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Necoclí to Arboletes
19 November 2017
We spent a good amount of time hanging out here, between the village and the beach, cleaning, cooking and eating fish with other biciviajeros.
Despite our best intentions to get an early start that morning, Lenin and I ended up leaving Necoclí well after noon. The other bicycle travelers who had generously hosted us under someone else’s roof invited us to share the fish that they had caught the day before for breakfast. It was being stored in somebody’s fridge just a few blocks away, so we packed up our belongings and biked over to where there was a little hut and barbecue set up on the beach. This ended up taking a good chunk of our morning, as we helped to clean all of the fish that they had. The fish were much too small to be kept legally, and I felt so guilty eating them, but they were already dead, so there was not much I could do. While cleaning and preparing them, we did try to explain that the fish were way too small, hoping that they would release such young fish in the future. We each ate maybe three small fish of various species, accompanied by fried plantains, before continuing our journey along the coast.
Traveling by bicycle is a unique experience, invoking all sorts of reactions from people. Most are in disbelief when you tell them you are traveling by bicycle, to the point where they are not convinced until you confirm what they thought they heard you say at least two or three times and follow up with interesting stories to prove that you are serious, albeit crazy. On the other hand, you become privy to a whole network of like-minded people who you never knew existed before you dove into this lifestyle choice yourself. I never would have met Lenin (or Dallas) had I not made the decision to jump off the ledge of a typical American career path to ride my bike instead. Now it seems as though people of similar mindset are everywhere I go. That morning as we sat around the fire eating fish on the beach with the other bike travelers, we were approached by a few people who were interested in our adventures, probing us with questions. One group of 3 people walked over to us with a clipboard, obviously working for the city. They were surveying tourists and wanted to ask about our stay in Necoclí. We answered to the best of our abilities, but our situation couldn’t really be applied to the typical tourist (we didn’t stay in a hotel, didn’t spend money, etc). When people do find out what we’re doing, most people want to help in some way, which normally takes the form of advice against doing whatever we were planning to do, or warnings about the dangerous roads up ahead. Advice must be taken with a grain of salt, since most of these people would never consider riding a bicycle that far in general, let alone between different towns and countries. Anyway, the general consensus of the people we spoke with that morning told us to steer clear of the scenic coastal road and take the shorter main road that cut inland.
As we got a late start, we were pedaling through the heat of the afternoon sun the entire time. We stopped for dinner at a small town called San Juan de Urabá, just 20 km outside of Arboletes. While dining on fish at this restaurant, a man and woman with a German Shepherd puppy came and sat at the table next to ours. The man was local, and the woman was his sister, who had just moved back to Colombia after retiring from a career in the US agricultural industry. Sadly, I only remember the name of the woman’s dog, Trotski. We spoke to them for a while after we finished dinner, and the man paid for two rounds of beer plus our dinner! Before departing, we got the woman’s contact info so we could reach out when we passed through Montería, the city where she had just purchased her retirement home.
Posing at the beach as a huge wave crashes over the rocks behind me
We departed San Juan de Urabá with a sense of urgency to arrive in Arboletes before the setting sun, and we made very good time over these last 20 kilometers. We arrived at the local beach just in time to witness the sunset on the horizon, and we shared a papaya that we had plucked from a roadside tree. Arboletes has another volcano that is open to the public for bathing in the mud, just a few kilometers outside of town along the road towards Montería. Lenin and I asked some police officers about camping there, and they unanimously recommended against that, saying that it may be dangerous. We decided to check it out anyway.
Leaving the beach of Arboletes just after sunset to find the vulcan de lodo
Darkness sets in pretty quickly after sunset, although it was only around 7pm when we arrived at the volcano. It was difficult to see anything, but there was a small house where the mayordomo (caretaker) lived with his family. A heavyset woman with rich, black skin was lounging on the porch in front of the door, and two kids were playing outside around the entryway. We walked up and asked if we could string our hammocks up under the pavilion next to the volcano for the night. She told us it was technically not allowed, but if we got everything cleaned out before it opened for visitors, we should be fine. This ended up being my favorite place that we slept during the whole trip. It was wonderfully dark and quiet, with only the periodic sound of the sulfur gas bubbling up from the center of the mud-filled crater, less than a hundred meters away. As we were setting up our hammocks, the kids brought over some food that the woman had cooked for dinner. We were fed very well, without even asking, and I was touched by the generosity of this humble family. That day I learned that you can’t always trust the cops, but the locals are generally overwhelmingly welcoming and eager to help.
