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

Quito, Ecuador to Popayan, Colmbia

Back in Quito after my trip to the Galapagos Island where I was preparing to leave the next day on my bike when my Austrian cycling mate, Alex rolls back into the hostel after 7 days of hard riding in the jungle!! That night after a few beers and comparing our stories we delayed our departure for another day and made trip plans and preparations for cycling together into Colombia. Cycling out of Quito was easier than most large cities but the diesel fumes from all the trucks and buses made it a little uncomfortable but once out of the city it was good riding passed highland lakes and volcanoes where I crossed the equator finally leaving the southern hemisphere and into the north after 4 months of cycling. We managed to get up north to the highland market town of Otavalo where we stayed for the night ready for the famous Saturday morning market the next day which was excellent and worth the effort. After the market we decided to continue riding but only about 25km to the next town but once there we decided to go to the next town. This continued for a while until we were in the middle of nowhere with the night fast approaching and a huge mountain to climb in front of us. We manged to roll into a small highland town well after dark after completing 90km not the leisurely 25km we had planned and luckily found a locals place to stay at! The next day was hard riding again to the Ecuador/Colombia border where, as we were being stamped out of Ecuador a cyclist I'd met in La Paz, Bolivia (Ewan, a Welsh guy) turns up so we join forces and head into big bad Colombia. We survived the first night with no problems so it was up early the next day and straight into some hard riding to our first city (Pasto) where we checked into a hostel for the night. The following day we completed some amazing cycling through a spectacular gorge and some highland valleys. The only problem was on one of the extreme downhill sections my front tire had hit one too many potholes and blew out with a huge bang which scared the hell out of me and I nearly crashed over the side of the gorge!! Half an hour later I was all fixed and back riding but trying to take it a bit easier on my now damaged tire. That night the three of us stopped in a little rural town in southern Colombia's lowlands where we had descended from nearly 3000m to only 700m. As it was extremely hot the only remedy to cool down was to drink a few beers at a local street stall which ended up being a good night as pretty much the whole town came out to check us out and have a chat. The Colombians seem genuinely friendly people but the military presence is strong everywhere and they are definitely not hear for show so we are picking our route carefully and only riding in the daylight hours to hopefully avoid any major problems. The riding from Quito has been hard as the region is very mountainous and there have been numerous steep uphill sections followed by steep downhill ones which has continued for the last 7 days so I'm currently relaxing in an old Spanish colonial city called Popayan which is full of beautiful whitewashed churches and cobbled stone bridges before again heading off north through central Colombia.

Riding Stats
> 9th May - 104km
> 10th May - 93km
> 11th May - 68km
> 12th May - 83km
> 13th May - 92km
> 14th May - 123km
> 15th May - 39km
Total - 7389km