And then we were in Colombia, another new country and for us the last country in South America.

Close to the bordertown of Ipiales is a special church; Las Lajas. This church is built on a bridge and has the back of the church is the rock wall behind it. It’s been said that the virgin Mary was seen on that wall and that’s why they built the church there.

We were told that October is rainseason in Colombia. Normally there’s a lot of rain in that period, especially in the lower areas. We were very lucky, only after about 2 weeks we had the first rain. It poored all night, but it was dry in the morning. On our restday we were treated to a whole afternoon of thunder, lightning and pooring rain. But otherwise it mainly rained during the nights (so far), so it didn’t bother us too much.

The people in Colombia generally love cycling/cyclists and tourists. They just seem to think that all foreigners are Americans. They are very friendly and interested. The people in most cars and on most motorcycles honk their horn (in a nice way) and wave or give us thumbs up. Sometimes they come up next to us to have a chat about where we’re from and where we’re going. They don’t care that they are holding up traffic while doing that. We also got free drinks a couple of times, got to stay at somebodies place for the night, a light to put on the bike and some powersnacks.

The south is beautiful; hilly with green valleys. The first 2 days of cycling were hard. Lots of climbing but also a lot downhill. The gradients were not as steep as in Ecuador, so we were happy about that. In the south of Ecuador an average gradient of 8% was very normal, but here it was only 5 or 6%. There even were a few flat(ter) stretches. It had been a long time since we had that! All in all it was good cycling.

After Pasto we descended to about 700 meters (2100 ft). It was tropical and hot down there, temperatures of 40˚C to 50˚C (100 F to 120 F). Everything appeared tropical; the houses (made of bamboo), the plants and trees, the temperature, the humidity and the scents. We really had the feeling that we cycled through the rainforests of Indonesia or Brasil. The humid heat just wasn’t very suitable for cycling. Then we came in the area around the city of Cali, where they grow sugarcane. That area is completely flat which makes it a bit boring but because it’s flat we were able to make good progress.

It didn’t take us very long to get through it and then we went back into the hills and mountains, towards Medellin. The scenery got nice again, the cycling became harder and the temperature went down a little. Right before we went back into the mountains, we were in the coffeegrowing area of Pereira/Manizales. Everywhere we looked we saw coffee trees, sometimes separated by banana trees.

The road to Medellin led us over a pass for which we had to climb 1800 meters (5400 ft). That climb is a known climb here in Colombia, a climb of the outer category. We had decided to split it in 2; the first day 1200 meters (3600 ft) and the second day the remaining 600 meters (1800 ft) and then continue to Medellin. The first day we arrived early in the town of Santa Barbara, around 1 pm, where we looked for a hotel. Somebody pointed one out to us and then a friend of his came by. His name was John and he had lived in The Netherlands and still spoke Dutch very well. We spent the evening with him and his sister and brother in law.

The second day we had to ascent the remaining 600 meters till the top. When we arrived there, there were 2 cyclists standing there. One of them (Dennis) was an American Colombian and he invited us to stay with him at his house. The other one (Karol) is a pro cyclist with an Colombian team and that evening he gave us one of his shirts and a shirt of a friend of his, Mauricio Ardila, who had cycled with the Dutch Rabobank team. The last 30 kms (18 miles) to Medellin, we were escorted by 2 cyclists. Easy, now we didn’t have to look for the right directions.

So now we’re in Medellin (actually a suburb of it), at Dennis’ house. There are more cyclists living here, so there are bikes everywhere. We stayed for a few days; cycled through the city, went to track championships and to a  gastronomical event. We went to a viewpoint the watch over the city by night and had typical food of the area.

We stayed for a few days and tomorrow we’ll continue north, for the last 500 kms (300 miles) to Cartagena where the Caribean sea will be waiting for us and which will be the end of the part of our trip through South America. There we’ll take a boat to Panama and start our Central American adventure.