Turbo to Necocli
18 November 2017
I almost kitten-napped this little guy from Tata’s house.
Lenin and I left Tata’s place just after breakfast, reriding the last several kilometers back into Turbo to collect our helmets, which we had forgotten at Tata’s market. The ride out of Turbo was uneventful aside from a flat tire and a short stop to eat fruit at a finca along the road. We stopped again for fresh juice just outside of Necocli, in El Totumo. I didn’t think it was possible, but there were still fruits I hadn’t ever heard of that Colombians eat or use to make juice, and I tried two more of them at that fruit stand.
This thing was bubbling constantly. Inviting, isn’t it?
Eventually we did make it to the volcano, which resembled a small pit of filthy, boiling concrete. I thought Lenin was out of his mind if he expected us to put our bodies in that thing. I stood there, watching, as Lenin undressed and slowly lowered himself into the mud. Seriously? I could see garbage floating among the dried leaves on the edge of the pit, and it smelled like sulfur. I didn’t care what healing properties it supposedly had. I could not imagine touching the mud, let alone immersing myself in it. Somehow, Lenin coerced me into joining him. The mud was much denser and cooler than it appeared, and it was difficult to get my legs to sink. I didn’t want to let my legs sink. Every little bit of debris, which Lenin assured me was nothing more than dried leaves, creeped me out. I had trouble relaxing, while Lenin was having the time of his life, rolling around, smearing mud all over his face and posing for selfies. This place was totally isolated, and we didn’t see a single person while we were out there. There was also no fresh water to rinse off after climbing out of the volcano. We had to walk back along the muddy trail, covered in thick grey mud.
The cows line up to stare at us. No manners, these creatures have.
On our way back, I felt all of the cows were watching us. They lined up in groups, just staring at us as we walked. It was great fun to scare them all at once and watch them simultaneously take off running. When we reached our bikes, the two bags that we hadn’t bothered to leave in the stables had been opened, and it was clear that someone had rifled through everything. Nothing appeared to have been missing, except for our phone chargers, which we later discovered we had left at Tata’s house. We made it back to the stables and used a hose to rinse off and wash our clothes before heading into Necocli to find a place to spend the night.
Sunset on the beach in Necocli.
We headed straight for the beach in Necocli and watched the sun set into the sea before going into the main town square to eat. While we were in the plaza, a bohemian guy selling handcrafted jewelry off his bicycle approached us and invited us to come pitch our hammocks in the place where he was staying with another bike traveler. We followed him to what looked like an open air restaurant, situated directly across from the beach. It was quiet and dark, and it offered a roof over our heads while we slept. Both bike travelers were Colombian, and one of them claimed to know the owner of the restaurant who let them stay there. The guy who was already in his hammock was suspiciously friendly and kept repeating to us how welcome we were, but Lenin assured me that he was just drunk. The other guy soon went back into town to continue selling his jewelry, and we fell asleep.
Another Colombian bike tour begins
8-16 November 2017
After a busy summer of working on bikes in Newport and playing trombone with What Cheer? Brigade, I reluctantly left New England midway through cyclocross season to return to Medellin with Lenin. Two days later, we had secured a ride with his brother, Edwin, to Uramita. Within hours of this decision, our bikes were tied onto the roof of Edwin’s van, and all of our belongings were packed inside as we journeyed in the night along with 6 other family members through the mountains to their home pueblo, 3 or 4 hours away.
Part of the Fiesta del Campesino involves a parade of people on horses.
We arrived around 1 in the morning, but the town was in the midst of a lively fiesta, despite heavy rain showers. This weekend Uramita was celebrating Fiesta del Campesino, a party that happens once every two years for the farmers and involves dancing to live vallenato music until sunrise.
Lenin skates for the first time at the track in Uramita, nestled in the mountains.
Exhausted, I just wanted to sleep. We spent the next few days talking to people, playing tennis, inline skating, and immersing ourselves in the community. One day we cycled to Frontino, a town just 25km away, but mostly uphill. We returned later that day to begin organizing our gear for another bike tour.
