Project VELAIA

Spending half the time of our 3 days stay in Popayan in front of ancient and slow computers with even slower connections and on the other hand watching “dolphin fast” Michael Phelps win one gold medal after the other at the Olympic Games 2008 (Juegos Olimpicos), we got enough and were ready to leave town.

The scenery south of Popayan was pretty hilly with a lot of green beside the road and we met quite some work-out road cyclists on our way towards Pasto. Half the day had passed when we began a final downhill in the muggy heat of the early afternoon. At the end we arrived in a dry and brown valley where the road started the hilly up and down we’ve already had more than enough from again. Elmar found a really nice campsite with a magnificent view over the dry valley and the mountain ranges to the east and west – the only drawback being the 10 minute walk through thorny terrain on a rocky single trail – a nice downhill ride with the mountain bike the next morning though! From the tiny little hill we could watch remote flashes illuminate the sky and thereby showing the silhouettes of the surrounding mountains – a truely impressive spectacle and nice reward after a day long ride on our bikes, covering almost 130 km distance and 1800 m gain in altitude.

Only 1.5 liters of water were left in our bottles the following morning and our map didn’t show a village for quite a distance to come. So we rationed the water and did our best to keep evaporation from breath and sweat as small as possible. But by the time we had arrived at tiny settlement with an even more tiny shop both of us had dry throats and we were angry about the engineers building all the ups and downs into the road – freaks! PONY Malta is a kind of beer without alcohol but a lot of sugar (corresponding to Maltin in Venezuela, if I remember correct); compared to the other soft drinks available it’s probably the one with most nutritional value. We couldn’t get a freshly prepared natural juice, but I told my father the German equivalent to the admittedly ‘not so vegetarian’ phrase “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” and he had to agree.

One and a half hours later, after a extended noon break with a lot of “limonada” (lemonade) and mountains of rice with salad, we found ourselves in a steep and hefty uphill, crawling up the steep road together with massive trucks and other vehicles.

Taking the frontal portrait of my Dad on the recumbent bike fighting against the mountain caused quite some pain as I rammed a 3 cm long thorn into the soft flesh of my left palm (the flesh below the little finger). And I was lucky to not break the thorn when removing it – I’ve been told that little parts like the tip of a thorn or some glass sliver can wander your body for years and even cause death.

As the scenery was not the most taking we were happy about every distraction we could find beside the road: One thing that caught our attention were the few roosters that had leashes attached to their feet. Probably these birds are a special breed for cock fights that are very popular in South America (even though we haven’t seen one yet).

When stopping for a freshly prepared orange juice we found a few puppies in really bad shape, only bones and skin almost. And even though they supposedly must have had hard pain in their stomaches the curiosity about the moving camera in front of their eyes still prevailed and so I got this wonderful shot documenting the triumph of curiosity:

After a long day of mainly cycling uphill we arrived at a fuel station with restaurant and motel just in time – Elmar had already suggested to pitch the tent somewhere beside the road and to go without dinner, but my stomach doubted that was a good idea; besides the doubts of my stomach we couldn’t make out a proper spot beside the road anyway. And with almost 8 hours riding time, little food and more than 2100 altimeters gained I surely don’t exaggerate by saying that our hunger couldn’t get much bigger.

Then the other day we cycled through Pasto. We didn’t consider stopping a good idea but continued straight through towards Ipiales – if I remember correct we’ve been in town sometime during the weekend and the traffic on the roads to and from the city were packed!

At a dairy shop close to a dairy product factory we bought a 1.75 liter bottle of yoghurt with strawberries (con fresa) and gulped it down like hungry wolves together with 2 pieces of cheese cake – yum-yum! And as we sat there drinking our glasses full of the creamy liquid I suddenly spotted a truck with massive gas tank rolling downhill 50 meters in front of us. I couldn’t make out the driver but one or two seconds later 4 or 5 men running after the ruck! AND this strange group headed straight towards a fuel station at ever increasing speed … wow, stuff for a Hollywood movie, I tell you! Now, what about the outcome you might ask. Well, that one was not too Hollywood like: One of the men made it and stopped the massive vehicle just before the fuel pump and the road just behind.

We camped not far from that spectacular incident 200 m away from the road on grazing land and would have had a wonderful view on the nearby volcano if not for the clouds.

The following morning held a nice reward for the previous day’s long uphill suffering: A 1400 m altitude drop down to 1800 m above zero, what a ride! The adrenaline from this fast race had to hold for the rest of the day because from now on we had to climb up slowly again, back to 2900 m, the town of Ipiales.

Half an hour’s ride before reaching our target we met Caro and Marcos, two Argentinian cyclists on their way around the world. We talked and exchanged information for about 15 minutes and then wished each other a “bien viaje”. Check out their website under www.mundoapedal.com (probably Spanish only).

These two have been the first touring cyclists we’ve met in all South America so far. But that should change the same evening! We stayed in a cheap backpacker hostel and by pure coincidence two Scottish touring cyclists, Nick and Vicky happened to spend the night in the same hostel. They had been on the road for a long time and suggested a nice route close to the Bolivian Chilean border – 5 days almost no people but wonderful scenery.

Ipiales is a border town between Colombia and Peru, so before leaving we checked the Lonely Planet South America guide for information on the border crossing, possible departure taxes and so on. But this time no departure tax, only the usual stamps and visa at the border – that scores second after the “no borders”-policy in Europe on my list of preferred border crossing procedures.