life @ 13

discriminating

fast ride to cali, 65k at 22km/hr. all hotels and hostels are full for the new year, but we managed to talk our way into one (NY eduaction is paying off).

sensuatinal

since we left off....the three monos (monkey is a term of endearment around here) had a nice christmas dinner of minature turkeys with arepas and rice and beer. not much different than any other meal, but we ate with as much christmas gusto as we could find.
leaving Riosucio we had a fairly steep 400m climb to 2100m, but the rest of the day was fairly flat riding along the mountain ridge, finally descending to about 900m in Cartago. spectacular scenery all day, riding through the clouds and new and carless roads in the morning, then a gradual descent through the river valley where we pushed 30 km/hr for about 10k. we stopped by the river for a swim with the locals. at some fire-cooked carne de cerdo (pork) late in the afternoon, climbed back to 1200m, then had a spectacularly fast descent (max 71 kmh for me) into Cartago.
Cartago was about as uninteresting as a city of 150,000 could be, but we stayed in a very friendly..umm...hotel. there was a sign reminding everyone that anyone brought back to the hotel must be of age (which is about 14 here). met a nice couple on the street who invited us back to their place for wine, coffee, and pastries.
Last night i made sure to point out that after three good days cycling, we were due for a shitty one. and a shitty morning it was...drizzle and rain, crowded highway, and all three of us punctured before noon. brilliant. but the rest of the day was good....for a stretch we averaged about 24 km/hr. totally flat riding through the valley, 110 km. drafted a truck that was going about 22 km/hr for 15 minutes -- just like taking a break but we were covering ground.
I've been feeling much better the past couple days, and starting to feel really strong on the bike. tomorrow will be a short, flat 65 km day into Cali...a few days off there, then off to Ecuador. I'm realizing that i haven't had much to say about the country recently...most likely because everything is starting to feel very familiar. all the thumbs up on the road, the insanely aggressive city traffic, the somewhat skeptical but overwhelmingly friendly people, the strange stories and history, and the highly varied and beautiful scenery, have become more internal than external to me. in short, Colombia is a spectacular country, through and through. one could spend years here and never get bored. like most other countries i've been to in latin america, everyone tells you that there is danger around the next corner (partly out of habit, partly to feel better about their own turf), but to me it seems as safe as anywhere here.
Oh, and i bought a violin. i would like to say it was a spur of the moment thing, but it was in the early plans. a guy at the hostel in medellin knew of a luthier in the city. so on monday we paid him a visit....unfortunately he had no instruments of his own, but he sold me a very, very nice chinese-made kit that set me back very, very little as far as violins go. the police in particular seem to enjoy listening.
pictures, videos, seranades to come soon. i just spent an hour working on them here, but the computer is just not cooperating enough.

tres monos

we're a little bit behind schedule, but otherwise everything has been going as planned. we left medellin early tuesday, heading towards cali. yesterday we had a little 700m climb to get out of the city, then almost 2000m of descending down to la pintada. the temperature near the top was about 65 degrees, at the bottom well above 90. total distance was about 75k with 1200m of climbing. not much happening at night, we were all wasted (tired) and slept almost 12 hours.

today we cycled along a river for the first 45k, then the road turned up and climbed from 700m to 1800m. about 70k total. i was feeling the heat in the middle of the day and had to go very slowly, but was very fast for the last 300m of climbing. now we're in riosucio, about to eat our christmas dinner.

pictures soon

also

those of you with a few bucks burning a hole in your pocket (i.e. you are not decimated by the current economy) should run, not walk to this website, get this camera, and carry it with you everywhere.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16830120251

stymied

so here i am, back in medellin. maybe i just really like this city, or the hostel and the people it contains, but the decision to turn back was not entirely difficult.