Biking to Frontino from Uramita.
Lenin had wanted to bike from Medellín to Uramita, but we ended up riding with Edwin to save time. Similarly, we were hoping to ride all the way to the coast, but we ended up hitching a ride on a bus that one of Lenin’s many cousins operates between Medellin and Turbo. We were missing a part for the rear bike rack, and we wanted to get another rack to install on the other bicycle, both of which were impossible to find in Uramita. The bus left us in Chigorodó, where we stayed with Lenin’s aunt for a day.
Chigorodó is part of Uraba, a region of Antioquia that stretches from Dabeiba to the border with Cordoba, and it is full of cyclists. People of all ages and on all types of bicycles constantly ride up and down the main road through the town, often carrying another person on the handlebars or top tube. It is not uncommon to see entire families balancing on a single bicycle, or someone using their bicycle to carry a large or heavy item such as furniture or a ladder. This was the perfect place to find the last few things we needed for our tour.
Cali
4-9 March 2017
Lenin and I biked from the bus station in Cali to an overpriced cafe for breakfast. This is where we start spending money a little recklessly, compared to our earlier time on the road. From there, we went to a gelato place and splurged on gelato. We were the only ones there. After spending an hour or so using the Wi-Fi at Ventolini’s, we went to a sushi restaurant around the corner for lunch. I was really appreciating all the different food options we had in Cali after traveling through small towns that only offered the same type of rice- and meat-based dishes at every meal. Lenin noticed this, and he went above and beyond to appease my wandering appetite.
One of the many murals in Cali
We headed to a neighborhood where all the hostels are located to inquire about working in exchange for free room and board. We went into every hostel we could find but had no luck in finding a work exchange deal. Most of the places already had an Argentinean traveler working for them.
We ended up going to the cheapest hotel we could find, which was cheaper than all of the hostels for a reason. The room looked like it had been lived in. The girl who showed us the room had to unplug her phone that was charging in the outlet and remove some of her personal items before letting us in, and there was still a half full cup of something (juice? soda?) on the table that served as a desk when we rolled our bikes in. There were holes in the ceiling where daylight was peeking through, but fortunately rain was not in the forecast that night.
Lenin sits on the edge of a park overlooking Cali
The next day, we resumed our search for a room and started following a lead about a chocolateria that was rumored to need help at the moment. We passed an Arabic restaurant, and then backtracked a few steps to talk to the owner, Olga. Lenin did most of the talking, explaining that we were looking for a place to stay for a few days and were free to help in exchange. Olga was interested in learning how to make baklava the right way, and I could teach her. She agreed to pay for us to stay at a hotel for a few days in exchange for sharing the recipe I learned from my grandmother.
Before we solidified a deal with Olga later that evening, we went to a hostel that was owned by the friend of a person who had couchsurfed with Lenin in Medellin. This guy had recommended we go there, but we couldn’t find it on our first day. The owners of Mi Tierra hostel were a mother and daughter, and they were in the process of renovating the building so it would pass inspections. Their next inspection was coming up that week, and they still had some work to do to get it to comply with the fire safety regulations. The woman who was friends with Lenin’s former couchsurfer wasn’t home when we stopped in, and her mother was too busy to talk with us then, so we made plans to come back the next day.
That night we went to the apartment of our friend Catalina’s grandmother. We knew Catalina from Providence, and she hooked us up with her grandmother’s contact info and address and told her we would be coming. She lived alone in an apartment complex on the north end of Cali, and she honestly scared me. She refused to try to understand me when I attempted to speak with her, and she insisted that Lenin do all the talking. From what I gathered of their conversation, it was all about how she loved traveling, but she hated Americans and that there was no reason to go to the US except to see the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls and the Brooklyn Bridge. The only reason she thought the Brooklyn Bridge was so interesting was because of how long it took to build and how many people died in the process.
While we were at Catalina’s grandmother’s apartment, we confirmed plans to meet Olga at the Arab restaurant. In the morning, we heard from the owner of the hostel about a work exchange there, so we were able to rearrange our agreement with Olga to teach her the baklava recipe in exchange for a meal at the restaurant and a lesson on how to make a semolina cake with orange syrup. We worked that morning at the hostel, scraping paint and adding a non-skid grip to the stairs. Then we biked over the restaurant to make baklava and cake.
