bomberos
leaving Pasto
not our road
tunnel
in El Tablón
high in the sky
la policia
with François
cows (or beefalo?)
oops!
bike coop in Popayan
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So, we said goodbye to our newfound friends at the bombero cuartel in Pasto and headed down the street to pick up a few snacks for the road. Andrés, the bombero we had spent the most time chatting with, showed up behind us a few seconds later with my forgotten sandals and toothbrush and offered to show us the salida from the city. We gladly accepted, procured a few bananas and panes, and headed out of town.
Heading north from Pasto, the Pan-American Highway climbs up for about 10 km and then descends for about 40 km into a large river valley. We passed through a few towns near the top of the descent, but they disappeared after 15-20 km or so. While it was quite cool in the morning up in Pasto at around 2500 meters, as we sped down the hill the heat began to climb. Near the bottom of the climb, we met the first touring cyclist that we’ve seen since the Germans back in Peru.
Meet Julie, probably around our age, maybe a little older, who has cycled all the way from British Columbia, Canada to southern Colombia in about 4 months (wow). If we could ride that fast we’d be long home by now! Unfortunately we neglected to take a picture with her and I’m not sure she has a web site. We do have an e-mail address though, so I’ll update this if we find out otherwise.
Not long after, we hit the bottom of the descent, crossed the river, and started heading up the other side. It was long (about 15-20 km), but not nearly as long as the descent from the hill above Pasto. On the way up we passed through a short tunnel whose upper end seems to be in the middle of a huge landslide (check out the pictures). They seemed to be trying to do something to stop it (good luck!).
After reaching the top we started down again. After a short 5 km or so, we entered the small pueblo of Tablón and, since the afternoon was getting on, decided to buy some meat for the night’s soup (we already had its vegetables) and look for a place to spend the night. Our search led us to just about every tienda in town but turned up no meat.
We asked around a little for a roof but it didn’t seem very promising. The people we talked to, however, told us we could probably camp in one of the balnearios on the edge of town (like the one we had stayed in way back in Teodelina, Argentina). A balneario is basically a park with picnic and camping areas and a swimming pool. We’ve been trying to make a policy of not camping in Colombia, but everybody assured us it was safe in this case (and our general fear of camping has been contested at least once again since then).
The owner wasn’t around at the first place we asked, but the place just across the way gladly took us in, even after we explained we had no money to pay for lodging. They said we could camp in the fútbol field and gave us water to cook and bathe.
So, we cooked our dinner, chatted a bit with the curious members of the family (who also offered us a sizeable portion of oranges, picked off the tree about 10 feet away), went upstairs to watch the men play a form of billiards involving three balls and no pockets (the intricacies of which have remained largely beyond us), and finally hit the hay.
The next day took us about 70 km up and down a few smaller mountains an hills (and even along some amazingly flat sections of road) to the small town of El Estrecho. The weather was hot. While a quick glance at the map suggests that the Pan-American stays in the mountains through Colombia, at this point it generally follows the Río Patia and is really quite low in elevation.
Early in the day we saw somebody having a great time (we assume) flying around up in the sky (see the picture). He or she seemed to be maintaining the same altitude, just circling around the sky. We imagined that he or she must have some control over this large parachute (for the purpose of landing, e.g.), but its characteristics weren’t evident to us from the ground. A gas station attendant said the person was probably just a tourist from the city.
Later on in the we stopped for a snack just beyond one of the police posts that guards the highway. We had a few oranges to eat, but Daniel mentioned offhand, “Maybe we should go see if the police have something cold for us to drink.”
A about 20 seconds later the police beckoned us over and gave us a couple glasses each of ice cold grape bubble gum flavored soda. Spooky, eh?
