Days 111 to 115: Popayan, COL

As it's been the drill for most towns that we stayed in, we drove into Popayan's center, and started looking for a hotel. We parked the bikes on the side of a street, with the intention of walking a couple of blocks and getting pricing from a few different places. Just as we turned off the engines, a door in front of us opens, and a very pretty lady peeks out from the door right in front of us, asking us in good English where we are from. We tell her a little about our trip, and she mentions that her brother had ridden a bicycle from Popayan to Argentina some time ago.

Ximena (that is her name) is a psychologist, and her office happens to right where we parked the bikes. She offered us to come in for water and coffee, but since we were looking to find accommodation asap to get out of our stinky moto gear, we politely declined, but told her that we would pass by the next day to say hi and get some suggestions as what to do in the city.

That same night, we met up again with Peter and Willem, who rolled into Popayan the day before. Dinner and a few games of pool, and we're off to bed.

The next morning, we passed by Ximena's office. Once again, she was extremely nice to us, gave us information about places to check out in Popayan, and even offered that we could do our laundry at her parent's house right next door (which we declined ;). This is the Colombian hospitality that we have heard about. We agreed to have lunch together, therefore we had the opportunity to chit chat some more over a traditional Colombian meal. It turned out Ximena also shared our passion for travel, as she has been to many parts of the world. 

The following days in Popayan went by quickly, between sightseeing around the town, relaxing,   having chocolate cake and coffee, and chores such as getting haircuts, finding a few missing items and catching up on the blog. We met up again with Pete and Willem before they left town. Ximena also introduced us to some of her friends, so we had a lot of fun hanging out with them over two evenings, and experiencing the town's nightlife. I was also happy to practice my Spanish, as the opportunity doesn't come every day. Travelling with two other gringos, being constantly on the move, and repeating a lot of the same phrases every day (ordering food, buying gas, asking how much is a hotel room) does not give much opportunities for improvement. My Spanish still sucks, unfortunately .   

Popayan has been a good surprise, and is definitely among our favorite places so far on this trip. A big thank you to Ximena and her family, as well as her friends Zuly and Ana. Gracias para su hospitalidad!

Lunch with Ximena. Mihai's missing; he was the one that snapped the photo.

View from a hill overlooking Popayan

Cool street art.

Main square.

Planning our moves for the upcoming weeks.

This is what Mihai does, while Josh and I are hard at work updating our respective blogs...lol.

Third haircut of the trip. First one in Mexico came out great, second one in Nicaragua was a disaster, and this one worked out just ok.

I enjoyed Colombia so much, that for the first time on this trip I picked up a souvenir.

Partying in Popayan!!

Josh and the host/entertainer at the club. He (the midget) ended up getting pretty tipsy and dancing on our table..lol

On the last night in Popayan, we went to check out an amusement park with Ximena and her niece Isabel.

On the roller coaster: Ximena and Josh

On the roller coaster: Ximena's niece, Isabel, and myself.

Shooting for a teddy bear. I lost :(

Not my night, Lost again, this time in mini-basketball against Josh. 

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.

Days 99 to 106: Medellin, CO (part 3 of 3)

As I have mentioned previously, we spent two days riding Medellin's surroundings, which are very scenic. The highlight of these two days is probably Guatape and its large ''rock'', called ''El Penon de Guatape''. It is a 200m high volcanic formation, which is quite strange, because it is so different from the rest of the landscape in that area. A stair system has been built all the way to the top of the rock, so were were able to climb the 659 steps to get there. As with the other ''hikes'' we've done on this trip, I was again out of breath. Man, I must say that I am looking forward to get back in shape. I do miss my running and gym routine from back home. Anyway, the climb was worth the effort: the view from above was awesome.

One of the most unusual ships I've even seen

Days 99 to 106: Medellin, CO (part 2 of 3)

The Pablo Escobar tour:

The infamous Pablo Escobar build his empire here in Medellin. Although the man was directly responsible for a painful period in colombian history, his ascension to extreme wealth and power is nevertheless fascinating. Therefore, we took a Pablo Escobar tour, in order to see a few related sights and find out more about his story.

Pablo was born in 1949 in a middle class family. He started his criminal career by stealing and reselling tomb stones, cars, and dealing weed. By the time he was 29, Escobar had several men working for him. He eventually got involved in cocaine trafficking  which became extremely profitable due to high demand all over the world. His organization, the Medellin cartel, became  a dominant cocaine trafficking group. At its peak, it was supplying 80% of all cocaine distributed in the world, and Pablo was ranked as the 7th wealthiest man in the world by the Forbes magazine. He had hundreds of properties, as the construction business and real estate were used to launder the drug money. The cartel became an industry. It even had its own accounting service, which occupied an entire building in Medellin. Escobar became so rich that he even proposed to pay off Colombia's national debt.

The cocaine business brought a period of extreme violence for Colombia. Pablo's cartel was constantly at war with another major organization, the Cali cartel, as well as the government.  Bombings and assassinations were happening daily. The cartel was ruthless: Pablo had a simple motto: ''silver or lead'', which meant that you either accept the bribe and collaborate, or you get killed. It is estimated that between 1988 and 1991, over 40 000 Colombians died in the drug related conflict.

Even though he was mostly feared, part of the population saw Escobar as a sort of ''robin hood'', since he redistributed significant amounts of money to improve life in poor areas, in the form of sport installations and housing projects. This popularity even allowed Pablo to get voted into the Congress.

Escobar made many enemies over time. One of them was an organization called ''Papas'', which assembled wealthy and influential people determined to bring down Escobar. The efforts of the Papas, the Cali cartel and the Colombian and American governments eventually paid off, and the Medellin cartel was slowly brought down. Pablo ended up making a deal with the Colombian government. He agreed to go into custody, but in a jail built according to his demands, and with a guard consisting of his own men.  He eventually escaped sometime later, and was on the run for several months. After one of the largest man hunts in history, he was finally found in a middle class neighborhood of Medellin, and gunned down in December 1993, while trying to flee the premises.

Twenty years later, Colombians still have to put up with the stereotype of their country living mainly off cocaine, even though it's far from true. The drug trade revenue is estimated at only 2% of Colombia's national income, and most coca plantations are nowadays in Bolivia. The cocaine business is still going on, nowadays controlled by paramilitary and the FARC. However, Colombia is a rich country with many other natural resources to generate income from: coffee plantations (3rd producer of coffee in the world), minerals, oil..etc. According to our tour guide, the ongoing conflict in Colombia between the government and the rebels is really not about the drug trade, but about the control of land, where the natural resources are.

All in all, it was a very interesting tour. From my point of view, Escobar was just a ruthless thug and far from an idol, but nevertheless his story is fascinating.

One of the several buildings in Medellin that  used to belong to Escobar's cartel. We've  seen 3 of these buildings on the  tour. All have been confiscated by the colombian  authorities over 20 years ago, and today are still unoccupied. Also, all have been bombed at one time during the war between cartels.

Another  of Pablo's buildings. This one had been bombed as well.

Between 1988 and 1991, there were so many bombings occurring in Medellin, that most citizens were affraid  to walk the streets and stayed inside as much as possible.

Pablo and his wife.

Picture of Escobar's ID fiche.

Pablo Escobar and his son  in front of the White House.

The house where Pablo was hiding, right before his death. He was gunned down while trying to escape through the back.

Back of the house where Pablo was hiding. He was shot to death on the roof of that house.

The prison where Escobar was jailed was called ''La Catedral''. It was luxurious.

Pablo's grave.