Trying to follow along on one of the band member’s trombones.
Work at the hostel got us a free place to stay, plus lunch every day. We just had to work 4 hours a day. The next two evenings we went salsa dancing, and the last evening we met Olga and her husband to go to her husband’s band practice. Olga’s husband is a percussionist in a salsa band, and I got to borrow a trombone from one of their trombonists and sit in on a song. It was nice to play again, but I felt a lot of pressure as the special guest of their practice when the solo section arrived and everyone was just waiting for me to solo (I’m terrible at being in the spotlight).
After the band practice, Lenin and I caught a taxi back to retrieve our bikes and biked to the bus station to catch an overnight bus to Medellín. This bus ride ended at the top of a mountain, just shy of Medellín, when we were caught behind a truck thay had flipped over on the narrow, winding road. Sleeping on the stopped bus for about an hour before noticing that it hadn’t been moving, we looked up where we were. At the top of Alto de Mina! We had both biked this road from Medellín before, and we knew the ride down was quick and easy. We also had no idea the bus would be backed up, so we asked the driver to get our bikes from under the bus and we were off. It was a beautiful morning, and it felt great to be back in Antioquia (probably the most beautiful department).
Riding back into Medellin from Alto de Mina
We passed several buses and trucks in the line of traffic before rounding a hairpin turn on the descent and seeing the cause of the backup. A big tractor trailer truck had tipped over, completely blocking both lanes of traffic. It lay on its side, and we first saw the underside of the long truck, with its wheels sticking out uselessly. We were able to pass by with our bikes, and left behind a crowd of people standing around and staring. The top of the truck was ripped open, and it looked like it was carrying water bottles. The remainder of our descent was incredible, with absolutely zero traffic to worry about coming from behind. We also passed at least 30 or 40 other cyclists on their routine morning rides.
Crossing the border: Orito to Lago Agrió
24 February 2017
From Orito we backtracked to the main road, which was under construction for a good stretch of the way to Hormiga, the only town of any significant size on the way to Ecuador. The lack of pavement made for slow progress, and we had to wait a few times in places where only one lane was open to one direction at a time.
Along this road was a bridge that had been taken over by guerrillas years ago. The guerrillas basically killed anyone who tried to cross the bridge, dumping the bodies in the river. Many towns in Colombia, including the one where Lenin grew up, were accustomed to the guerrillas coming in several times a year to massacre the police and steal supplies. First, the electricity to the whole town would go out, announcing their arrival. Then, you would hear the bombs and gunfire. They would usually target police stations, and sometimes the entire police force in a town would be killed. Then, the guerrillas would rob everything they needed from the town, including food, ammunition, and medicines. The next morning, when there was daylight, people would come out, inventory the damage and see who had died. Lenin lost friends this way who were caught in the crossfire, or who had been too close to the police station when a bomb went off.
The towns in Putumayo seemed to either be common victims of this type of warfare, or protected from it, depending on who lived in the town. Orito, for example, didn’t get attacked very much because most of the people living there were related or connected to the attackers in some way. Or, it could have been because the town was dominated by the oil industry and was heavily reinforced by military protection. El Tigre, on the other hand, just north of Hormiga, seemed to have a darker history of oppression by the guerrillas. It was chilling to think about what had occurred at the bridge while we crossed over the Guamez river outside of El Tigre.
Lenin stops to eat sugarcane from a farm on the side of the road.
One of the best parts of riding in Colombia are the many delicious fruits that are so readily available everywhere. Guava was in season, and as we neared the Ecuadorian border, we passed hundreds of trees full of ripe guavas. We also passed sugarcane, and when we saw a farmer loading the back of his truck with freshly cut caña, Lenin asked if we could have some. Without hesitation, he shared four stalks with us, expertly removing the hard, outer skin with a machete. The last snack we bought before reaching the border was a turron de maní. This is a roll of panela that has been kneaded by hand to the point where it is a taffy, or nougat consistency. It is mixed with peanuts, making for a crunchy, sweet and salty treat that resembles a Payday candy bar.
We made it to Ecuador!
