The End of Colombia for Swen & Kat

to see our last pictures of Colombia click here

Hello! We last left you in Medellín where we were having a great time exploring the city with some friends. After a few days there however we had to say goodbye and hit the road again. It had been a great 10 day break in Bogotá and Medellín but it was time to move on. In this part of road towards Ecuador not sooo much happened besides cycling, so the following will give you all a bit more of an idea of the “routine” of our bike travels....

We started off on a slightly overcast morning, going up over the hills to exit the city heading south. The traffic was not light, but not too bad either, the hills not horrible; we felt good. Until the rain started. We were only about 2 hours into the ride when it started to sprinkle, then came down heavier, started pouring, and finally we made it to a roadside restaurant where we stayed to dry off with a lunch of hot soup, the usual rice, beans and egg plate, and hot chocolate. The (what we assumed to be) beautiful scenery was obstructed by heavy cloud cover and fog. The rain stopped for enough time for us to get back on the bikes and continue but we only got about another half hour before it began to rain again. We were totally soaked but made it up to the peak of 2380m (~7000ft.) and raced, trying not to slip and fall the last half hour down to the village of La Pintada at an altitude of 570m (~1700ft). We quickly found a hotel to stay in and dry out for the night.

The next day we had mainly flat riding until early afternoon where we started a climb again, and again got rained upon. We hitchhiked the last 10km steep climb to the town of Rio Sucio where were informed by a group of Colombian cyclists that the next town was a steep 25km uphill ride. Kat was more than convinced by this information to stay for the night so we found a cheap but nice hotel and again had a warm shower and dried our things.

We had planned on hitchhiking the next steep uphill the coming day, but ended up starting it and found it not to be too steep (we got a little help in a steep part by hanging on to the back of a semi-truck and getting pulled for a few kilometers), and it wasn't 25km either. We were thankful we stuck it out and rode it ourselves as the views on the peak and down again onto the north of the Valle del Cauca were spectacular. At some points during these few days there was so much fog and cloud cover that visibility was about 10m (30 ft) and we had to slow down on the descents because of this. Also, because of the rain and fog we couldn't take the camera out much at all, so there aren't many pictures of these few days.

Entering the Valle del Cauca region of Colombia gave our legs some well deserved rest as we raced along the flat valley, one day achieving our personal best record for distance in a day: 136kms (85 miles)!! Yes, we now consider flat valleys or plains rest days! We camped in a nice finca (cow farm), got some fresh (still warm and hand-milked) milk for our cereal breakfast and enjoyed nice conversation with the groundskeepers. We also stayed in nice hotels in some quaint villages, enjoying our newly discovered Colombian specialty of large fruit salads with mounds of ice cream and syrup on top. Over the next few days in the valley we had 3 straight days of over 100kms (60 miles) and enjoyed the scenery of mountains in the distance, cane fields around us.

Unfortunately this valley couldn't last forever and as we neared the city of Popayan we headed into more mountains – our big distances became just a memory and our legs and butts were more sore than before! We stayed an extra day in Popayan because Kat was strangely sick – we had read this was supposed to be the most beautiful colonial town in Colombia but we weren't impressed and disappointed to have to stay an extra day in someplace that wasn't so nice. The traffic was especially horrible in these narrow streets.

Fortunately the next day Kat was better and we left happily towards the town of El Bordo. It was a tough day of constant up and down, our legs were tired by the time we got to the descent in the afternoon. Another night in a cheap hotel: we had nice showers, cleaned our clothes and had a nice stroll of the one-street town to find something for dinner.

We continued on the next morning happily in a flatter section of highway, through some beautiful scenery but at our late breakfast-early lunch we decided to hitchhike the next 120kms to the city of Pasto. And although beautiful we were glad with our decision as the climb was long and the day was hot, there weren't any villages for a long time and no place to rest or refill water bottles. We got a ride in an empty but for one pig semi-truck after about an hour and a half wait. Our incredibly friendly truck-driving host chatted with us about other cyclists he has picked up along this road, life in Colombia, soccer, traveling, and even his career in the drug and cocaine cartel world in the end 80s and beginning 90s, when Pablo Escobar virtually “ran” the city of Medellin and crime and violence was part of everybody's life there. Besides all the interesting chats, our driver stopped several times for us to take pictures of the fantastic views into deep canyons and over far away mountain ranges.

We left Pasto a bit late, but had a nice day riding some tough climbs – we even met some other cyclists – a couple from Costa Rica also heading to Argentina. We rode together till the next restaurant for lunch, but in the afternoon lost each other in the mountains. They were a bit slower than us as they were still in the beginning of their journey (only 6 weeks in) and also carried a lot more baggage than we do. We were wondering if we would make it all the way to the border town of Ipiales in one day, and we might have if we had taken a shorter lunch, but we made it to the small village of San Juan, about 15 km from Ipiales by nearly 5pm. It was good we didn't push ourselves too much: we had climbed a lot through some fantastic views of canyons and rock cliffs, rivers and mountains but were tired, and in San Juan stayed at the hotel where apparently all cyclists going through stay at. The proprietress had a big notebook filled with names and dates of cyclists from all over the world who had stayed there.

The next morning, excited for the border and a new adventure in Ecuador, we left early. Along the way we met 2 other cyclists coming north, a famous (in the bike-traveler world) couple from Germany who live in southern Colombia and offer up their house to cyclists going through. We chatted about the routes for a while and shared some stories and left even more excited for our future destinations than before. We climbed the last few kilometers to Ipiales, loaded up on good Colombian bread, and had the easiest, nicest, fastest and cheapest (free!) border crossing ever. At the border we met some more travelers, some going north, some going south and all shared smiles, stories, encouragement, and excitement for our respective travel plans.

We were looking forward to new sights and experiences in Ecuador but were sad to leave Colombia and all the great things we had come across during the past 7 weeks: the fantastic, outgoing and friendly people, great food, new exotic fruits, amazing landscapes, diverse geography, interesting cities, very cheap and nice accommodation, a new appreciation for mountains... Little did we know that Ecuador could bring us all this and more! Until next time when we write about our journey from the border to Quito!

Besos, Kat & Swen