Into the Cordillera Central, June 14th-16th

Neiva-Palermo-La Plata

June14

We weren't planning to take a rest day, but it was so hard to leave Erika and Camilo that we spent the day cooking and reading instead of riding.

June 15th
Happy birthday, Dad!
It takes a little while to get going in the morning; somehow our small amount of stuff has expanded everywhere. Too soon it is time to say goodbye to our amazing hosts. We were so lucky to have the opportunity to spend some time with Erika and Camilo. We can't thank you guys enough!

Heading out of town there is more traffic than we expected on our small road, but there are a lot of cyclists out and the cars seem accustomed to it. All are very respectful of us. Once we pass the first town of Palermo, the traffic dies down to almost nothing and our road winds up and through the mountains. It's a beautiful and peaceful ride.

We stop in a small town to enjoy some cheese and our homemade bread for lunch, then continue on. It's hot, but in many places trees form an archway over the road, and the shade keeps us cool. The road turns from paved to gravel, but the surface is still relatively smooth and we make good progress. I like that the dirt is streaked with so many colors: gold, blue, black, orange, red... we must be in a mineral rich area.

When it gets late and we're tired of climbing (we've been going up most of the afternoon) we ask to set up camp in a farmer's field. The family happily grants is permission and we find a spot far from the road and barking dogs.

June 16th
We're both feeling a bit under the weather this morning so we end up getting another late start. Luckily we don't have too far to go today. Our road becomes paved again just outside of our first town. As we climb a giant hill, we watch kids playing outside on a big yard outside of the school. It's 9:30 on a Tuesday. Later, around 11:00, we see kids at another school all playing outside. School here gets out around 12:00. Clearly rural education in Colombia needs a lot of help.

Outside of town our road turns to dirt once more. Happily, the surface is good quality and the mountains are beautiful, mostly untouched by farmers. Their streaked cliffs and overhanging vegetation remind me of an ice cream volcano cake that I made once for my birthday. We climb up and up and finally reach the top of the pass. Woohoo!

It's hard to see from the picture, but this is a car driving by with the guy in the passenger's seat holding his horse by a rope through the window. Farming meets 21st century. 

On the way down it's not too long before we hit pavement. But wait, it's still under construction. In particular a bridge is under construction and the road goes through a rather wide river. There is a small and rather unstable looking plank set up as a pedestrian crossing. Danny tries to ride across and immediately his shoes are soaked as his bike sinks into the riverbed. I just take off my shoes and walk across.

Yep- that's our road. Check out the "pedestrian crossing" on the left side.

For lunch we enjoy huge plates of eggs and rice. After some relaxing in the cool restaurant, we get back on the road for our last 25 km. Thankfully our road is again well shaded by trees and is beautifully paved.

When we reach the town of La Plata we enter into a chaos of motorcycles and other traffic who seem to have little regard for the traffic lights. After a bit of confusion, we find the centro and meet up with Juan Carlos, a friend of Erika and Camilo who has agreed to have us for the night. Juan Carlos, we soon learn, is a real revolutionary. His parents started a recycling program in this city and he now works on that program along with other environmental education initiatives. When we ask him what he does in his free time he says simply, "politics." He explains to us, in simple terms, that he's trying to improve conditions for the poor in Colombia. The house is plastered with pictures of Che Guevara and radical rap music bumps from the stereo. We spend a relaxing and interesting evening with Juan and his friends Isabel and Vanessa.

Other notes of interest:

New record number of people riding on one normal sized motorcycle: 6 

Strangest motorcycle passengers seen yet: two women and a pooping goat.

Route Notes

- Neiva to La Plata via Palermo: some traffic until Palermo then hardly any until the merge with highway 24. Paved except for about 30 km of very smooth dirt/gravel from Teruel to Pacarni

Flats and Fake Deserts, June 11th-13th

Girardot-Espinal-Guamo-Natagaima-Aipe-Villavieja-Neiva

June 11th

The morning dawns rainy and grey 

We smile and hope it stays that way 

The cloud cover limits the heat 

That we are desperately trying to beat

Our road is flat and the shoulder wide 

Making for a smooth and easy ride

A few pedals and we start to fly

Suddenly the kms are passing by

We glide past farms and cows

Colombians have planted as much as the soil allows

The valley bordered by mountains tall and green

I'm sure they're further than they seem 

Occasionally we pass some chickens and turkeys 

Or cross a river that is brown and murky 

Eventually the clouds clear and the sky turns blue

We put on more sunscreen and pedal through. 

Our road

The afternoon continues much the same as the morning. We pass multiple stands selling hand-woven sombrero type hats, clay pots, piggybanks, and wind chimes. For whatever reason these items seem to be the local specialties. Never in Colombia will you see just one stand selling something. There will always be at least five (more often more) selling the exact same thing, for the same price. It is still a mystery to us how they make any money. Maybe they don't. 

The "towns" we pass are just tiny groups of houses. We stop to camp in a dry field. The family who owns it is very friendly and tells us that if we need anything, just ask. 

June 12th

In the morning we try to get an early start to beat the heat, but today there are no clouds, thus the sun is already burning bright at 6 am. Our plan for today is to get to the desert of Tatacoa, a unique geological formation that several people have recommended to us. To get there we need to cross to the other side of the River Magdalena, and after talking to a few people along the road, we decide that the best option is going to be to take a boat from Aipe. 

Aipe is a cute town with good grocery stores and fruterias. We stock up on yummy food for the next day or so. Finding the boat to take us across the river is a bit of an adventure. Here's how it goes. 