When we came to Puente Internacional, the bridge that crosses from Colombia into Ecuador over the Río San Miguel, we asked a policeman to take a photo of us. On one side of the bridge were Colombia police officers, and the other side were Ecuadorian police officers. The immigration office was still a few kilometers down the road into Ecuador, so after getting a photo from both sides by two different officers, we rode on to this office. Most of my border crossings on land have been between the US and Canada, where photography is always strictly forbidden. I thought it was novel to actually have the police officers take our photos at the border for us.
We pulled up to the immigration office to get our passports stamped. Beyond this point, we passed cacao farms, more guava trees, and many properties for sale, as well as many abandoned houses. During the time when the guerrillas were most active, they would frequently cross over the border to hide out in Ecuador. The Colombian president at the time, Uribe, had a vengeance for the guerrillas since his father was killed by them when he was a boy. Disregarding the fact that this wasn’t his territory, he ordered the military to bomb the jungle, trying to find and kill the leaders of these guerrilla groups who were reportedly hiding in Ecuador. As a result, not many people live near the border, and there is a lot of abandoned property.
Lenin’s name is everywhere in Ecuador!
When we got a little further south, we started seeing green murals painted with Lenin’s name on them in huge blue letters. Ecuador has recently had an election, and one of the presidential candidates was named Lenin. They actually need to hold another election because the results were so close, so it’s possible that Lenin may very well be the next president of Ecuador.
Continuing to the south, we approached Lago Agrió, or bitter/sour lake. This town was originally settled by people who had migrated from a town in southern Ecuador called Loja and had named it Nueva Loja. However, when the big oil company, Texaco, started taking control of the area, they renamed it Lago Agrió. The town is not pretty, and it appears far removed from the beautiful jungle that we were surrounded by closer to the border.
We had the contact info of a man from WarmShowers who lived in Lago Agrió, so we headed towards the address listed for him. We tried stopping at a few places to use a phone and call him, but nobody seemed to have a working phone we could use. Just after sunset and just shy of 100 kilometers from where we began in Orito, we came to the church where this WarmShowers host was supposed to be. At first glance, it appeared that nobody was there, but when we got closer, a pregnant woman stepped out of the darkness. She told us that the man who used to host people was the pastor, but he had left the church a few months ago, and she didn’t know where he had gone.
We decided to go back towards the downtown and ask if we could stay at the fire station. The fireman who greeted us told us that they were understaffed, and the people working there were just covering for the actual employees while they went to a training in Quitó. He didn’t have the authority to let us stay at the station, so we settled for a cheap hotel around the corner. My birthday was the next day, so it was kind of like an early birthday present to splurge on a hotel, but I still felt guilty about spending $15 on a room (they use US dollars in Ecuador).
While walking around to find food, we found another bike traveler. He was from Bogotá, and he may have been more talkative than Lenin. We were both very tired, but we listened patiently to his stories from the road before retreating back to our hotel.
Mocoa to Puerto Asís
15 February 2017
It was raining when we were getting ready to leave Mocoa, so we waited a bit for it to let up. On our way out, we came to a public botanical garden, so we left our bikes with the security guard while hiking along a trail through the jungle.
Mochileros, or Gulungos, build these nests that hang from trees like backpacks.
Mocoa is very warm and humid, full of tropical flora and fauna. We saw toucans as well as other birds, known by the locals as mochileros, or backpackers, because the nests that they build look like bags hanging from the trees. We came to a river and decided to let the duckling swim around in a pool of water near the river. I took a few steps towards the water, and suddenly my legs sank into the sand. I was buried up to my knees! I managed to climb out, but I lost one of my flip flops below the sand. Lenin supervised the duck while I dug into the sand in a desperate search for my sandal, mentally preparing myself for the possibility of walking back on the trail barefoot. I eventually gave up and walked to the river to clean my arms, which were now covered in mud. When I walked back to where Lenin was, he had excavated my flip flop as if it were no big deal. It started to rain again on our way back to the road, so we waited with the security guard while it poured outside. Not wanting to be stuck in a room with this guy for too long, we made a break for it when it lightened up enough.
Riding through wet weather on our way out of Mocoa
We rode in this drizzle until the Fin Del Mundo, a waterfall that everyone told us we had to see if we go to Mocoa. Near the entrance to the trail for this waterfall, we rolled our bikes into a covered parking area attached to someone’s house and sat talking with the family there while the rain grew heavier. We decided not to go to the waterfall because it was cold, and we didn’t want to pay to see a waterfall when it was too cold and rainy to swim in it.
