The End Of The Line

October 30th to November 2nd

‘La Linea’! The Line...

From the looks of doubt and confusion we elicit in the restaurant the night before and now the looks of outright horror we are getting from locals as we pass them on our heavily loaded bikes.... I am starting to worry.

We’ve done some big passes before and it’s only 55km (35 miles) to Armenia, but we’re starting to get a bit spooked by ‘La Linea’. It’s around a 2,000m (6,650ft) climb to the summit and I gather it’s a little tough in places. We steel ourselves to get the job done.

Incredibly the near vertical walls of the Bermellon river valley are cultivated. Wooden stakes are driven into the soil to reduce land slides and look like tiny tooth picks in a patchwork pin cushion from this vantage point...

We start to hit standing traffic and upon reaching the toll booth, we are told the road is closed due to a landslide and also a couple of accidents. It all seems like old news to these guys and I get the impresion it’s a common occurance. Colombians are a relaxed lot though, and stranded drivers seem to see it as an excuse to just chill out and meet the guy in the next car.

They are also enterprising and several canny vendors speed their wares ahead of the queue to make sales. A trolley of ice cream zooms past us behind a motorbike and I’m half expecting the wheels to come flying off! Surely it wasn't build for this kind of speed....

For us this is fantastic as we can ride around stationary traffic in peace. No grinding engines belching acrid fumes into our oxygen starved lungs, and best of all no need to worry about kamikaze drivers...

The line of stranded trucks snakes and coils around the mountain side, the head of the beast waaaay down in the valley below....

As we get higher, truckers begin cheering us on, clenched fists punching the air from their cabs. Car drivers line the roads giving us the thumbs up and buses of school children whoop and chase along with us. I’m starting to feel like I’m in an ultra slow motion version of the Tour de France. All fears of the ride slip away as the day takes on an unlikely carnival atmosphere.

It’s (almost) fun!

Winding higher that begins to change as we hit the cloud base; all heat leaves the day and a soggy blanket envelops us in a chilling, wet hug....

Then the clouds burst and the developing sense of fun is washed away in rivers. Drivers reclaim the warmth of their vehicles and study the rivulets of rain dancing across their windscreens. The mood of resigned patience slowly begins to crack as windows steam up and claustrophobia sets in. Cars start jockying for position, jumping the queue and the tension begins to grow....

It’s a pity about the weather as it would be a beautiful ride under blue skies past waterfalls that line the roadside....

The road climbs more steeply for the last few miles in what must be a cruel test for the racers. With the top in sight, it is a final sting in the tail; demanding a last, lung busting, leg melting assault on the summit.

Unfortunately (for us) the roadblock ahead seems to have cleared and four hours of pent up agression comes to a boiling head. The traffic snake begins to uncoil and normal Colombian driving standards are re-established....

Fifty metres from a blind hairpin, the centre line of the road is at the extreme right of the picture. At times five trucks run neck and neck and vie with each other to cause the next head on collision. It’s like a wild stampede of spooked animals blindly running with the pack. All sense of self preservation has gone in the blind panic to be mobile again.

Traffic coming the other way is often forced to stop and watching the efforts to sort it all out is amusing as more trucks pile into the snarl up from both directions. Travelling at 3mph, we seem to be the fastest things on the road as we glide serenely past the madness.

Finally, after a gruelling four and a half hours we conquer the mountain....

It’s a brief celebration as, much to the amusement of the truckers, we strip change into dry clothes and layer up for the descent. It’s freezing now in howling winds and driving rain!

Normally, once the work is done, the drop side of the pass is a grin inducing, tyre testing reward for all that altitude gained as it is cashed in and swapped for big speed.

This descent is a slow, finger numbing, teeth chattering test of cold temperature endurance. The road is slick with the slimy residue from the landslide and vehicles chuck up a spray of fine grit and dirt - turning us into extras from the set of a mud-man movie. Tyres fight for grip on roads turned a liquid brown from the clay soil and brakes are near useless in the wet sludge.

We stop often to warm up and are saved when we happen upon a ‘tinto’ vendor. These guys have carts stocked with thermos flasks full of a hot, sticky coffee/sugar solution. It’s just what we need as we grip hot plastic cups and try and get the feeling back into our frostbitten fingers.

Eventually we pass the landslide and the road clears of slippery mud. Then we breach the cloud cover and the air warms up a tad....

It’s 25kms (16 miles) straight down! We ride the snake....

Three miles shy of Armenia we check into a room in Calarca and set a challenge for the cleaner with our soaking wet, mud encrusted gear.

La Linea is finally defeated.... but only just....

It’s a tough, tough ride, demanding a rest day afterwards to sooth heavy legs.

