Lessons from the Andes

Alto de Vista – Santa Rosa de Osos, Colombia

I guess some of you were left wondering what kind of place we ended up at last night. Kind of interesting actually. Remember back in Arkansas when we were suggesting that they combine dog grooming and church services? Colombians have combined truck stop diners, truck tire and repair service centers, and hotels into one big enterprise. I guess you can get your oil changed, have a burger, and grab a nap all in one convenient location. 

We stayed in one of these places last night. The guy who seemed to be in charge, Johnny, was super nice; I think he loved having bikers staying at his establishment. 

Johnny seems to run back and forth between the hotel and repair shop. Last night he helped us check in, changed our light bulb, put our bikes in our room for us, and then fixed an eighteen-wheeler. This morning he made coffee, put out a bucket of fresh milk – presumably straight out of the cow – and then was fixing another big rig when we left . . . He may have milked the cows before we got up this morning; we didn’t see it, but Daisy and her friends were hanging out immediately behind the hotel so it is entirely possible . . .

Alright, don’t bury the headline. The biking in the mountains of Colombia is breathtaking. And it’s not like you bike two hours, get to a pass, and then are greeted with a nice view for two minutes. No. In Colombia the scenery just seems to go on and on. 

It was actually hard to get going this morning because of all the vistas. We would bike 50’, stop to take pictures, then bike another 100’, only to feel like there was another must-stop view. At 100’ every five minutes I think we might arrive in Medellin by next Christmas. Sadly, we were forced to skip many photo opps that would have been mandatory in most other countries. Really, between the frequent waterfalls, the quaint cows, the distant mountains and scenic valleys, we could have just as well filmed our entire trip today.

Which brings me to a sore subject. You may have noticed the plethora of good photos and videos yesterday. That’s because it was the one day where my new superpower sunglasses were actually working. 

You’ll recall the evil wave that doused our boat in Cartagena – complete with all of us and the new glasses and case, that was in my pocket. After that baptism in salt water the case stopped working. So sad. 

Subsequently I buried the case in rice to try to leech the salt water out. Then we read that another guy, who full-on dropped his case in the sea, eventually poured some rubbing alcohol into the charging port – and it started working after that. 

We tried this trick a few days ago – because, miraculously, the hotel we were staying in had a bottle of rubbing alcohol spray (who knew that they made such a product?) sitting on the counter. We were instantly back in business. Thus, the great day of photos and videos (and Spanish lessons and music) yesterday. 

But, sadly, the case died again last night. And the combination hotel-grease-monkey place didn’t have rubbing alcohol just sitting around . . . So no cool photos and videos today . . .

Fortunately, in Santa Rosa, where we are now, for 2 mill pesos (about 50 cents) you can buy a whole bottle of rubbing alcohol. We poured it into the charging port again, and, as Diana said, it was like ET – the heart light immediately started blinking. 

So happy it makes you want to sing some Neil Diamond!

Bottom line: you can expect some better photo and video documentation tomorrow . . .

While the riding today was incredible we’re mostly going to skip right through it. Turns out, what people want to hear about is crashes, catastrophic failures, garbage, monkeys, sloths – that type of stuff. There’s a reason that newspapers stick to the gory over the feel-good stories . . .

But I did want to take a moment to explore one small point. The other thing that made today amazing was the temperature and the humidity. Because it wasn’t a hundred degrees and a hundred percent humidity we didn’t feel like we had to “get there” by noon in order to avoid spontaneous combustion. 

You don’t realize how insidious pressure like this is until it’s gone. I mean, for the last week we’ve been biking in the heat. It’s fine and all – but you really don’t feel like you can stop and smell the roses much – lest you suffer in the heat more than you already are. But now that we’re in the mountains that pressure is completely gone. 

Our friend Lisa talks about murder fans. You don’t realize how much they are driving you crazy. But the second you turn them off, you instantly realize just how much they were getting under your skin – maybe to the point of wanting to murder someone . . . Thus, the name.

Same goes for this done-by-noon pressure that you get when you ride in the severe heat. You don’t realize just how crazy the pressure is making you until it’s gone . . .

Okay – now skipping way ahead. 

Two preliminaries.

