San Gil to Bucaramanga - Colombia

The side trip cycling to Barichara out of San Gil was one of the better cycle tourist days we have had in South America. On the climb up out of the valley from San Gil we met a local cyclist Jorge Santos age 68 who did the ride regularly. The climb I would guess was something like two thousand feet in about twelve kilometres. Jorge was still going strong at the top pushing higher gears of a race bike than we had available on our touring bikes. We asked him if he did anything special for his health and he said he ate lots of fruits and vegetables plus some fish like us.  He also avoided “comida rapida” or fast foods and carne or beef. When asked if he had any cycling buddies his age he said no they all just sit around. None of his children or grandchildren cycled because they “lacked discipline”.

The rest of the twenty one kilometer ride to Barichara was downhill about a thousand feet but both climbs were nice because they leveled off here and there to give you a break.  The lush green mountain scenery helped with the “discipline” but generally we are in good enough shape not to suffer too much on the climbs especially without our usual loads .

Barichara was a very peaceful small town at the top of steep valley. The whole town appeared to be made of two foot thick whitewashed adobe. The streets were made from large hand carved sandstone “cobbles” typically about two by three feet. There were a couple of dozen tourists around from the buses that run from San Gil but the town did not have a real touristy feel. There are quite a few stone carvers in the area and we could see them sculpting things on the ride in. See the photos on that when I get them posted hopefully.
Back in San Gil we went to the huge indoor fruit and vegetable market the size of a football field that somehow we missed seeing the day before. It sure is nice not to have any guilt about eating tropical fruit because it is not local. Good  thing planes we were on to South America run on bio diesel created from the French fry grease at the airports.

The next day we headed off on our first real day of touring in Columbia in off and on rain. The rain wasn’t too bad because it is warm enough not to have that cool you off too much.  There was quite a bit of truck traffic as anticipated but they were very courteous giving us lots of room.  Some even stopped if it looked like there was not enough room with the oncoming traffic.  Or, in fact it looked as though they would nearly force oncoming cars off of the road to give us room.  Also with the steep curvy roads traffic moved slowly and often came in surges behind slow moving trucks. Once outside of San Gil we could tell that the locals were not used to seeing gringos on bikes.  People were staring and the reactions were mixed. You could tell the women did not know what to make of Laurie being an older woman out there on a loaded bike. It is uncommon to see women doing sports. Maybe if they had had title nine and were allowed athletics in school?

We had a great complete meal at an open air truck stop for about three fifty each. As is the case in most smaller restaurants, there is no menu, except for a choice of meat, and had what they were serving. There were actually camping signs on the road but we pressed on to the Chicamocha Canyon to a cabin with a view of the two or three thousand foot deep canyon for about thirty five dollars. 

In this steep canyon you can see farms on either side that are so remote that the people seldom come in to town like only once a month to sell bananas or coffee.  The owner of the little hotel says they come in on Sundays for church. We will have to make a note of that when in small towns on Sundays that a lot of the people there may be farmers in remote areas.

The descent into the Chicamocha canyon was hands down the longest descent on a bike I have ever done.  Although I don’t have a gps unit the depth of the canyon is supposed to be as much as 2000 meters and the descent was 30 kilometers long. Luckily the climb out the north end was much more gradual and followed a pretty white water river.

We were told by the owner of the hotel in Chicamocha to get a bus through the area of Bosconia on the way to the coast as they hold up cars there at night. We are in Bucaramanga a city of about a million and are thinking about taking a Bus to the coast because of the above mentioned town and that there is just too much truck traffic on the only road from here to there. When we got to shower we could not believe the grime that was coming off. Our glasses were covered with a film that would not wash off without soap. It was probably from diesel exhaust. That cant be good for your lungs.

Today I just checked the news and there were bombings at the US embassy in Bogota and at a supermarket and a bus station in Cartagena related to a visit by president Obama here for a drug trafficing summit. Cartagena is a much visited must see tourist town so that is just great news. When in Barichara we met a French guy who owned a resort camping place on the beach near Santa Marta. Maybe we will just go there and hang out for a couple of weeks and then fly home.

We pulled off the road in Florida Blanca on the outskirts of Bucaramanga close to dark thirty to find a hotel.  The guide book mentioned some places in downtown Bucaramanga but when we asked a friendly local policeman how to get there he said why go all the way downtown when there were good hotels near a plaza close by. We found one and went to find something to eat from the vendors at the plaza. There is zero tourism here and we were the only gringos around but felt totally safe. The people were very warm and friendly. Yesterday at a truck stop where we were having fresh fruit juice the girl at the counter would not stop beaming at us with an infectious smile offering free refills. She had lots of questions about where we were from etc.

In the local Colombian paper today there was a headline story about Obama's visit, the bombings and in the view of the paper the failed US effort to battle the cartels and drug production here. The story said that basically the way to stop it is to go after the demand side in the US not the production side in Columbia and listed the number of drug addicts in the US.  Last week in Bogota a homeless trash can recycler found bags of US dollars. He contacted the police because in Columbia having large amounts of US cash is as bad as having large amounts of drugs.  A drug runner must have felt he was being pursued by the authorities and dumped the cash.  Hopefully they gave the homeless guy a tip for his trash can jackpot.  After traveling around a bit here you can quickly see how controlling production and distribution of something like cocaine in a country like this would be an extremely difficult thing to do. Why does the US feel compelled to stick their fingers in other countries business all over the world and not just mind their own business?

A friend of mine emailed about the secret service scandal involving prostitutes here and said at least they were creating jobs as an alternate source of employment to cocaine trafficking.

Pictures of this segment