7th day in Colombia, third day biking, 199 miles covered. I spent that last day in villa de leyva actually relaxing and went out with the same group for dinner, again to a beautiful open air square of small restaurants and thought to myself I don't know if I've ever seen restaurants this pretty anywhere ever. I made a comment of what a coincidence it was that all the hanging ivy and flowers were in full bloom, thousands of them, and then one of the local girls said "they're always like that". My Mom would pay anything for a hanging basket with some of those in it to beat the usual 1 month that ours stay in full bloom.
So I did a fair bit of research before going to bed and the next morning took a bus for the first 10 miles straight up the mountain thinking I would fly to San Gil for at least half the way after that, based on the advice given from an Aussie hostel owner in San Gil, Macondo Hostel, where I'm staying now. Wow was he way off. Man I must say yesterday was the hardest ride I've ever done. According to my bike computer I covered 96 miles over 8.6 hours of continuous riding, and with breaks I was on the road for just over 10 hours. He had said that from Arcabuco to here was all down hill til Oiba. It was actually only down hill for 20 miles then climbs for the next 76. Let's put it this way, the map I have showed the distance as roughly 75 - 80, but due to the hills you can't see it was 96 miles. I'm beginning to realize that the researh I did at home as well as reading my maps is more valuable than anything I find out here. As you may see below the mountain views were spectacular, and I must say for the first 3 hours I was super excited everytime I made it to a peak to record a waypoint, take a picture, and fly down going over 40mph to the next. Then this got real old and I began reaching a state next to tears everytime a big downhill began, knowing that I would be faced with a wall of dotted yellow lines at the bottom. This happened about 25 times and was really mentally and physically challenging for the last 3 hours. I felt like I had just done 3 MS150 charity rides only with 60 lbs. on my bike. Lou and the Mikes (who I did that charity ride with) I wish you could have been here to suffer with me. About a third of the way through I smelled burnt sugar cane which instantly took me back to east coast Australia, a nice smell. About half way through it became very rural but still lots of tiny little venders selling water, beer and fruit on the side if the road. I saw an old lady selling bananas still on the huge stalk and thought what could be better to snack on at a time like this? So I stopped and had a 3 minute small talk conversation with her and after telling her I was riding to San Gil she got even more sweet and wouldn't take my money even though I insisted. Apparently she felt bad for me. Reminded me of Grandma W. when I try to pay her back for something and it becomes clear that there is no chance on earth that she'll take it. Later in the ride I stopped at a pharmacy and bought some ice cream for a break before making the last stretch. Speaking of food, what Karla, Doc, Christa and the rest of my pharmacy / nursing friends may find interesting is that I had no insulin all day and managed to not go high after eating 3 chocolate bars, a yogurt, a pastry, 2 bananas, 2 gatorades and 2 ice cream cones. Apparently I found the cure for diabetes, as long as you don't mind burning X amount of calories daily.
San Gil is pretty nice, when I arrived last night the town square was really hopping due to it being Fri. night. After a shower I went out to the square to finally get dinner and found what most guys would agree to be the ideal meal. A few people were grilling over hot coals festival style and I got two steaks, 2 little baked potatoes, an ear of corn and 2 beers for 9,000 pesos or $4.50. It's not always that cheap here but that was the best welcome this city could have ever offered me.b I forced myself to meet a few people and then allowed myself to die on my bunk for the night. I'm now chilling in a shady spot by the river in the botanical garden park of San Gil. It's really beautiful here and due to how many loud westerners (like myself) are staying at the hostel I found this a much better place to relax. So I found to a good rock to park it on and update the blog at. It's kind of like a little amusement park just with natural stuff. Unlike the parks at home you can tell that everything was here originally for the most part and then they just made a pool out of a spring and added cobblestone walkways. I'll be staying in San Gil for at least 3 days. It is supposed to be the outdoor sports capital of Colombia so I'm thinking I shouldn't pass it up. Well if you made it this far I'm impressed. More to come in a couple days.