since the last post, there was some really good cycling on good roads for about 40k, but then things took a turn for the worse. i came to a T in the road...in one direction it was a good road that was a dead end, and in the other direction i would have had to cycle or walk 34k over some really, really nasty dirt track. there was a guy with a little store at the T and he laid out all the options, most of which involved going back through medellin. i figured i would average 3-4 km/hr over the dirt -- not appealing to me. it's probably going to be a good long trip, and i'm not quite ready to push myself like that. not to mention i was having some issues with a bike 1-2 sizes too small and am starting to feel the effects of living in a part of the world where hygiene is definitely not king. this is most definitely not a race

So with the help of the very helpful and hospitable guy (he gave me advice and coffee and showed me his handbuilt welder and i promised him a postcard from the US) at the T, i flagged down a bus, threw the bike in, and backtracked to the city.

that's the bad news

the good news is, i'm having a good time at the hostel, relaxing, hanging out, enjoying the international company and friendly city. the other good news is that, come monday, i will be cycling with not one but two companions (maybe more...i'm getting better at converting backpackers to bikepackers). one french chap who has cycled down from mexico city and a high-spirited quixotic german who will be testing the cross-country cycling waters. just as i like to spend quiet weekends at home, i've been spending the last couple days fixing up everyone's bike for the trek down carratera 25 and a side highway to Cali.

no pictures at the moment, but tomorrow i'm going to ride into the center of town in search of bike parts and post cards. if you guys play your cards right, i'll slap the video-capable camera to my handlebars and give you a glimpse of how positively insane it is cycling down the streets here. i'm fairly sure your reactions will run the gamut. will take some pretty church photos to balance things out. and some good pics of my john mcenroe hair, too

i'm thinking about ditching the machete too. in the heat of excitement at the home-depot-like store here, i ditched the much cheaper and effective dog-repelling wooden stick in favor of the shiny bush clearing weapon. but my better judgement is telling me it's more of a liability than anything else.

escape

finally, truly, escaped from medellin. i'll have to watch myself in the future -- it's easy to slip back into city mode. forged an alliance with a couple kids at the hostel based on distributing little pocket notebooks to kids in poor areas.
getting out was pretty rough physically as well. didn't get out until after noon, then the next few kilometers were straight up with grades from 10-17% for 400m of climbing. once i hit the highway the grades slowed to about 6% but there was still another 850m of climbing for the day. only covered 37k.
i decided to get off the main road for this leg, which looked particularly car-oriented (they even call it the autopista). so far seems to have been a good move, as the cycling is pretty awesome. lots of roadies out here. i'd heard that colombia was pretty fanatical about cycling, but not until recently did i actually see any cyclists.
rode until 20 minutes before dark...saw a lot of halfway decent camping spots by the side of the road but didn't feel like the area was quite remote enough for this. eventually came across a seminary school of sorts and the guy i saw called a couple of people and they let me string up my hammock between the goal posts on the soccer field. not bad sleeping at all....i'm starting to get used to this semi-wild camping.

loosening and lightening

no good updates today. been having a little too much fun in medellin exploring the city and gearing up and down. the spanish here is much easier to understand and i'm slowly starting to feel comfortable. fixed a downed computer at the hostel for a free night and some beer.
definitely leaving tomorrow towards manizales.
gearing down, i cut out almost everything that is not necessary: extra length from straps, labels, extra backpack pockets, plastic bags, flashlight (my cell phone has one), guide book (took 500 + pictures of all the pages), and two of my bicycle bags, probably 10 lbs in total.
gearing up, i got some new socks, lightweight pants, fishing hooks and line, headphones for the ipod, alcohol for the stove and, well. this. it serves a rather utilitarian purpose, but i think it's best to let your mind run wild.

pre-developed

pictures are updated

spent most of today doing boring stuff like laundry, shopping for socks and trinkets, and eating. non-stop eating.
i went out to the city for a few hours, just to get a little lost and get a feel for the place. i haven't been many places, but i guarantee you there is nowhere quite like medellin. moving on from its cartel days, there has clearly been a massive investment in infrastructure -- all the roads are new, the metro is fairly new, and they have a couple cable cars that run over and into the poorest neighbourhoods. but despite all the new stuff, the city center functions like most other poorer cities i.e. it's a giant market of small stands and shops, full of loud busses and oodles of exhaust.
it's been a nice day and a half off, but except for finding alcohol for my stove i've found all the little stuff i was looking for and am ready to keep going.