Calarca is a good place to rest up as there is a guided tour of a nature reserve with a huge butterfly house....

With some rare species....

And tropical flowers....

Next day is a short ride into Armenia. We only stop for a quick look as the lonely planet largely dismisses this city as being just a place to change buses.

Once again, the book is wrong, but that is hardly a surprise as it doesn’t even mention Calarca and one of the best nature tours in the country.

To be fair, nothing about Armenia is outstanding, but it is a good example of a typical Colombian city. The people are once again amazingly friendly, swamping us as we ride into the square. After satisfying the curiosity of maybe 20 enthusiastic interviewers, one of them leads us to a cheap hotel. Insider knowledge saves us a bob or two.

Scenes from a forgotten city....

Modern art, modern cathedral....

Statues reach for the new heights set by a rising skyline....

Amidst the street chaos....

A family takes an outing....

While BMX dudes check out the street food....

During another tough day at the office....

Ibague's Finest

October 26th to 29th

We meet Omar when he spots us from his car riding through heavy traffic into Ibague. He calls us over to check we are OK and assures us his friend will give a good price in his hotel. Somewhat sceptical (we often get 'very good price' offers) we follow as he slows the traffic to a crawl so we can keep up with him. This offer turns out to be very much a good price as we occupy our sumptuous room for just 30,000 Pesos ($US16) and I cannot guess at the discount he has got for us. After the valet(!) has whisked our gear upstairs we relax on the balcony with fine furnishings and city views....

Omar turns out to be a champion cyclist who spent years travelling the world, riding in competitions and also commentating on major events for Colombian radio. He interviewed all the greats and worked all over Europe, including of course, The Tour de France. He's really interested in all thing bici and practically adopts us during our stay in town.

By association we seem to have acquired celebrity status and the valet accompanies us to show us the restaurant Omar recommends. Omar meets us an hour later and explains he has been busy speaking to a friend in a bike shop to get my seat fixed and also the sports reporter from 'Q'Hubo' newspaper to set up an interview! He seems to know everybody in town and works his cell phone to help smooth our time here.

We deposit the bike with 'Nezario' the guy who just happens to maintain all the bikes for a local Ibague race team and I get to meet the director of sports cycling who arranges all the training and race meets plus a couple of the racers. Then Omar takes us for dinner and refuses to let us pay for anything. He's a fantastic guy, interesting and intense and Sue tries to get a word in edgeways before the soup course....

Next day we meet reporter 'Ronal' and Omar drives us all to the bike shop to pick up my bike for a photo shoot, while Ronal starts the interview. Unfortunately - same old problem - the bike shop cannot source a seat post anywhere despite trying to call in a couple of favours. Not to worry though, the local machine shop has taken measurements and is milling a shim to size as we speak!

Riding back to the hotel the interview continues and despite it being a day off, we 'get in character' loading up our bikes and riding through city streets for video and stills. The demands placed on celebs these days....

It's a hectic day as Omar moves and speaks like he's on a sprint in the last leg of a race. As he drives he gesticulates wildly and the car meanders out of control across the road whilst he looks at me or worse, at Sue in the back seat. I stare fixedly at the road - hoping he will follow suit, and I sympathise with the pedestrians being skittled out of the way. It's definitely a British thing as the Colombians just seem to take near misses in their stride and don't even notice....

My knuckles are white!

Early next morning the hotel corridors reverberate as Omar arrives - bellowing 'Maaaarteeeeen' to make sure I'm awake. A trained radio presenters voice really carries!

He comes bearing gifts! A brand new cycling jersey and a full page spread in the morning paper....

We visit Nazario in his shop and he's come through for us as well.... a freshly shimmed, standard sized seat post. He also spent two hours freeing up the bottom bracket that had also frozen solid after our boat ride. Total cost.... nada. Muchas gracias amigos....

If anyone needs a top notch service in Ibague - Nazario is the man...

Nazar Sports Bike - Carrera 5 No.21-27, Ibague

After picking up the bikes, the boys are off to play. Omar takes me on a tour round the town and on a 25km climb straight up into the hills through a series of tiny villages through to an incredible river valley. The man can really ride and for me - a guy more used to a more measured touring style, his maniacal sprints on the steepest sections are exhausting. I cool off in the river in my shiny new shirt....

The views are spectacular....

The ride back to town is a helter skelter dash back down some dirt tracks mixed up with a detour along some single track.

With built in obstacle course.... The track follows a water pipe bound for the city water treatment plant. Some are a bit leaky, wet and treacherous. There are five to cross and the drops are around 20 feet. Omar makes it look easy....

In between we put on a bit of speed....

Back in town, I get a tour of Omar's apartment and a glimpse into his life as a reporter when he shows me through his memorabilia from all the big cycle races through Europe. It's an impressive collection!

