

selling cheap Venezuelan just after the border to Colombia by you.

The story still starts in Venezuela: We wake up in the morning and go for a walk through San Antonio to get some breakfast. Then we head towards the border and in fact we could have easily passed without paying anything or any formalities it seemed, but I had read in the Lonely Planet guide book and I’ve heard from other travelers that it’s always best to say good bye to the officials and get a stamp into your passport - for Venezuela we had to pay 46 Bolivares departure tax each and then we got the stamp.

Together with cars, trucks, people walking, on their bikes and in wheel chairs we crossed the bridge to Colombia - on the bridge people pulled up goods from the Venezuelan site to smuggle them into Colombia it seemed. There was a lot going on and the heat of the early noon only added to the pretty stressful situation. Behind the bridge on the Columbian site we could have passed into the country again without being stopped but first we turned right to get a print with arrival date and 60 day visa into our passports - a pretty uncomplicated and fast process compared to the time expensive rituals in Central Asia or when you’re coming into the country on an international flight with a lot of security checks and so on.

The traffic was horrendous and we tried to leave the major road as soon as possible. Too soon, as it later turned out: From Villa de Rosario, a smaller town near Cucuta, we had to cycle back to the autopista after we’ve had lunch there, entertained a school class for 15 minutes and bought a new, working SONY mobile with SIM card for about 30 Euros. Then, two kilometers further we took a right turn, crossed under the autopista and were on our way to Pamplona now, starting to cycle a green valley upwards into the evening sunset.

Menu at a small road kiosk in Colombia by you.

We moved up the mountain slowly and passed a lot of restaurants … we got hungry - the only problem: all of them were closed! As the night put its dark veil over the countryside we still cycled as we couldn’t find a proper camp spot due to the mountainous terrain and all the trees and bush. And as we just passed a small kiosk, a tienda, beside the road, rain set in. Under the protecting roof of that little shop we had a fruit juice and beer (serveza) and asked the friendly senora, Rosa, whether there was a posada somewhere around. Lucky us: The posada was just 100m away and the woman called them to verify that they had a free room for the two of us. What a first day in the new country!

IMG_2440 by you.

Together with Rosa we successfully tested our new mobile phone and the new Colombian phone number. The result was that Rosa now had our number in the memory of her mobile phone and started to call us on a daily basis; a totally unexpected but often pretty entertaining and funny call came in either on the road or in the tent or posada in the evening. I then took the phone, answered “Ah, Rosa, mui bien! Un momento … mi padre … ” and handed the phone over to Elmar so he could test the new Spanish words of the day with Rosa.

young boy selling fruits beside the road, Colombia - the shop by you.

On the way up to Pamplona we were happy to find a lot fresh fruits in small shops just beside the road. These ranged from naranjas (oranges), different kinds of bananas (platanos, normal bananas and miniature ones), orange fruits that contained small, sweet and acid kernels with a transparent slippery flesh layer around and looked like frog or fish eggs to pineapples and melons. And all totally fresh, right from the trees!

young boy selling fruits beside the road, Colombia by you.

We got company from a road cyclist for the last 2 to 3 hours up the mountain to Pamplona. Even though he would have gone 3 times the speed of the heavy and exhausted touring cyclists he slowed down and asked a lot of questions. He told me about his participation in races all through Latin America, in a 2 weeks lasting Vuelta de Venezuela or de Colombia and answered our questions when we spotted a new fruit or plant beside the road. This way we also found out that a drivers license costs far less than 100 Euro in Colombia and that you learn driving on the road, not at a driving school or even from a teacher!

friendly road cyclist guiding two touring cyclists into Pamplona town by you.

My since China already a dozen times fixed trousers started to fall apart unrepairably and I from now on always had to wear underpants below the outdoor trousers. There was already an entry on the Bogota TODO list named “new trousers” as Bogota was my last hope to get something acceptable.

In Pamplona we took a room close to the Central Place. But there was no electric light inside, in fact there was no light at all in the city except in one bank. The locals told us at 6pm the electricity would return so we spent some more time on the plaza mayor, watched the locals enjoy the stone age like time without power from the plug.

The shower was an electrical one, so the water went through a shower head where it got almost boiled. But the power of that electronic shower head is far from enough and as a result we had to shower under a very tiny stream of water, barely enough to wash the soap off again.