medellin

thought it would be a nice easy descent, given that medellin is 3300 feet below santa rosa and only 67 k away, but the mountains had their last hurrah of the first leg and had me climb another 2700 feet on the way down. i cleared the computer again by mistake, but it was about 75 k at 21 km/hr. drafted a truck on one of the descents and hit 68.5 km/hr on my aerodynamically challenged white donkey of a bike. i strapped my camera to the bike and took a video of one of the steeper parts of the decent. it's 250M so i need to cut it some to make it fit on the internet.
staying at a nice clean hostel with lots of backpackers. can't say i'm a fan of spending a lot of time at these places, but here and there they are quite nice. there's a mega-lo-mart a few blocks away to stock up on rice, sugar, and oatmeal.
i'm going to try and find someone on couchsurfing.com who can take me in and show me the city. i'm not much of a fan of doing touristy things.
i need to work on my spanish too. i can communicate just fine, but conversation is pretty much out of the question.

i enjoy getting emails from y'all, keeping me updated on what's going on at home. so keep them coming and i'll try and keep this thing updated.

the mountains in my legs (reprise) / how do you say fing knackered in spanish??
i'll warn you that i'm a little worn out and hungry and feeling the altitude right now, but here's my best

the pictures are updated. everything since the one captioned "cockpit view"

i think we left off in caucasia. the rest of the ride into taraza was uneventful. for the day i think it was 133k at about 22 km/hr. stayed at a little hospedaje (guesthouse) there which was fine, but i had a little bit of a funny feeling about it, so i took the oppertunity to take my us cash and spread it out all over my clothes and bike. the town was a little dusty but very amenable

the last couple days went as follows (the number is altitide in meters, multiply by 3.3 for feet)

125M
started off in taraza, climbing slowly. pretty scenic, following a big river, lots of shade, ate a gigantic lunch around 45km

200m
after lunch, crossed a bridge and noticed that the rode tilted somewhat drastically upward. no big deal, i switch over to one of the tiny gears and keep going. it's very hot, by the way

400m
the grades are between 6 and 10 percent, and i'm feeling it

800m
holy shit, i'm tired. when i cough i feel it down my entire leg. stopped a whole bunch of times to drink and eat fruit. it's getting slightly cooler, though

1000m
wow, 1000m. take a picture of the altimeter

1200m
reached the first town...seems like the top of the range. medellin is 200-ish km away and at
1500m, so i should be good from here

1600m (like 3km later)
what really gets me, besides the fact that i'm tired and pushing the bike now, is that you can't see any switchbacks here...every 10 minutes you round a corner that is 100m higher, and as soon as you round that one there is another. i'm, in the clouds. everyone is giving me a thumbs up and smiling.

1700m
i'm clearly not near the top. not that i can see much because i'm in the clouds. it's 20 minutes from being very dark. there are lots of shabby looking shacks around here, but i find a decent looking house and ask if i can stay there. the lady says i have permission to stay, but this is in one of the uninhabited shacks. i'm so tired i don't care. i lay out all my stuff, set up the hammock inside, filter a few litres of water, and make a dinner of rice with tomatoes (delicious). read some dostoyevsky in the hammock, and i'm pretty sure i hear footsteps around me. i ask if anyone is there, and no response. this is the point, for me, when the rational and irrational minds duke it out. the irrational mind says that i'm in troulble. the rational one says no, it's probably nothing. and even if there is someone, i locked the door (with some spare brake cable), and even if they come in, they're probably not hostile, and if they are, they just want money or, at worst, my stuff. honestly? they can have it if it comes to that. i'm so infinitely more fortunate than whomever would do this that a couple hundred dollars and bike and some camping gear is really nothing to me.i put my earplugs in and sleep pretty well, despite the loud ass trucks 15 feet from my earsin the morning i notice some falling debris near the shack that sounds a whole lot like human footsteps.