No time to lose, we pick Sue up and again, Omar insists on buying lunch, then drives us to his family's Finca just outside town. Ibague is built on a sloped section of land and sprawls for a good 10 miles. Dropping for 12 miles to the finca, the climate changes noticeably and it's much warmer. The Finca is maintained by a live-in couple who prepare it for family get-togethers at weekends and it's a fantastic getaway....

Omar smashing me at one-on-one basketball....

Next day we ride out towards Armenia that sits at roughly the same altitude (1,500m - 5,000ft) as Ibague on the other side of the Cordillera Central. The pass over the top is the famous 'La Linea' - second highest pass on the gruelling cycle race 'The Tour of Colombia'. It tops out at a cloud skimming 3,200m (10,650ft).

Omar insists on seeing us off and of course wants to try riding the beast....

Frankly it's a shaky start and I'm a little nervous. After a 17lb race bike - this 175lb super tanker takes a little getting used to....

Omar, being Omar though, with his oversized cojones is soon overtaking 22 wheelers on blind bends....

One thing a touring bike is good for is going fast downhill - all that weight just keeps on pushing and I think he is starting to enjoy himself....

There are two big climbs on route to Cajamarca where we plan to stop for the night and progress slows as the going gets tough under a hot sun....

At the half way point Omar and I swap bikes and I think he has gained a new respect for our tour. He looks to me; then the bike, and keeps repeating 'just too heavy... too much weight'. I think it's just a bit frustrating for a true racer, used to being able to up the effort and put on a sprint to suddenly learn that these bikes just don't respond to hitting it hard. It's a patience and slow grinding kind of game.

Once back on his mountain bike, the racer in him comes to the fore again and he's all energy and shouts of encouragement. It's a bit alarming on some of the steeper bends when the bike suddenly gets weightless and kicks on a bit as he lends a helping shove....

As we reach the outskirts of Cajamarca, Omar suddenly remembers he has a business to run that he has been neglecting all the time he has spent with us....

Omar - what can I say.

Thanks for everything. To take four days out to show us round and help us out with everything was just amazing.... not to mention picking up the tab for food as well! The rides around Ibague and to Cajamarca were truly memorable and even by the high standards of Colombian hospitality you are an absolute diamond.

If you ever get to England.... you know how to find us....

Thor's Hammer

October 23rd to 26th

Sometimes it takes a Colombian a few hours to size you up before getting to know you. We are packed and ready to leave with the dawn when Margarita the hotel owner stops us for a chat. She is joined by sister Magda and daughter Melissa and suddenly we are on a guided tour of their land which proves to be quite extensive....

Behind the fruit orchard is a 'vivero' or nursery for a range of unusual plants and trees. We sample fruits we have never even seen before like 'Lima' - that tastes like a cross between orange and lime. 'Guanabana' is a huge green prickly fruit the size and shape of a rugby ball.....

We are given one that must weigh about 20lbs which is too much to carry so Margarita juices it for us with milk. It's totally delicious!

We eventually get away by around 11am and the heat is building, but it's not a problem as the road we are about to take falls off the edge of the 'Cordillera Oriental' range into a deep river valley over a thousand metres below....

At the Northern tip, The Andes split into three fingers that spread through Colombia and on to Venuzuela like a giant hand. Now there are three ranges - The Oriental (East), The Central and The Occidental (West). The Magdelena river valley that we are dropping into divides the East and Central ranges, a flat grassland at around 300m wedged between peaks that soar over 5000 metres just 40 miles away.

It's an intense kind of landscape!

The descent is a dizzying series of rapid hairpins with spectacular emerald hills rearing up around us....

In 6 miles we loose around 3000 feet and the temperature is noticeably warmer. Towards the bottom we enter a sheer sided canyon and the sun struggles to penetrate down to road level. The air feels like it's trapped between the rock walls and is torpid and densely hot. We ride beneath the 'Devil's Nose' and along the fast flowing Sumapaz River towards the Magdelena....

Passing through Melgar I cannot resist snapping a helicopter mounted at the roadside....

Turns out to be a bad move as the guys on the gatehouse are not amused about tourist cameras around military bases. They call me over for a chat as Sue, unaware of the situation, rides off into the distance. Four of them surround me and it's all a bit intimidating, armed as they are with assault rifles and sub-machine guns. I show them my other photos to prove I'm not on a spying mission and try to explain that wearing coloured Lycra and riding a fully loaded touring bike is not the best way of going undercover.... luckily they see the funny side of it and don't shoot me!

It's beautiful easy riding, along smooth, flat tarmac past the ranks of crops that grow beneath the shadow of the Central range....

