CN - Wednesday
Medellin was a pretty impressive city that I wish we would have had more time to explore. There was a vibrant night life and the area of the city we staying in was lit with Christmas lights and decor. I'll most definitely make an effort to come back for a longer visit.
We got a relatively early start and were on the bikes and into rush hour just before 8am. Luckily most of the traffic was coming the other way so it wasn't too terrible. Still, it took a bit of time to break free of the city. We chose a mountain road for the first part of the route to Cali - a bit out of the way but totally worth it. Narrow twisty roads and views of European Alps quality. The high elevations also kept the temps cool for the morning ride. I took a bunch of video from the helmet cam so hopefully got some keepers in the footage.
Once back down to the valley (still at over 5,000 ft.), tracking along a flowing river, we ran into constant delays for road construction teams making repairs and shoring up roads from the recent rainy season landslides. Every 5k or so there would be a flagger stopping traffic so cars could come the other way on the one available lane. Some stops were only a few minutes, some 5-10 minutes. At each stop, once the flagger turned the sign green, it as like the start of the Baja 1000 with cars and motorcycles racing to get to the front in the one available lane. Pretty comical actually because the race would only go about 5k before another flagger would be standing with a red PARE sign for all to stop.
As we turned away from the river we started going up and through dozens of coffee plantations. The scenery through here was also very pleasing to the eye - with coffee plants mixed with banana plants up and down the hillsides. After dropping down again we hit some four lane toll roads and were able to make some good late afternoon time. We got into Cali around 5pm covering the 420k in about 9 hours. The price was right for our chosen hotel with secured parking for the bikes, a/c and included breakfast. The neighborhood might be a bit sketchy but we were able to find a nice restaurant a few blocks away with some delicious pizza. There was no street food to be had in this section of town. Too bad, I could have gone for another couple of Arepas - my favorite Colombian food.
Colombia has shown to be a very economical country - especially since leaving the slightly expensive port city of Cartagena. I'm really enjoying Colombia (except for the demonstration/riot part) and plan to return to give it a thorough exploration. We have to be in Quito in two days and will be on a plane to the Galapagos Sunday morning.
Medellin was a pretty impressive city that I wish we would have had more time to explore. There was a vibrant night life and the area of the city we staying in was lit with Christmas lights and decor. I'll most definitely make an effort to come back for a longer visit.
We got a relatively early start and were on the bikes and into rush hour just before 8am. Luckily most of the traffic was coming the other way so it wasn't too terrible. Still, it took a bit of time to break free of the city. We chose a mountain road for the first part of the route to Cali - a bit out of the way but totally worth it. Narrow twisty roads and views of European Alps quality. The high elevations also kept the temps cool for the morning ride. I took a bunch of video from the helmet cam so hopefully got some keepers in the footage.
Once back down to the valley (still at over 5,000 ft.), tracking along a flowing river, we ran into constant delays for road construction teams making repairs and shoring up roads from the recent rainy season landslides. Every 5k or so there would be a flagger stopping traffic so cars could come the other way on the one available lane. Some stops were only a few minutes, some 5-10 minutes. At each stop, once the flagger turned the sign green, it as like the start of the Baja 1000 with cars and motorcycles racing to get to the front in the one available lane. Pretty comical actually because the race would only go about 5k before another flagger would be standing with a red PARE sign for all to stop.
As we turned away from the river we started going up and through dozens of coffee plantations. The scenery through here was also very pleasing to the eye - with coffee plants mixed with banana plants up and down the hillsides. After dropping down again we hit some four lane toll roads and were able to make some good late afternoon time. We got into Cali around 5pm covering the 420k in about 9 hours. The price was right for our chosen hotel with secured parking for the bikes, a/c and included breakfast. The neighborhood might be a bit sketchy but we were able to find a nice restaurant a few blocks away with some delicious pizza. There was no street food to be had in this section of town. Too bad, I could have gone for another couple of Arepas - my favorite Colombian food.
Colombia has shown to be a very economical country - especially since leaving the slightly expensive port city of Cartagena. I'm really enjoying Colombia (except for the demonstration/riot part) and plan to return to give it a thorough exploration. We have to be in Quito in two days and will be on a plane to the Galapagos Sunday morning.
 |
| Medellin skyline. |
 |
| On the street in Medellin. |
 |
| Lots of Christmas lights around the city. |
 |
| Up in the mountains on the way to Cali. |
 |
| Looking back up once descended. |
 |
| Beautiful morning in Columbia. |
Great blog guys and good to see some other adventurous people on the road. You did a hell of a ride all the way to Cali! I'm looking forward to your story about how the border crossing with Ecuador went.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
Today's guy from Holland on the F650.