2200m
i'm at what looks like the top, but turns out to be YALP (yet another local peak). feeling pretty good now. only walked a little bit this morning, up a grade that was 18-ish percent. going up lots of people were offering me rides and the slow moving trucks offered to let me hold on and be pulled.

2400m
stopped by the police yet again. i guess they're bored and i seem interesting. these guys are particularly fun -- ask the usual questions about where i came from, going, where i eat and sleep, which country has better women, etc. they give me some arepa with egg and "chocloate" which is some chocolate powder with water and milk (we'll see how my stomach feels in a couple days. can't turn down free food unless it's obviously bad though). there's a picture with these guys in the album.

2500m
up and down, but i'm finally at the next town, yarumal. feeling tired but pretty good. stop at a little food stand, there's some guy there who is very talkative (he even looks like rodney dangerfield) who pretty much orders everything for me -- cafe con leche, arepa, and chicken in a fried shell -- and then even pays for it. pretty cool. i wish i could send some of this weather home: clean air, blue sky, 75 degrees.

2000m
nice decent

2500m
stopped by the police yet again. just one guy and he was actually serious for a couple minutes, then slips into sizing up how crazy i am

2700m
the top. feels good. it's all pretty much flat and downhill from here. descend a little to santa rosa de osos where i am typing and starving now. and feeling particularly good. the lady at the hotel didn't have enough change so i bought a beer to close the gap.

by the way, the numbers are starting to mean nothing to me. they're a point of amusement, but this is clearly not about numbers.

yesterday was 74.09 km, 12.6 km/hr, 1671 meters gained
today was 81.03 km, 14.5 km/hr, 1832 meters gained
in total, i climbed 11,500 feet the past couple days. ready for a break

photos and videos

why google does not make it easy to easily integrate photos and video into the blog site is beyond me. when i get to medellin i'm going to try and see if i'm missing something or if there is a better way to do this. i'm somewhat tempted to move the whole thing to crazyguyonabike.com (yes, a real site).

anyway, instead of a siesta i found an internet cafe and updated pictures. and i uploaded a couple videos here and here. i also finally started taking some pictures with my camera that exposes real film, but it may be a long time before anyone sees them.

so far today has been good, very overcast and humid this morning, only 80 degrees. i'm stopped in Caucasia and it's back to 95 again. 70k at 22.6 km/hr (glad i wrote this down because i just cleared the day on my computer). it's pretty flat, the shoulder is nice and big, and i'm starting to feel like my good old biking self. the road is about to turn up, though. 275K more to medellin -- i'm going to try and make it there by wednesday.

moving on

right now i'm in a little puebla called Planeta Rica. was planning on trying to stay at a farm again tonight, but the name was too good, and after 121k at 21k/hr i'm treating myself, a little.

not sure if i let on to this much, but yesterday i was really baked. my little bike hat was just not cutting it, and after two days of constant equatorial sun i think that half of my brain cells went into heat hibernation. anyway, today was much better for a number of reasons. 1) i got a sombrero which does a pretty good job of keeping the sun off my head. had to sew some twigs into in to prevent the front from flapping around. 2) i wore pants today which kept the sun off my legs so they can tan instead of blaze. surpisingly not that bad. 3) i'm starting to perfect the Gunnar method of wearing a longsleeve shirt -- cuffs buttoned to keep the sun off the arms and almost the entire shirt unbuttoned to keep cool. 4) i'm finding out what's good and cheap to eat: little bananas that taste 10x better than anything i've had at home, oranges are good and practically free, fried whole potatoes with a little meat in the middle for 20 cents, and fried arepas with egg for 40 cents. right now i'm drinking a little over 2 gallons of water a day. 5) the bike is performing admirably -- the index shifter seems to have fixed itself in the warm weather -- but i'm thinking about slimming things down considerably when i get to medellin. 6) yesterday i saw a guy travelling on a motorcycle get stopped by the police and he was being searched. today i was stopped for the first time and they just wanted to get a grip on exactly how crazy i am.

