Days 107 to 110: Medellin to Popayan

Day 107: Medellin - La Pintada (73 km)

On the last night in Medellin, I decided to stay at the hostel to catch up on the blog. Meanwhile, Mihai and Josh took off ''for a few beers''. Well, things must have got a bit out of hand, because the next morning the boys were in quite rough shape..lol. As a result, we were on the road much later than planned. As soon as we left Medellin, the weather went to shit. Rain, fog, and lots of trucks are a bad combination on mountain roads, and even more so if you are hungover. About 73 km later, Mihai and Josh had enough, and we decide to call it a day. We stop in a small town called La Pintada, where we find one of the most impressive hotels we have stayed at so far. For about 22 USD per person, we each get a private room, which is a luxury on this trip. Most of the time, we are 3 dudes sleeping in one room, with our stinky gear scattered all over. You get the picture...

The hotel Mi Rey has 2 big pools and really cool cabins separate from the hotel. We just stayed in the regular rooms which were also very nice. There were only 2 other guests that we saw in the entire hotel. It appears that this place was built with drug money back in the hay day of cocaine and is slowly deteriorating now. There are tennis courts, basketball and the property in big with lots of sculptures.

There was a UFC event that night, so we had to continue the tradition from back home. We watched the fights in the lobby, while sipping on some rum of questionable quality (can't expect much from booze sold in a carton...).

UFC nights are not what they are at home. No food and cheap rum in a carton... 

Day 108: La Pintada - Salento (175 km)

On the road reasonably early, we got better weather as well. Cloudy, but very little rain. Great mountain roads and amazing views on that day. 

While passing through a town called Pereira, we notice an amusement park on the side of the road, so we decide to check it out. It turns out that they have a mini motocross track, and for 6000 pesos each (3.5 USD), we can race each other on small 125 cc pitbikes. Hell yeah, all three of us are pumped! 

Eight laps of reckless racing, and we're sweaty and dirty, but excited. It was a blast! I wish we had circuits like this back home, but... we saw one guy fly over the handlebars, and the little moto landed on his back. As most of the people, he was riding in a t-shirt and running shoes. Ouch. He was OK, but with all the safety and liability concerns in Canada, no way something like this would be possible, especially without mandatory protective equipment.

In Salento, we met up again with Peter and Willem, who we have been running into here and there since Nicaragua. Great guys, it's always fun to hang out with them.

Day 109: Salento - Buga (148 km)

Breakfast, a walk around town to snap some photos, and we're off to Buga. Another fun day of riding. We stop for lunch at around 2 pm at a roadside restaurant, which also sells local wine. We do a wine tasting right in front of two police officers, who have set up a checkpoint across the road. The cops are aware of it, but couldn't care less..lol. We briefly chat with them about bikes, then say goodbye, hop on the motos and leave. Kind of a funny situation.

Hanging out at the wine tasting booth with the friendly attendant.

Wine tasting right in front of the police.

Buga itself is a rather ordinary city. Not much to see there, just a place to stay overnight. I only snapped two photos: the obligatory ''church on the main square'' shot, and another one of some overhead cables that would give nightmares to any telecom technician...lol.

Church on the main square in Buga.

A telecom technician's nightmare..lol.

Day 110: Buga - Popayan (205 km)

Day 110 was the closest we've been to some serious trouble on this trip. 

Whenever possible, we always prefer the road less traveled  so we try as much as possible to ride on secondary roads, instead of the Panamericana. Usually, there is less traffic, no problems with the police, and the scenery is better. On the way to Popayan, we took one of these secondary roads. Little did we know that we entered one of the 'hot spots' in Colombia.

There is an ongoing conflict in Colombia between the government and armed rebel groups such as the FARC and the ELN. I do not know the details, but the cause of the disagreement appears to be the control of land in the country, and it's been ongoing for a long time. Most of Colombia is rather safe, but there are still some isolated 'hot spots', where clashes occur between the army and the rebels.

Well, we entered one of the zones. We realized pretty quickly that there was an abnormal number of military checkpoints, and even armored vehicles parked along the road. We got stopped twice by the soldiers, but they just asked us where we were going, and let us through. We were a little nervous. Finally, as we were about to reach the main road again, we got stopped again at a police checkpoint. When we told the cop where we came from, he made a face which pretty much meant ''Are you out of your mind??''. Anyway, we got through without problems, but we should have been a little more careful when picking the roads that we would ride.

We arrived uneventfully in Popayan around 4 pm, and found a pretty decent hotel at a fair price. We were once again able to score single rooms for 30 000 pesos a night (just under 20 USD). We originally thought about staying for 2 nights, but Popayan was more fun than expected, so we ended up staying for 4 nights.