On the road to Medellin

Day 5 on the road to Medellin. The watch alarm went off this morning, as usual, at 5:15. We aim for a 6 am start to take advantage of the cool temps.  Those are the golden hours for us.  6 to 8 am.  We like to get a quick (?) 40 kms or so, then stop for something to eat and maybe a little “tinto” (coffee).  If we’re at 50 kms by 10 am or so, it just sets up the day for us to find a place by noon or 1 pm, after which it’s just too hot.  The perfect scenario is to stop by noon, find a good place to stay, sit back and enjoy a few cervezas in the shade for the afternoon, then head out for a stroll in the evening to find some food and take in the local sights.  In the evenings, towns come alive around the central squares, which are typically in front of a huge beautiful cathedral.  It's a time when families and friends come out and enjoy the square and buy street snacks and hang out. It's a really cool place to be as the sun goes down.  An added bonus lately has been the frequency of cheap hotels with pools.  Yes, pools (i.e, swimming pools)!  Yep, rough life but someone has to live it.

Change of schedule today though. Woke up to lighting.  One thing we’ve learned, is that when there’s lighting here, it’s going to rain.  No such thing as dry lightening around here.  So here we are waiting out the rain this morning, hoping for the sun to come out and dry things out.  Nice place though, could be a lot worse. Riding in the rain sucks.  Not so much for us, but for the bikes.  When the road is wet, every little piece of dirt, muck, and crap (and there is a lot of dirt, muck, and crap on the roads here) flies up into the bikes and really makes a mess of everything and causes havoc with the chain and gears, etc.  Generally, just not fun.  Turns out to be more work cleaning the bikes afterwards than anything else.  So hey, un mas tinto por favor.

 The riding thus far has been quite good and enjoyable.  Leaving the big city behind and getting into the rolling tropical pastures of interior Columbia has been fantastic.  Being the tropics, everything is very green and very lush.  The best part has been just getting out of the zona tourista and into the “real” Colombia.  We haven’t seen a gringo in 5 days.  We’re it!  And, we are now finding out what the real prices for things are.  Back in Cartagena, there was definitely 2 price schedules, one for them, and one for us (i.e., the “us” price being 3 or 4+ times the real price).  It’s great to be paying 10 cents for water instead of 50 cents.

 So far so good in terms of logistics.  Two flats (one each) so far. Although we had one mechanical issue that turned into a good story.  A couple days ago, just outside Sincelejo, the biggest town on the road so far, Amy’s bike was really grinding and making a lot of noise.  After taking a look we concluded it was just too dirty and full of sand from the beaches (my cleaning job obviously didn’t do the trick).  We had to get this bike cleaned and tuned up.  As we approached Sincelejo, we noticed the usual packs of early-morning riders out on the highway.  Road biking appears to be huge here (apparently a Columbian just came in second in the Tour de France?).  We figured Sincelejo would be a good place to find a bike shop.  It was, and the boys did a fantastico job of cleaning up Amy’s bike and tuning it up.  They worked on it for an hour or two, took it for a test ride, and offered us water and tinto while we waited. When I asked him “cuanto?” (how much?) he said “cinco”, meaning 5, meaning 5000 pesos, which is about $2.50.  Thinking I heard him incorrectly, he must have meant 50, which would have translated to about 25 bucks.  But no, he meant $2.50!  I kind of felt bad paying him so little (but I got over it).

Well, looks like the rain has stopped. Might be time to hit the road. It never rains for long. The weather has actually been fantastic. When the sun is out, it’s hot and dries out immediately. As they say, make hay while the sun shines.  With any luck we’ll be in Medellin in a few days. Hasta luego.