Bring on your big drip coffee, your puny Aero Press and your wimpy little Italian expresso machine and I give you this, with a real Colombian at the helm and locally grown beans that will hit you so hard that your eyes pop out on their stalks - now THAT is the way to start the day!!
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| I DARE you to call this guy a barista |
On the road after a quick radiator fix and directions from my hostel hosts to take a beautiful back road on my way to Salento.
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| Villa Maria to ChinChina |
Alas the temperature gauge on my bike started climbing and I soon realized that the radiator fan was not coming on. As I knew the fan was working before the radiator repair I was fairly confident that it was just a wire that had not been connected during the reassembly. This proved to be the case but it took stripping the gas tank and radiator off the bike to get at this little sucker behind the radiator - a little frustrating but at least I could repair it myself.
I stopped next to a man who had restored two Willy’s Jeeps to their original and had therefor sale
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| Asking price U$ 90,000 |
Salento was a cute little town, even though very touristy.
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| Salento Main street |
The hiking in this area is spectacular with the main trails going up the Valle de Cocoro which is famed for its tall wax palms - the national tree of Colombia. I did a 5 hour hike up the valley to the Casa de Colibri ( hummingbird house) which as you may guess had plenty of these amazing little birds entertaining the guests.
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| Wax Palms |
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| Taking the milk to market |
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| Foot bridge on trail |
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| Casa de Colibris |
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| More palms |
A local guy told me about a back road out of town towards the little town of Toche and then onwards to Ibague. Taking the main road would be about 7 1/2 hours on major paved roads or this route was only about 40km across the top of the Andes in what was billed as the first road in the area to have crossed this range of the Andes. Well I have to say that this was probably the most fun I have had on this trip to date and was without a doubt the most beautiful dirt road I have ever ridden on. Even a puncture in the rear tire after about 10 km did not dampen the experience as the view from where I stopped to do the repair was stunning. This stop did add nearly an hour and 45 mins to the trip.
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| Not a bad place to get a puncture |
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| Salento to Toche |
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| A picturesque farm on the way |
The village of Toche on the eastern side of the mountain range was tiny and the only “restaurant” in town put together a great breakfast with eggs, arepas (corn/maize cake - fried or grilled ) with cocoa ( no coffee available here) for a hungry traveller.
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| Toche - not much here |
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| A beggar at the restaurant door |
A night on the road and onwards to St Agustin ( yes that spelling is correct ) which is renowned not only for the very authentic little Andean town but also for the Unesco World Heritage site that boasts more than 6000 statues carved from the volcanic rock. Not a lot is known about the various peoples that have inhabited this area for eons and so archeologists have not named the people from these ancient cultures.
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| St Agustin |
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| Smiley |
Further south the town of Mocoa, site of a huge mudslide in March of this year that killed more than 300 people. The steep slopes surrounding many of these mountain towns and the massive amounts of rain received annually make this area very vulnerable to these natural disasters. This town is the starting point of the tiny road, known dramatically as the Trampoline del Muerte ( Trampoline of Death ) that weaves its way back west over the mountains to join up with the main Pan American Highway at the town of Pasto. Give a road a name like that and it is sure to attract the inquisitive.
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