The final chapter! We are climbing the Andes twice, crossing a desert and make our way to the border of Ecuador
🚴🏻♂️🚴🏻♀️ Chinchiná – Pasto (1000km) -> Route
Cream! It must have been the cream. There was a lot of it on the dry cake we had eaten the day before. It had to happen at some point, but food poisoning certainly wasn’t the way we had imagined our start into the new year. Early in bed, we luckily recovered enough to cycle out of Chinchiná in the early morning hours on New Years Day.
Colombia strikes back. We cross the northern half of the country.
🚴🏻♀️🚴🏻♂️ Santa Marta – Chinchiná (1100km) -> Route
In true Colombian style, our first day back on the road started with our neighbour Richard bringing us fresh coffee, homemade arepas and a map of Colombia on which we marked all of his favourite places. Putting Colombian music on the speakers, we cycled away from our Santa Marta casa. We heard a ‘whoop’ and about 20 cyclists passed us going in the other direction, keeping pace with their support van. They were cycling in one day what we had done in three! Their van did a U-turn and caught up with us, treating us to the professional cyclist lifestyle with cold water and Gatorade! The sugar hit pushed us on and we completed over 100km by noon – a new record!
We rent a flat and become students
🚴🏻♀️🚴🏻♂️ Cartagena – Santa Marta (250km)
Arriving into Colombia was an experience like no other! We built our bikes right beside the baggage carousel whilst we waited for our panniers, loaded them up and wheeled our way directly through customs. We cycled out of the airport and were immediately on small back roads with next to no traffic, worlds away from the 8 lane highways we had left behind in the states. As if that wasn’t enough, we soon turned onto a cycle path right next to the beach. We had made the right decision.
15 Miles an Hour 