The Tunnel of Love

La Pintada – Hotel Yellow, Colombia

Right away Diana went to put her jersey back on. 

“I think if the goal is to find someone to drive us through the tunnel you should probably not put that on,” I said.

”But it just seems like good decorum. And I hate being half naked in front of people.” (Editor’s Note: As we talked about just a few days ago, I’m not sure this is a real concern for Dr. Liu . . .)

”Well, no one is going to stop for me. We need you out front – and the sports bra will work just fine . . .”

It was late in the day and we just realized that we couldn’t ride our bikes through the 3.5 kilometer (about 2 mile) long tunnel that separated us from our hotel for the evening. I mean, we could probably figure out a way to ride around – but it would probably mean an extra 20 miles or so. That was not going to happen . . .

It was kind of funny. We bike up to the tunnel. The first thing I saw was the sign saying 3,492 meters – or something like that. Wow. That’s a long tunnel. Cool. 

Then we saw the No Horse & Buggy sign. I took a picture and we laughed because in our insider world the sign meant that the Amish would not be allowed. Funny. 

But as we laughed I saw another, smaller sign, just before the entrance to the tunnel: a bike with an X through it. And at the same time a uniformed figure was approaching. 

“Damn,” I thought, “Looks like we’re not biking through . . .”

Sure enough, the uniformed guy told us that bikes were not allowed. I guess the fumes from the cars and trucks in the middle of the tunnel are not good. Kind of makes sense. And, really, as we discussed later, if they are actually enforcing a rule like this in Latin America you know it is probably exceedingly dangerous. 

Next option: hitching a ride. 

And that’s how we got to the jersey/no jersey discussion. 

For the first time on this whole trip we were happy that the roads were filled with big rigs. One of them would be perfect for hauling us through.

So we found a good shady spot not too far from the tunnel, we put Diana out front, and as cars and trucks came by I put up my thumb and Diana waved merrily. 

The first eighteen wheeler that came by gave us hope: there was a big honk of acknowledgment . . . but then it just kept going. 

A woman came by driving a van. That could work. She slowed down – and, again, we thought she was going to stop. No dice. She just kept slowly driving into the tunnel until she was gone. 

One or two more big trucks came and went . . .

And then we hit the jackpot. The truck slowed down and stopped, and a guy jumped out as we rushed up with our stuff. 

Such a nice guy. Nesto. 

Nesto lives in Bogota, where, I think, he was driving to now. He has family in the U.S. – Washington State, Phoenix, and maybe Las Vegas. 

He explained that the tunnel is only two years old and it has made life way easier for drivers like him. The alternative is a long and mountainous slog around . . .

Nesto dropped us on the other side – though I think he would have been happy to drive us wherever we wanted to go. We took a picture or two and offered him 50 mil pesos for his services.

“No, no.” And he indicated that he did not help us for the money. “But dollars? Tienes dollars?”

I traded all my dollars for pesos in Cartagena – but Diana’s purse thing is always handy for stuff like this. Who really knows what’s in there?

She pulled out a $5 and a $1. 

Nesto lit up. I don’t think he was interested in the money itself – it is more that the dollars will help him tell the story of how he helped these two Norte Americanos. 

What a wonderful human being. 

We should go back to yesterday for a second. Our interaction with Nesto made us realize that Marta – the 5 foot tall impermeables woman – probably just wanted a dollar to put on the wall. So when she said she wanted a dollar for her casa it meant something entirely different than what we were thinking. Language barriers can cause all kinds of misunderstandings – as history shows. And I would add that people tend to have huge biases toward their own world view. In our case, we probably tend to look upon Colombians as generally poor – so when she asked for dollars for her house we read all of our own context into her question. Bummer – because of course we would have given her a dollar for the wall . . .

But back to our story. How did we get to the tunnel in the first place? 

Last night we spent considerable time trying to plan today’s ride. It was about 210 miles to Cali – meaning that if we rode about 53 miles per day we would arrive in four days. But when we looked for hotels, our options were one at 39 miles, or one at 66 or so. We didn’t much like the 39 mile option because that would probably mess up our timing with Cali. But 66 miles through the mountains could be pretty rough. 

Worse, the 66 mile option seemed a little sketchy. Hotel Yellow. Exactly one review, and no other digital evidence of its actual existence. My map app – Organic Maps – did not find it at all. 