The rain eventually lightened up again, and we got back on our bikes to leave Mocoa. We stopped in the town of Villa Garzón for lunch and debated whether to just stay in a hotel that night because of all the rain. The hotel was dirt cheap (only $10,000 pesos) because they didn’t have a television, but by the time we finished eating, the rain was gone, and it looked like it wasn’t coming back.
Chontaduros are commonly sold on the streets or of carts, like this one in Medellín.
We made one more stop in San Pedro to snack on chontaduros, a fruit that grows on a tree similar to coconut, but is smaller, orange, and its taste and texture somewhat resembles pumpkin. I first saw this fruit in Neiva, where there are many people selling them in carts on the street. It’s widely available in the warmer climates of Colombia and popular among the black communities. People eat it with salt or honey, and also as a juice with milk or a creamy soup. I definitely preferred it with honey, but my taste is always partial to sweet over salty.
Our ride was mostly flat or downhill, and we remained in a warm, tropical climate the whole way to Puerto Asís. We made it to the town just after sunset, and just before our WarmShowers host, Monica, would be free to meet us in the main square.
The crash between Fusa and Giradot
24 January 2017
We were heading south from Fusa, with every intention of making it to Espinal, or possibly further, on our way to the desert. The route that day was not very difficult, and we had great weather. The first ten kilometers went by so quickly, we decided to switch bikes every twenty kilometers instead of ten.
- Passing under la Nariz del Diablo, on the road between Fusa and Melgar
During one of our water stops, we realized that Lenin was missing a shoe. We had been keeping our running shoes in the pocket in the back of Churro’s trailer, but a corner of this pocket was starting to rip, and it must have fallen out along the way. We had gone too far to return, so we continued without it. The first half of the ride was beautiful, and I wished that I had a GoPro or some kind of video camera to capture the terrific descent. Stopping in a tiny town to fix a flat tire, we were surrounded by children who wanted to hear me speak English. We stayed here for lunch and then kept going to Melgar, where we stopped for a snack.
From Melgar, we continued on the main road, a wide highway with two lanes in each direction. I was riding the road bike and Lenin was riding the cross bike, pulling the trailer. Whoever is pulling the trailer usually rides in front, since it is heavier and slower, and it keeps us from getting separated accidentally. The road bike is faster, but with all the weight in the back it feels very unbalanced and can be tricky to steer. Steering is especially sensitive when going fast down a steep hill. At some point during a long descent, I must have run into the trailer with my front wheel and lost control (as well as consciousness). I woke up on the road, completely disoriented. Lenin and Churro were by my side, very concerned. I had no idea where I was, what day it was, or what we were doing. An ambulance arrived while Lenin was trying to answer all of my questions, and the paramedics helped me walk in to sit on a seat inside the ambulance. Slowly, my memory returned, and I vaguely remember overlapping with the trailer’s wheel, but totally blacked out for my crash.
Getting my head scanned after getting knocked out from my bike crash
The ambulance brought me to a hospital in Giradot, the capital of Tolima. Lenin arrived shortly after, by bicycle, with Churro. I had to wait to have my head scanned, but otherwise was released from the hospital with a few days worth of pills for pain and swelling. It was dark by then, and I was in no condition to start riding again anyway, so we had to stay in Giradot. Lenin found someone through Couchsurfing who was not living there anymore, but she put us in touch with friends who we could stay with. They even picked us up from the hospital! My head was hurting for a few days, so we rested one full day in Giradot, doing little more than sleeping and walking around town a bit. We also miraculously found a bike shop that had the right derailleur hanger for the road bike, so we no longer had to ride single speed. They let us use their tools to install it and clean the bikes up on our way out of Giradot.
Bogotá to Fusagasugá
21-23 January 2017
Lenin swaps rides with a local pedicabber for a short distance on our way out of Bogota.
When we finally left Bogotá, it took about two hours just to get out of the city limits. Along the way, we passed a neighborhood that was full of pedicabs, and Lenin talked one of the drivers into switching with him for a short distance. The man agreed, and Lenin pedaled his cab, full of passengers, to the next corner while the driver wobbled a bit on Lenin’s loaded bike before catching up to ride alongside the cab.
