Southern Exposure

Sunday, January 18

Despite the party the night before, we managed to get up early and be ready to head out by 8:30. We felt bad about waking up Lew and Jennifer to say goodbye, as they’d been up quite late, but it would have been rude to miss a proper farewell. We thanked them as profusely as we could for their generosity and hospitality and departed. It’s a shame we didn’t get to say goodbye to Jeffrey but he was still asleep.

Our last stop before leaving the city was breakfast at Oma with Raffael. We had a nice breakfast as I handled translation between Raffael and Inna. We were definitely going to miss the great food of Bogotá. Raffael further demonstrated his generosity by bringing us better maps. One was a map of the Cafe Zone region, which he was insistent upon us visiting, saying we couldn’t leave Colombia without seeing it. The other was a detailed route map between Armenia and Ipiales at the Ecuadorian border. We had planned on buying Raffael breakfast to attempt to repay some of his generosity, but he intercepted on the waiter before we even realized what was happening and paid the bill. So frustrating!

After a group photo, we were back on the bikes. Raffael was going to lead us to the freeway we needed to take towards Armenia. Our goal for the day was to reach Cali via Armenia. Raffael made one quick stop as we were heading out, and came back with Colombian flag stickers for our bikes and pins for our chalecos. The guy just didn’t let up on the generosity. He led us across town and we reached our farewell. It was a sad farewell.

Bogotá had been an amazing demonstration to us of kindness and hospitality. Lew and Jennifer took us into their homes and treated us like family on only the virtue of being a son of a former colleague. They transformed what could have been a very stressful few days into a relaxing and festive Bogotá adventure. We are in their debt and hopefully someday can return the favor. Raffael was literally a stranger we met on the street, and he treated me like a brother, worked on Inna’s bike, and escorted us to our exit. As much as the beautiful landscapes, it’s the people we meet who are shaping our memories of this journey. It’s hard not to think of Bogotá warmly.

We rode out of Bogotá south on a secondary road. The road was a gradual descent from Bogotá’s 8,700 ft through the abundantly green Colombian landscape. We knew we would be crossing La Linea, a pass that crests at over 10,000 ft, so we had taken the opposite strategy today than we had when we froze in Costa Rica, and were dressed in warmly in our waterproof layers.

We had come down several thousand feet, and the twisty road yielded miles slowly. Now that we were at lower elevation, the heat and humidity made their presence known. We were both dying in our waterproof layers, but we didn’t want to take the time to stop and strip them off only to have to put them back on later. Our map was terrible, with no altitude markings, so we only roughly knew where we would begin to ascend again.

The scenery was less spectacular at this altitude and we skipped lunch to keep moving. At one point I was hoping it would actually rain to cool us off. Once we had connected with the main highway, we were moving faster. After going through a few small towns and a few river crossings, we finally began to climb towards cooler temperatures.

The beauty of Colombia increases with altitude. The vegetation just radiates high intensity green, making even the hills of Costa Rica seem washed out in comparison. We marveled at vista after vista as we enjoy the twisty climb into the mountains.

We were making better time than before and were fortunate to be traveling on a Sunday. We passed hundreds of big trucks parked in truck stops as they are required to stay off the roads on Sundays. The only obstacles to progress were the buses. The toll plazas helped space out the traffic and gave us opportunity to take pictures without being repassed. The Colombian government is kind enough to not assess tolls on motorcycles, so we slipped through an almost too narrow right lane without having to pay the tolls.

We finally reached La Linea, and as we stopped to take pictures of the hillsides, a couple on a small bike stopped to chat with us. They were curious about our bikes and I gave them my standard spiel about what we’re up to. We ended up riding with them throughout the descent. While I chatted in Spanish, Inna took pictures. It’s hard to emphasize enough how beautiful Colombia is and how far it exceeded our expectations.

As we crossed over 10,000 feet, we found ourselves within a cloud, being rained on. The suffering in the heat was rewarded. Visibility was poor, and it was no fun riding twisty roads in the rain. Our descent was cautious and slow as we waited to get below the cloud level. We finally broke through but the rain stayed with us. The ride down continued the breathtaking scenery, but we were focused mainly on the road at that point.

We finally reached Armenia at around 4 in the afternoon and accepted that we had been grossly off in our belief that we could reach Cali in one day. We had gotten used to being able to ride across half the map in a day in Central America, and we’d barely covered a few inches of the Colombia map. It was just as well, as we could spend some time in the Cafe Zone. On Raffael’s recommendation, we proceeded north to the small town of Solento. The secondary road from the highway to Solento was a series of mountain curves carved out of bright green hillsides. This is the region of Colombia famous for coffee and we would occasionally ride past a house or restaurant and the air would be rich with the scent of roasting.

Solento itself was a picturesque village perched on hilltop overlooking a long valley. The rivers were flowing a deep brown torrent from all the rain. We were directed to a small hotel with secure parking all for less than $20 a night. We walked into the main plaza, which was still bustling with stalls from the Sunday markets and festivities.

Inna chose our dinner restaurant where she was treated to some excellent local trout. It had been an exhausting day of riding so we were asleep soon after. It rained heavily overnight, enough to make me wake up and peer out the window to see the downpour.