And even if it existed, there was some question as to how to get there. My bike directions went way around – making it more like 77 miles. Definitely not doable . . . The driving directions seemed to work – but it was a bit of a mystery why we couldn’t even force the biking directions to map a better course (sometimes you can pick shorter routes with closer towns and you get a more favorable route). 

In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious: biking directions aren’t going to take you through a tunnel that bikes can’t go through . . .

But we weren’t the only bikers who made this mistake today. We actually met Marco a few miles before we arrived at the tunnel. Marco is from Italy. He’s 28 years old and, before October, had never been much of a biker. Now he is in love with cycling. 

He started out in San Francisco with his best friend and they toured down through Baja California in Mexico. Someplace down there his friend flew back to Italy, and Marco flew to Medellin to continue his journey. Marco’s goals for the trip are to learn Spanish (he says it’s pretty easy for him because he’s Italian) and to reach Argentina – though it doesn’t sound like he’s much interested in going to Ushuaia. 

Marco has more stuff and probably goes at a little different pace than we do, so we told him we were heading to the Hotel Yellow tonight and maybe we would see him there. 

Anyway, the point is that Marco was also heading right toward the tunnel – so we weren’t the only ones . . . 

We talked a little bit afterwards about what Marco would do. Would he be able to hitch a ride as easily? My sense is that it might be a good idea for Marco to put his shirt on. Just don’t see these (exclusively?) male Colombian truck drivers being as interested in seeing Marco’s tattooed skin as Diana’s . . .

I’m sure he made it through though. Colombians are just too nice to leave a young man like Marco in the lurch . . .

Okay, speaking of truck drivers we had another interesting encounter earlier in the day. We’re biking along when we come across a big rig that has crashed into the side of the road and is now half rolled onto its side in the jungle. 

We stop, and I go back to investigate and maybe get a picture. There’s a guy sitting there dejectedly. Once again, I use my considerable powers of non-formal-language communication . . .

”Este mañana?” (This morning?)

”Si.”

“Tu?” (You?), I say, pointing at the truck.

”Si,” he says, with no enthusiasm.

”Are you okay?” And now I point at my arms and legs and act injured.

”Si.”

I take a picture, and a minute later an ambulance drives up. It does not have sirens on and doesn’t appear to be in any hurry – but it provides further evidence that this accident happened in the recent past. 

Poor guy. That truck is toast. 

Oh, you’re wondering about Hotel Yellow. Yes, it exists. Nothing fancy. But there is a bed and it’s clean, and there’s even a fan in the room. All for $12.50. 

The rest of the day biking? Super nice. We were afraid of the heat so we started at 6:30 this morning. The first few hours were magical. Clouds caught on the mountains that surrounded the river valley we were biking through. As per usual now we had a lot of climbing – more than 5,000 feet – but the ascents were more long gradual grinders than the shorter steeper climbs that we had on our way into Medellin. And the climbing meant that we were higher – which meant that it wasn’t as hot. All good. 

A few other things to mention . . .

Lunch. We stopped at a place where Jorge from Venezuela was our server. Jorge learned English in Venezuela when he worked as a bartender and there were apparently a bunch of English speakers he worked with. Jorge left Venezuela because of all the unrest. He said that with all the problems he couldn’t make enough money to feed himself and that is why he came to Colombia. 

Jorge helped us order bandeja paisa, the Colombian national dish. (Of course, when Hernan, our tour guide in Medellin, asked if anyone knew what the national dish was, Diana was the only one to raise her hand. Unlike the rest of us, Diana does her homework . . .) Anyway, it has chicharron (pork belly), some kind of ground beef stuff that is good, and chorizo, along with rice, beans, plantains, an arepa, a fried egg and avocado. We split one order and I felt like we ate way too much. Crazy. But also crazy good – once in a while.

Fruit. You know how excited I am when I can pick my own fruit? Today we saw some orange trees – and one of the trees had some fruit growing over the barbed wire fence. It took a little bit of my Air Jordan like qualities, but I was able to grab one. Super juicy. Pretty happy with that. Counting the berries I picked the other day that’s two times this week . . .

Oh, and we did go through one much shorter tunnel earlier in the day. That was fun.

But why the Tunnel of Love? Well, not all love is that kissy kind. There’s also just the platonic love that good people have for each other. Nesto was full of that. So . . . Tunnel of Love . . .

Well, now it’s time to head down to the Hotel Yellow restaurante. Looks pretty good, really. We’ll see. By this time I pretty much have the options memorized – because all the Colombian restaurantes seem to have the same thing.

On toward Cali tomorrow. Hopefully another great day . . .