Colombia is very familiar but definitely not the same as the other central american countries. they use a lot of slang here -- it seems like every 3rd word i hear is "plata" (cash), fittng for a country that makes a lot of its money exporting something so frequently bought in cash. people are far less likely to wave when i pass by (fine by me) but they frequently say something to me, although either i can't understand their accent or they're using slang i don't understand or they're just talking to someone else but looking at me. i get a LOT of honks, but, then again, not nearly as many as the women on the street.

i PROMISE to have pictures next time...i remembered to bring my camera to the internet place today and even took the usb cable out of my bag but it didn't make it into my pocket

stroked

i met a german couple at the hostel in cartagena, sven and ilya. they had spent some time at an italian-run children's school in one of the poorer areas outside cartagena and convinced me to stick around one more day to see the school. which I did, and it was worth it.

so yesterday i was off -- i wanted to leave early in the morning but didn't make it out until 9:30. lots of traffic leaving the city. i missed a turn to stay on the main road and wound up in a little town where everyone thought i was looking for the beach (fittingly, playa blanca). once i was about 20k outside the city the road was pretty good and not too much traffic so i was pushing fairly hard, which turned out to be a mistake. i've had my fair share of experience biking in latin america, but i underestimated my lack of acclimation to the heat and the heat itself (100 degrees and very humid). so i think what i experienced was a little heat stroke (not dehydration, that much i can judge). after an hour an a half in the shade i felt better and was able to keep going, albeit slowly and with lots of stops. biked a little later than i should have, but it turned out well because just as it was getting too dark i found an open farm gate, walked in and asked the farmer living there if i could put up my hammock. he invited me to stay inside with himself and his two kids. they had a lot of questions but i'm coming to realize that colombians speak fairly quickly, with an accent í'm not used to, and like americans they seem to be making up the language on the fly. anyway, i gave him some rum i had in my bag (leftover) and showed him all my toys: stove water filter, etc.

went to sleep very early (didn't sleep well on the foam mat on the floor and lots of animal noises) and woke up around 5am. made some oatmeal with my alcohol stove and got moving early to avoid the heat. there was lots of traffic for the first 10K or so and i was very lethargic. afterward the road improved and the traffic was much, much better. lots of little 200-300' hills. took a nap under a tree and afterward felt my legs come alive for the first time. towards the end of the day today I ran into a man who had been walking around colombia, peru, venezuela, and bolivia for 10 years. he was very friendly and he rattled off his favorite bands (def leppard, bon jovi, ac/dc, kiss, etc).

now i'm in Sincelejo, a local capital, univeristy town and cattle town. leaving early tomorrow, south toward medellin (med-ah-jeen). should be good riding, but i might not have internet again until medellin, 457K away

98K yesterday, 105 today. not very much, but i've been stopping a lot to stay cool.

will have some pictures and videos next time.

agua man

detroit to cartagena airport to cartagena centro

it's hard to describe the feeling when you first get off the plane. all the months of planning, reading online and recounting past experiences suddenly mean very little. you're somewhere very, very different. just as i got the bike all set and rolling, it started pouring hot torrential rain, which was clearly worth a chant of "agua-man!" from afar.

but for me, this time, it's also familiar. i don't even know how i did this last time with no spanish, but it's very satisfying to be able to communicate without much pointing and grunting.

one thing i remember clearly from last time is that whenever the guide book describes a city as a must-see, i'm best off avoiding it. cartagena is fine, and i'm sure some of the surrounding beaches are very nice, but the centro area is crowded and dirty and not all that inexpensive. charming, maybe, but i'm just a little too jaded. and i've already had a week of being lazy and have spent my fair share of time in crowded and dirty latin american cities. on the upside, the hostel here is perfect: cheap, friendly, and has free internet.

so tomorrow i'm going to gather some final supplies, get to sleep early, and start riding