Once we made it out of the city, we started climbing again, and it felt especially difficult after not having biked very hard the past week. The last 20 or so kilometers were downhill, and only interrupted by one quick stop to fix a flat tire on Churro’s trailer. When we arrived in Fusagasuga, or Fusa, Lenin asked for directions to try to find his friend’s motorcycle shop. However, on the way up one of the main roads, his friend, Hugo, recognized him and called out to us from the place where he was eating lunch with his son, Felipe.
A group of us rode up to Hugo’s finca-in-progress on dirt roads from Fusa
In Fusa, Hugo and Felipe took us on a bike ride up to where they were building a finca. The road was more suitable for mountain bikes, but I managed to make it to the top on my road bike without any trouble until the last few meters down the driveway. I slipped in the mud, recovered, and the next pedal stroke threw my derailleur into the spokes of the rear wheel. The derailleur hanger instantly snapped, so I was forced to rig the bike up as a single speed for the ride down.
I was so terrible at this game, they let me take a few steps closer to throw the stone.
On the way down the mountain, we stopped to play a game called teho, which is a lot like cornhole except you throw heavy stones at a clay surface that is rigged with explosives. You get points if you explode one of the explosives, but you get more points if the stone lands in the middle of the ring. The most points you can get is when you explode one of the explosives and then that same stone ends up landing in the middle. I was pretty terrible at the game, but it was still fun. People commonly play this game while drinking beers, often going through entire cases of beer by the end. The team who loses has to pay for everything. By no fault of my own, my team ended up winning, so I did not have to pay.
We ended up staying a day longer than planned in Fusa, spending a considerable amount of time looking for the right derailleur hanger to fix my bike. Ultimately, we decided to leave it single speed until we got to a bigger city and could find the part.
Bogotá
16-21 January 2017
View of the city from Adriana’s apartment in the Candelaria
The route from Sopó to Bogotá put us back on the nicely paved road with wide shoulders, and it was predominantly flat the whole way there. We didn’t have very far to go that day (only 50 kilometers), so we were able to leave Sopó late in the afternoon. I think it was actually after 5pm when we left, so most of our ride was in the dark. After only 20 kilometers we crossed into Bogotá, but it was still another 30 kilometers to get to la Candelaria, where we were staying with Lenin’s former coworker. The traffic in Bogotá was horrible, and we were weaving around the gridlocked cars and buses. Bogotá is full of ciclorutas, and we rode a few blocks out of our way to get to one of these, but it ended up being faster to ride on the road with the traffic so we went back. We made it to our destination quickly, with no snack breaks and no problems.
Resting in the Parque de las Periodistas
In Bogotá, Lenin and I rested, met up with the French girl who we had met in Villa de Leyva, visited thermals in Choachi, enjoyed the higher quality bakeries in the city (including my friend’s donut shop), and biked to parque Simon Bolívar. We also spent a day walking around, visiting bike shops and talking with the owners.
The first and smallest shop we visited was owned by a man who raced bikes in Europe in the 80’s. He gave us coffee and talked for a long time, telling us about the much larger shop he owned a few years ago before robbers stole almost everything he had. Another shop owner and his son told us about how they started the bike polo scene in Bogotá, where everyone began on whatever bike they had. Over time, its popularity grew and people started buying fixed gear bikes more specific to the sport. The guys at this shop build their own bicycles, and they were very interested when we told them about cyclocross. In general, almost none of the bike shop employees knew what cyclocross was. They all though we were talking about BMX at first, which is called bicicross in Colombia. By the end of the day I was so tired of talking to bike shop people and felt so worn out from exercising my brain in Spanish. All I wanted to do was go home and lie down. Churro was clearly exhausted as well, immediately falling asleep on the floor of every bike shop and begrudgingly waking up to move on to the next. None of the bike shops we visited thus far had any cyclocross bikes, and only one of the employees in one shop knew anything about the sport. But then we passed a shop that was actually called Ciclocross, so we had to go in and ask.
This cargo bike is local to Bogota. We would have liked to try carting Churro around in one of these!