When disaster strikes.... The welded repair on my seat post from Costa Rica gives a brief 'Crack', then gives up the ghost depositing my seat in the road. That's not a good sign.... By now it's boiling and we are in the middle of nowhere. I ride on with the seat strapped to the back of the bike and remind myself, mantra like 'do not sit down! do not sit down! do not sit down!....'

Riding such a heavy bike standing up is exhausting! Worse than that, I can feel the frame flexing as all my weight is on the pedals. I'm just glad it's flat here, otherwise this would be a non-starter in this heat.

We reach the junction between 'Espinal' and 'Flandes' and a group of locals tell us Flandes is much the closer, but that they would not go there. We have no choice, but I can see what they meant as we hit the main square and it feels like the worst of Central America again. Litter strewn streets and the stink of stagnant water. Prostitutes and raggedy people hang out on street corners with nothing better to do than stare, blankly into the distance. For the first time in Colombia, this does not feel safe at all!

I enquire in a hotel which is obviously more used to renting by the hour and when I come out Sue is surrounded by maybe 15 guys. Looks bad, but appearances can be deceiving and they are as friendly as can be. Sue's already explained the problem and a couple of them jump on bikes and show us the way to a bike shop. They can't help as my seat post is a European size so the guys ride on to check with a local workshop and find us a slightly more upmarket (read slightly less seedy) hotel.

What follows is a bit of a trial for me and I'm sorry I didn't trust this place enough to take a camera....

Salt from the boat crossing from Panama has fixed the stump of my seat post solid and it will not budge from the frame. In a dingy, dimly lit back-street workshop not much wider than the door frame we get to work. This is not a high tech solution.... The bike, upside down on a bench with the post gripped in a vice tightened using a three foot pole, what follows may invalidate my bike's guarantee.

Three guys set about wrenching the bike backwards and forwards using the frame as a lever to rotate the post in the frame. You would not believe how much force this took. Standing on the bench, two of us were hauling the bike upwards while a third manfully rotated it using all his strength, the seat post stubbornly giving up a millimetre at a time. Ten hot, sweaty minutes later - the air full of curses in both Spanish and English, it finally came free.

Next job - to join the broken parts of the seat post together by driving a solid piece of bar into each half.... using a lump hammer so large it is normally only wielded by Thor the Norse God of Thunder.

I could not watch!

Seeing a 25lb lump hammer smashing repeatedly into bits of the trusty steed that has taken me from Argentina to Peru and from Canada all the way to this grim place of torture.... I think I wept a little....

But I have to hand it to them.... in true South American style.... we did finally get a solution.... all be it a temporary one.... and a very, very ugly looking one....

Anyway - that was how I spent my birthday.

It definitely felt good to leave Flandes and head to Espinal. Espinal is a bigger town and we're hopeful of getting a better fix as there's a bike factory and several shops there. Unfortunately it's Sunday and we kill a day waiting for everything to open. We book into somewhere more appropriate to belatedly celebrate a birthday....

After trailing round all the cycle shops in Espinal (there are six of them) I am now convinced that you can't get a replacement part of this size anywhere in the Americas. It seems strange that Thorn chose such a non-standard size when building a bike designed to travel the world, especially when their bikes are obviously so well thought out. It's a minor criticism of an otherwise, near perfect machine, but.... could do better.

Reluctantly I have to ride to Ibague and hope for a better solution there. I know this repair will not last long and I'm not even sure it will get us the 60kms (40 miles) to Ibague.

We roll out along the flat valley that is just perfect for big agriculture. With a 12 month growing season of high rainfall and strong sunlight the land here is just a food making machine.... with the help of some real machines on an industrial scale....

I guess the only fly in the ointment are the voracious insects and a couple of small airfields provide defence from the air. The sky drones with ever present crop sprayers that rain down chemical death....

After crossing the valley of food, the road attacks the Cordillera Central head on....

Ibague sits at around 1500m (5,000ft) so the day soon changes to that upwards grind we know so well. This route forms part of a training run the racers take from Espinal through Ibague and on to the much revered 'La Linea' topping out at 3200m (10,600ft). Cyclists being a sadistic lot, they always choose the nastiest, steepest sections of road to race on, and that's our route too. The road does get pretty steep in places as it hugs the mountain side....

We meet one such cyclist 'Cristhian' on the last few miles into Ibague and he slows down to ride alongside us. Typically Colombian, he is friendly enough to sacrifice his hare pace and slow down to our tortoise speed.... until a phone call from his dad lets him know he is late for lunch and he rides off to meet the family. Adios Cristhian, con mucho gusto amigo....

Riding into the city centre, a guy in a car stops me to check everything is OK.

And so we meet Omar!

And that's a whole chapter in itself....