First, remember how I “fixed” Little Ann yesterday by pulling the derailleur cable tighter? Well, today her gearing was acting up again, and Diana pointed out that this is what happens just before her cable breaks. But the problem is that we just used our last remaining derailleur cable on my bike a few days ago. This is a little alarming because we have another 50 miles or so to Medellin, and with no derailleur cable Diana would be stuck in her hardest gear the whole way. Considering there is another 3,000 feet or so of climbing to get there this might present a slight problem . . . So that’s the first thing to know . . .

Second, seemingly unrelated, it’s pretty rare that the hotels we go to are full. Not sure why this is, but it feels like at some point Latin America way overbuilt its hotel infrastructure and now they all charge very little and are never at capacity. 

But this afternoon the hotel we were going to had no availability. Now, normally full hotels can lead to bad things when you’re on a bike. Like, if you are tired from two straight days of huge climbing, you’re at 8,300 feet and there is very little oxygen, and it’s another 30 miles to the next hotel. Fortunately for us there were actually a number of other hotels in the vicinity. 

So we head to one of them that is more in the heart of the city. On the way there we see a bike shop. Things are looking up. A new derailleur cable is just what Doctor Liu ordered . . .

As we approach the shop the door is open – but there is a chain draped across the entrance, and there’s a woman standing there. She tells us they are closed: “No abierto.”

I figure it’s worth a shot though . . . 

I’ve been working a little on my Spanish, but I have absolutely no idea how to say derailleur cable in Español. I barely know the term in English . . . So I use my considerable powers of non-verbal speech – and point to the cable on my bike. 

The “We’re closed” woman seems to recognize what I’m saying, runs to the back of the store, and returns with a brand new cable – which she just gives us. If I haven’t said it before: people are so nice!

We also need some patches for our patch kit and Diana chimes in on this as well . . . Mrs. We’re Closed is looking a little irritated now. She just did us a big favor, but now we’re pushing our luck . . . I’m starting to tell Diana that we don’t really need patches that bad and they’re closed, when another guy appears – Santiago. Santiago knows English, he asks what we need, talks to Mrs. Closed, and pretty soon she’s selling us a few patches for 75 cents. 

Still not sure where Santiago materialized from, but he teaches English, French and Spanish in the school in town. He likes it, but he’s not so happy with the boys that are always trying to impress the girls. I guess problems like this are pretty universal . . .

So now we’ve checked two boxes and relieved some stress for our ride tomorrow. All good. 

Next stop? The new hotel. Yes, it has habitaciones para esta noche. 

The desk clerk? A nice young man named Pablo. Pablo has amazing curly hair. 

But Pablo asks a tricky question: “One bed or two?”

I never know what the right response is here. I mean it would be nice to have two beds, but we only need one and it seems like there’s no point in paying for two. 

“One will be fine.”

”Bueno.”

And Pablo hands me the key to room 415. 

We get there and it has one bed alright . . . One of those beds that is not quite a double, but a little bigger than a single. But even at that it barely fits into this closet of a room. Worse, the room has no windows. All stuff we don’t love, but we can live with. The final nail, though . . . The bed has one of those plastic mattress covers. You have probably never seen anything like this on an adult bed. We have – because it seems to be an occasional thing in Latin America. But where you might have seen this great product . . . wrapped around the mattress in a crib intended for infants. 

Let me just tell you – these things are awful. The sheets inevitably slip off of the plastic so you wake up in the middle of the night sleeping directly on the plastic. Every time you move around there’s that crinkly plastic noise. Maybe when I’m 93 and I can no longer control my bowels . . . But not yet . . .

We go back to Pablo, tell him we would like two beds and, if possible, a window, and he shows us to another room. This one has three beds, no plastic sheeting, it’s really roomy and bright, and it has a little balcony overlooking the really cool town. Same price: about $19. And, as it turns out, we’re really glad the original hotel was full. We never would have found the bike shop or the nice town . . .

Lessons for the day: the mountains of Colombia are amazing, the monkey wrench/hotel/diner/dairy operation may be the wave of the future, avoid crazy tropical-ness, and always ask for two beds at the hotel.

Tomorrow? Should be a pretty mellow ride into Medellin. We’re at about 8,300 feet – it’s at 5,000 or so. You do the math. 

Down is good . . .