We walked in, and the first employee we spoke to did what everyone else had done, taking us to the BMX bikes. “No, that’s bicicross! Cyclocross is different!”, Lenin proclaimed, like he had in every other shop. This attracted the attention of another employee, who came over and invited us to follow him into a back room, where he showed us a brand new LaPierre cyclocross bike, still in the box. He said they had already sold over 100 of them. It was expensive, and we weren’t planning to buy a bike, but it was interesting to see what the market was like here. The employee told us that there were a handful of people who were into cyclocross in Bogotá, but most people have no clue what it is.
Lenin and I had been thinking to bring the sport to Colombia, envisioning all the places where we could have races, and how it could be a year-round sport here. We received positive feedback from almost everyone we spoke with, and I think Bogotá would be the place to initiate a cyclocross club if it were to succeed here.
Adriana and her family come out to say goodbye to us before leaving their apartment.
Sopó
15-16 January 2017
Angela and Juan Sebastian are siblings who were only kids when Lenin last paraglided in Sopó, but now they are running one of the biggest paragliding schools around Bogotá. We stayed with them for two nights, and Churro quickly made friends with their dog, Apollo, a beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback about three times his size.
Churro waits patiently for the wind to pick up at the paragliding school.
We spent one full day in Sopó, hiking up to the paragliding school, waiting for wind that never came, and then hiking back down, accompanied by both dogs. On the way down, we opted to take a trail that was closed, but a policeman told us how to get there anyway. The trail was tough, and at one point became very steep and rocky. The dogs had trouble in a few spots, but we managed to coerce them down all of the tough areas until one part that involved a vertical drop of maybe six feet from a rock. I climbed down first, and Lenin was able to pass Churro to me, whom I safely transferred to the ground, but Apollo was too big to carry and wanted no part of it. He started running back up the mountain. Churro and I waited patiently for what seemed like over an hour while Lenin chased after Apollo. Apollo was very intent on not being forced down the trail, and he actually hid from Lenin in the bushes, holding his breath so that Lenin couldn’t find him. Lenin eventually succeeded in capturing Apollo, dragging him down towards me with his leash. Before he could make it to the difficult section, Apollo made another attempt to escape, this time breaking his leash, rendering it useless.
Churro and Apollo carefully climb down the mountain, followed by Lenin.
We had been hiking down for over an hour on this trail, having already traversed several tricky spots for the dogs, and to go back up to the road that we had walked up on would take a few more hours. We didn’t have enough daylight for that, and we were almost back down. We were starving, thirst, dizzy, and frustrated with the stubborn dog. It seemed ridiculous to climb back up the mountain only to go down again a different way, but both Lenin and I were considering that that might be our only option. Lenin went back up to look for Apollo, but he had no way of pulling him down so asked me to get Churro’s leash. Churro was napping with our backpack in a shady spot a bit further down the trail, so I went down to fetch his leash. On my way down, I heard some rustling in the bushes not far from the trail. There was an animal making its way through the vegetation towards me, but I couldn’t see what it was. Lenin was still high above us, trying to figure out where Apollo had gone, when suddenly out he came from the brush just below me and Churro on the trail! Lenin was moved by Apollo’s intelligence, remarking on how smart he was for the rest of our time in Sopó.
Churro’s first motorcycle ride went very smoothly, and he seemed to enjoy it!
The next day we borrowed Juan Sebastian’s motorcycle to get to Guatavita, a small town just across the lake on the other side of the mountain. This was Churro’s first experience riding a motorcycle, and he seemed to enjoy the wind on his face as he scrambled to get a better position between me and Lenin, resting his head on Lenin’s shoulder. I enjoyed watching him, with his jowls flapping in the breeze, though his nose was running, and mucous was flying back onto my arm.
From Guatavita we went up another mountain to get to the Laguna de Guatavita, where the legend of El Dorado originated. In this laguna, the indigenous leaders would go with all their offerings to the gods, filling a boat with gold, paddling to the middle of the deep lake, and dropping all the gold into the water. We should have done more research before going though, because the laguna was closed when we arrived. It would have been about an hour’s hike to the lake each way, and we still had to bike to Bogotá that afternoon, so perhaps it’s better that we didn’t go. Instead, we went back to Guatavita for lunch and back to the house in Sopó to pack our bicycles and leave.
Nomadic Cycling 