They stopped several cars and trucks to check their cargo (routine practice) while we were chatting. From the back of one truck they extracted (or were gifted, it wasn’t really clear) a healthy sum of large, juicy oranges—the majority of which they passed on to us. (H)Mmm…
Later on in the day we saw another loaded touring bike headed up the hill towards us. Another?? Qué raro. François (from France) has been cycling for about 13 months and just arrived in Colombia (from Australia, if I recall correctly) a couple weeks ago. He’s headed down to Buenos Aires (exactly where we’re coming from), so we shared our route with him (as well as all the things we would have done differently). As is always the tragedy when one meets another touring cyclist going the opposite direction, we soon parted and went our separate ways.
Soon enough we arrived in El Estrecho and opted to stay the night. We soon made friends with a young boy and the workers at the local panaderia. The boy didn’t act his age at all: He gifted us a watermelon (he sold them), refused the gift of some bread in exchange (he was full), recommended that we camp at the police station as it would be safe, and told us we could bathe in the river (but later retracted that after we took a long time to buy dinner ingredients, as it was getting dark and we might get lost). The folks at the panaderia were mostly just curious about what we were up to, but also offered us their blessings and some sort of extra treat every time we made a purchase.
As the night was on its way we headed over the the police station and, after a short wait, got permission to setup camp. After a little chatting with the officers, we got further permission to use their kitchen to cook our soup.
After dinner we went back into town to try to meet up with our friends from the panaderia, but no one seemed to be around. We each tried a bottle of the local (well, national) brew (which has been increasing in quality ever since the watery Quilmes in Argentina) and headed to bed.
In the morning we had another delicious bout of real coffee and tostadas (the theoretical perfect toast, completely dry, which the Colombians have spent centuries perfecting into the best possible thing to dip in coffee). We pushed on somewhat late after visiting our young friend and fellow bakers again. A lot of climbing took us up to a tiny town with the sun setting still an hour short of the day’s goal. We spent a lot of time trying to track down the director of the local school (so that we might sleep in it) hearing rumors from his house that he was at dinner… or out drinking, and from the restaurant that he was at home. After some hours in vain we were rescued while trying to get some sort of attention from the unoccupied church. A woman came up behind me while I tapped at the door to offer us a room in her house. She had seen us wandering for some time and made the educated guess that we were in search of a roof (indeed, it had rained nearly the entire time we spent in that town, and we found temporary shelter in front of buildings). We found that there were all ready two other passerbys in her house whom were also being made welcome to her shower, bathroom, kitchen, and beds. We made the usual soup on her excellent wood cookstove.
In the morning we enjoyed some cold showers in the quickly warming and humid day. A few hours of climbing and a few more of “rolling” Andes terrain brought us into Popayán, about the size of Pasto. Finding the bomberos was quite easy, fortunately enough, as Toby got our first flat in a few months just as we pulled up to the station. Unfortunately a brief conversation with the guardia revealed that some previous travelers, for whom we have absolutely no respect nor forgiveness, did something that resulted in an absolute ban on further hosting in this cuartel.
Several more hours of searching between the churches and the police revealed that no one of sufficient authority was present in the churches and we did not have sufficient authority to set foot in any major Colombian police station. We eventually found a decent hotel quite cheaply. Against all predictions of the locals (it being now late on Sunday night) cheap and generously portioned dinners were found half a block away to nourish us after the long search.
And that leaves us here, establishing our new policy of taking one day off after about five days of riding instead of a week and a half off after, well, about five days of riding. Next pause, Santander, in a day or two, followed by the metropolis of Cali, maybe.
Hola Daniel y Tobias, he visto las fotos de los lugares maravillosos que han conocido.
Es increible el largo camino que han recorrido y todas las aventuras que han tenido.
Como siempre yo los sigo a traves de la pagina para saber como estan.
Me alegro de saber que estan bien.
Saludos y fuerza
Cariños
Andrea – Antofagasta – Chile
Some years ago, in Chile, we were fascinated by the skills of a sky surfer who appeared very similiar to the one you observed. He/she seemed to hang there forever! When we were finally able to get closer and check out those skills, the skills were those of an excellent kite-flyer. He/she was ballast in a very believable human form. Could be?
Tio Jonathan