Popayan to Medellin

Well, after a rest day in Popayan it was back on the bikes with a long ride ahead of us to the next city on the map, Cali which is famous for it's love of Salsa music and dancing plus for it's beautiful women, claimed to be the most beautiful in all of Colombia! The riding ended up being a bit easier than the previous days but close to the city it started raining and I managed to catch my front tire on a ridge in the road and crashed hard with my bike and panniers being scattered all over the road. Luckily I got myself up and out of the way of the oncoming traffic where I regathered my gear, thankfully all in one piece! Back on the bike after a bit of a rest but by now the light rain had turned into a full storm making visibility extremely poor. To add to the confusion, as the three of us had separated on the road and were cycling alone we all managed to get terribly lost in the city where it took us another two hours each to find the hostel we were searching for!! After another rest day we decided to get back on the road and head towards the next big city of Medellin, which we estimated to be about 3-4 days riding away. Things got off to a good start but as we had a head wind we decided to draft and were going along great......until Iwan decided to clip my back tire and he and his bike go flying through the air and take an extremely hard landing in the middle of the road. Not good as we were in the middle of nowhere and he had knocked himself out and was in bad shape. After some rest and first aid administered by myself and Alex we were back on the road cycling for the next town where more repairs could be made to both Iwan (now nicknamed the 'Flying Welshman') and his bike! Another rest day and then we really put the foot down and tried to reach Medellin within two days. The first day we managed about 140km through the rolling Colombian Andes but the second was much harder and we all stopped approx. 50km short of our intended destination. Totally knackered after climbing from 600m in the steaming hot Colombian jungle to over 2000m back in the Andes we had a quiet night in a quaint little village where we were the star attractions once again. The Colombians are extremely friendly people and curious but in a lot of the smaller villages they don't really see too many gringos and when we roll into town on the bikes we are viewed as if some aliens have just landed in their backyards, so it's a pretty cool reaction and one which we play up to! With only a short ride into Medellin the next day but with more hills and then torrential rains plus the fact that on a huge downhill section my brakes decide to stop working the short day ended up being more interesting than first intended. All this plus coming into the the large city of Medellin (2.5 million people) with it's dangerous reputation all added up to another exciting day. Checked into a Kiwi owned and run hostel (The Black Sheep) and after some food we relaxed with a few beers....magic! A couple of days of relaxing are planned prior to heading north this time to my final destination of Cartagena and the Caribbean coast. Should be a good 10 days riding and as per usual, never with a dull moment!!!

Riding Stats
> 17th May - 154km
> 19th May - 100km
> 21st May - 140km
> 22nd May - 138km
> 23rd May - 53km
Total - 7974km