life @ 13
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
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.
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.
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