Ride Like the Wind

Hotel Yellow – Tulau, Colombia

No big dramatic story today, but a few anecdotes and observations . . .

First, Colombia has quite a bike culture. We saw a ton of cyclists around Medellin, but today there were bikers and active people everywhere. I guess it was Sunday morning, but still. Road riders. Mountain bikers. In line skaters. Runners. It was pretty fun to see that much interest in an outdoor active lifestyle in this part of the world. More than we have seen since, well, more than we have seen anywhere on this trip. 

There is another observation wrapped up in all this. You don’t have recreational bikers and in-line skaters and runners unless there is wealth. I mean, I haven’t done a formal study or anything – but it just seems pretty obvious. People who are lacking in means are not going to run out and spend hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars on sporting equipment that is not good for anything except recreation. 

Which is maybe why we didn’t see any bikers at all in Cartagena or in the whole sea level part of the country. My sense is that the wealth of Colombia is more concentrated in the higher elevations. God knows that no one going to voluntarily live where it is that hot and humid every day. 

I suppose that people might say the same about Minnesota. Our winters may seem a bit off-putting to the uninitiated. But, even granting that – which I wouldn’t because I love our winters – our Spring, Summer and Fall are generally amazing. Again, some might take exception because of the mosquitoes. But, whatever . . . I guess if the cold and the skeeters keep the riff raff out that’s fine . . .

Anyway, the point is that, based on the fancy bike index – a rubric I just made up – Colombians seem to be doing quite well. 

We biked with one of these fancy bike people for a while today. Pablo. Pablo is 72. He has two children and he’s also a grandfather. He’s been biking his whole life. He has both a road and a mountain bike, and I think he’s pretty into it. He said he does the Antacama Challenger mountain bike stage race in Chile. It’s a three day event that crosses the Atacama Desert. It looks pretty bad-ass. I think he said he is the 70+ age class champion. 

If Pablo lived in Minnesota he would clearly be an age-class competitive cross country skier. Love people like Pablo. 

The bike ride today was super pleasant. It turns out that when the wind is at your back everything is easier. The whole day I thought that we were going down hill – but when we looked at Diana’s fancy Garmin thing afterwards we were actually going slightly uphill. Anyway, because it was relatively effortless today we were able to go far enough so that we can make it to Cali tomorrow. Looking forward to the city that they call La Sucursal del Cielo – the Branch of Heaven. I guess because everyone is so nice . . .

Two observations worth pausing on.

One, we actually saw some train tracks today. Kind of remarkable. Train infrastructure is one of those things that Latin America doesn’t seem to have much of. Hernan, the tour guide that we had in Medellin, said that in the ‘50s the same thing happened here as in the U.S. – the oil companies made sure that roads were preeminent. In Minneapolis that meant the dismantling of our streetcars. Such a bummer. 

I guess in Colombia it meant the neglect of their railroad system. The problem was that Colombia never had a big enough railroad system in the first place – so that it was not that cost effective to use the railroads. Once Colombia started focusing on roads they just let the railroad tracks moulder away . . . This is in contrast with the U.S., where the railroad infrastructure that was constructed in the 19th century was so extensive that it never would have made sense to dismantle it. 

Or, put another way, you could never make a good game of Ticket to Ride in Colombia or Latin America because, while we were busy building railroads, many of the Latin American countries seem to have been so focused on the nuances of political systems that they couldn’t be bothered with the practical work of actually constructing tracks . . . It’s too bad, because now they are stuck with 18-wheelers hauling everything everywhere. The kind of thing that builds inefficiency into every day. 

The other fun thing we saw was this Don’t Hit the Animals sign along the road:

Yeah, it’s probably a bad idea to hit a hippo with your car. Because, I guess, hippos grow up to 4,000 pounds – so if your car hits one it’s going to probably have some dents. After all, when we hit a 150 pound deer in Minnesota we can total a car . . .

It reminds me of a time I brought a package of bees into Lauren’s classroom when she was in first grade. (I keep bees . . . that’s why I had a package of them.) I told the kids about the bees a little. How there is one queen and she lays all the eggs – up to 2,000 per day, and how almost all the other bees are the incomplete female workers. That type of thing. 

Anyway, one of the kids – Lucas – raised his hand during my presentation.

“If a bee and a praying mantis were to fight, who would win?”

”Hmm. I’m not sure, Lucas, but the queen can sting as many times as she wants . . .”

”Who would win? Bees or a lion?”

”Yeah, I don’t know Lucas. But there are up to 60,000 bees in a hive in the middle of the summer . . .”

”Could the bees beat SuperMan?”

At this point the teacher stepped in. Not sure Lucas made it through the whole year of Chinese immersion . . .

I’m not sure who would win if an 18-wheeler ran into a hippo, but pretty sure that the rest of the vehicles on these roads would have some problems . . . 

But we’re missing the point here, aren’t we? Hippos are actually from Africa. Unlike monkeys, they didn’t float over to South America 50 million years ago on a vegetative mat. No. I guess Pablo Escobar brought four of them over to roam on his estate. (Reader Bill McKinney pointed this out. Thank you Bill!) Nothing says success like giant herbivores wallowing in your ponds. 

After he died, the authorities decided it was too much trouble to round up the big river horses. The only problem is that the hippos kind of like it here, and they have no natural predators in Colombia – so now there are 170 of them and they expect there will be 1,000 by 2035. 

I guess even with only 170 they are starting to change the eco-system. They defecate in the water – which some of the other animals like because it means more food – but it is also starting to effect the water itself. That’s what happens when 680 thousand pounds of animal (170 hippos x 4,000 pounds) are pooping in the same place . . .

Changing gears, Tulau – the town we are in tonight – is really nice. There’s a pretty river running through it – with no sign of any African beasts. Multiple squares with people playing chess and dominoes and dice and such. We ended up talking to some of the chess players. One of them, Jorge, knows English, at least partially because he worked for Quaker Oats and traveled to Chicago for work during his career. 

One last thing that I wanted to mention. Completely off topic from our trip or Latin America. I saw that yesterday Lucinda Anderson was 22nd in a cross country skiing World Cup competition. No big deal for most of you – but a huge thing for a few of our blog readers. Lucy started out skiing at Armstrong High School, where our friend and blog reader Kim Rudd was the coach. Kim and Piotr Bednarski – another great friend and coach – both worked with me at the Loppet – and they both helped make Lucy the great skier she is today – primarily by sharing their love of the sport with her. 

We may be down in the Tropics – but with today’s amazing worldwide communication system we can still keep up with events in the land of ice and snow . . . We’re not complete podunks down here ya know . . .

Great job Kim and Piotr. I hope you are proud of yourselves!

Sorry to wander off like that – but, after all, my Venezuelan neighbor Eduardo is trying to make the World Championships of cross country skiing – so it’s really not that far off . . .

On to Cali tomorrow. We know there is salsa dancing in this city – but we don’t know a lot more than that – so if you have thoughts now’s the time . . .