1. Ask nice lady at grocery store how to get to the desert.

2. Follow her directions, then ask random guy on the street if we're going the right way.

3. Descend down steep hill to a branch of the river.

4. Take bridge across it.

5. Ride dirt trail through some fields and arrive at second, smaller bridge. 

6. Choose between two small dirt trails that both lead away into pastureland.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

7. Choose left trail because it looks more traveled.

8. Follow trail until it ends at a flooded field.

9. Return to first bridge and ask the different random guys we meet there how to get to the desert.

10. Go back down dirt trail, cross second bridge, and take right hand fork. (Turns out we should have followed the example of Robert Frost)

11. Ride tiny dirt trail past a bunch of cows.

12. Reach a red gate, open it, and go through it.

13. Ride on another tiny trail by the river.

14. Reach a rocky bank along a big river.

15. Wait for motorized canoe that is coming our way! 

Our boatman

The boat ride itself was only 5 minutes or so, and thus we made it across the mighty river Magdalena! We crossed the same river weeks ago to reach Mompox; it is big here, but nothing compared to its size in the north.

On the other side we order some fresh fruit juices at a restaurant and spend a little while avoiding the mid day heat. Then we ride out of town and off towards the desert. This road has been newly paved and it great for riding! We're immediately struck by how green it is, and that somehow, there are still cows out here. 

Our winding desert road

Once in the desert we meet some wonderful people from Medellin who have come out here for the weekend with an astronomy club. Apparently the desert is one of the best places in Colombia to see stars. They kindly invite us to join their astronomy party in the evening.

Side note: they also explain that the Desert of Tatacoa isn't really a desert, it's just a really, really dry forest. That explains all the greenery. 

For the rest of the afternoon we hike around a bit through the crazy formations, and then pay $2 each for the use of a cold swimming pool at one of the little hostels. It's amazing! 

Cool formations! The soil is extremely dry, flakey, and fragile.

A cute kestrel on a giant cactus

Impressive shadows

Exploring 

Hello cactus

All of the soil used to be as high as this tower, but slowly it was worn down by erosion and now we have these crazy formations. 

Once the sun goes down we spend hours enjoying the constellations, and have the opportunity to see Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and various globular clusters through a telescope. The night sky is spectacular. 

So many thanks to our new friends from Medellin for an incredible evening! 

June 13th

One of my closest friends from high school today is getting married today! I wish I could be there with her to celebrate. Congratulations and best wishes to Emily Hisey and Zack Palchak. :-)

We'v decided that the desert of Tatacoa is Colombia's version of BLM land in the States. You can come here and do whatever you want. Throughout the night we listened to motorbikes zooming by on the road, a car going by and honking its horn loudly every 2 seconds, other people camping and counting loudly and repeatedly from one to ten, donkeys braying, dogs barking, roosters crowing, etc. Since sound carries well across wide open spaces, we had quite the symphony. 

We still manage to wake up pretty early in the morning, determined to make it to Neiva. After a short bike out of the desert, we turn left onto a road that we will take into the city. The road, much to our surprise is paved! There is next to no traffic and the sky is completely cloudy, even a bit rainy at times. This makes for excellent riding! When we reach the outskirts of the city, the road expands and it's not too difficult to navigate the traffic. We've made excellent time. By 12:00 we've already done our shopping and figured out where to meet our warmshowers host. 

This begins a lovely afternoon. We meet Erika at her place of work, a small business that is working to promote peace and social development in Colombia. Erika is a wonderful person. She's is open, welcoming, happy, and so excited to have cyclists staying at her and her boyfriend's place because they just signed up on warmshowers. Immediately I feel like we are best friends.

She takes us out to lunch with one of her coworkers, Cesar, and we enjoy a typical Colombian meal with soup, rice, eggs, french fries, and even a bit of salad! 

In the afternoon I do some cooking and Danny goes on a bus adventure to find a part of our tent that we accidentally left behind camping in a field a couple days ago. Luckily the bus travel isn't complicated and Danny is able to find the part! 

We spend a fantastic evening talking to Erika and Carlos, our amazing hosts, and Boris and Charlotte, two French cyclists who are also staying here. They have just biked up from Argentina and have tons of stories and information to share with us!

One of our favorite pastimes, looking at maps! 

 

Check out this midnight snack! 

So many thanks to everyone for delicious food and interesting stories and advice. 

Route and Area Notes

- Girardot to Neiva: paved, big shoulder the whole way. Not too much traffic but increasing near cities.

- Desierto de Tatacoa: accessed from Villavieja, 4 ways to enter. 1) paved overland route from Neiva, 2) rough (but, people told us, not too rough, whatever that means - we didn't take it) overland route from Pueblo Nuevo, ~30km north of Aipe, 3) by ferry from Pata, about 20km north of Aipe, 4) ferry from Aipe. See Tam's detailed notes above for directions to the river from Aipe. The motocanoa was COP$3000 per person, and I think it's just one guy going back and forth, so ask around to see if he's shuttling people. If not, Pata may be a better option. The road to/from Neiva is a great ride, no traffic (except right next to the city) and good road condition. No shade, either, so go early. 

- The observatory in the desert is about 6km east of Villavieja. The pavement ends there. The observatory is closed on the weekends, apparently. Just after are a number of posaderas and restaurants, and about 7km past those is another natural attraction, Los Hoyos, which is apparently some natural pools. Saturno, one of the first few little places on the left after the observatory, rents its pool for COP$4000 per person for the day. It and all the other places have zonas de camping, but we just wild camped.