Manizales
It seems unjust to leave this country that I enjoyed so much, without one last blog. I`m in ipiales, an uninspiring border town, that lives up to its existence due to the commerce and traffic with the neighboring country. Perhaps the only reason that places Ipiales in the tourist route, is the fantastic sanctuary of Las Lajas, 7 km to the south.
The Sanctuary in neo-Gothic style is dedicated to the virgin Mary and was constructed over a stone bridge that crosses a narrow ravine. Its a strange but spectacular sight that reminds me a little the medieval castles of East Europe.
The Ecuadorean border is just 3 km away, but it has been a while that I already feel in Ecuador.
This last leg of 775 km in Colombia was - even if a bit rushed - quite diverse. Not only in natural landscape but also in human landscape. But lets go back to Manizales.
Manizales is the capital of Caldas department and one of the 3 cities of the so called "Coffee Axle". In this mountain region is produced the best coffee in Colombia - and amongst the best in the world. An economy that employs around 2 million people. It is said that an identical number works in the coca production.
Manizales is a modern and sophisticated city of 400.000 inhabitants, but with very few attractions for the visitor. In the 11 days that I spent there the best "attraction" I got to know, was the chair of Dr Fernando Rodriguez Gomez. But it was not by chance, or by the excess of candies and sweets that I have consumed along the trip (by necessity), or for having broken a tooth shewing sugar cane in Honduras, months ago.
A visit to a dentist in Colombia was part of the plans of the pan American since the sketch of the trip. Years ago in London, the then Colombian girlfriend (that I now visit) convinced me that, if there was something the Colombian doctors were good at, was plastic surgeries and mouth reconstructions.
Dr Fernando recognising my urgency, or perhaps the chance of a lucrative work, assures me that in one week he would place a "new smile". 8 days later, and many hours in the chair, Dr Fernando fulfilled to his promise with an excellent work that included among other things, 10 new crowns.
In between the visits to the doctor, I enjoy Andrea`s company and her adorable daughter Mariapaz, and take advantage of the free time to repair my camera, extend my visa and give some adjustments to the bicycle (courtesy of the specialized shop in Manizales - Gracias! Amazingly, the 4 times that I had to take the bicycle to a shop in Colombia, I only had to pay for the repairs once! With time to kill, I leave the bicycle in Manizales, and go on a "buseta" to Medellin for the weekend.
Medellin
Waiting for me in the modern bus station was Marcela Pimiento, an old friend from the time I lived in London and now the marketing director of the museum of Antioquia. One of the best museums in the country, with an extensive collection of contemporary art were 2 local artist stand out: Fernando Botero and Juan Camilo Uribe, some sort of Colombian Andy Warhol.
Not long ago, Medellin was considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Death, in the hands of the "sicarios", was worth not many pesos. Rivalries between drugs cartels filled the streets with blood and the town of Pablo Escobar was a place to avoid. But forget all about what you have heard about Medellin. Its probably old new by now.
Medellin today is one of the safest big metropolis of Latin America, with an excellent transport system, and a modern and sophisticated city center.
Flávio and Catalina, friends of Marcela, invite me on a car ride thought the "circuito de oriente". An area of luxurious haciendas and pretty "pueblos Paisas". A playground for the more fortunate of Medellin dwellers, with pretty landscapes, leisure areas and secured with a strong military presence.
We follow a secondary road that goes up the mountain on the east part of the city. "this road was in times one of the private roads of access to lands of Pablo Escobar", told me Flávio. "Over there, on the other side of the mountain it was the luxurious prison-farm where Pablo was imprisoned before the escape", he continued.
"The escape" was marked in the history of the Colombian drug trafficking as the biggest police operation in the country. During 500 days, about 2000 special agents of the Colombian police forces with the aid of agents of FBI, CIA, DEA, contracted assassins from the rival cartels of Cali, Colombian military ,among others agents, had teamed up and had incessantly searched one of the richest drugs dealers the world has ever seen. The details of the "hunting of the man" can be seen in detail in the museum of the police in Bogota.
We continued the ride through what is now a "condominium campestre " where Flávio and his wife are building a "simple" house of half billion pesos (170,000 euros) an astronomical amount of money in a country where 57% of the population lives below the poverty line.
I finish my 24-hour flash- visit to Medellin and return to Manizales.
In the days that I spent in Manizales I met Lina, a great person with a big heart, that for brief moments left me questioning all the plans of the trip.
The Special Children
Lina works as coordinator for the NGO "Girasol" of Pereira. An association of health and education professionals that deals with special children , young and adults with learning difficulties. I leave with them Cd`s, brochures and other small things of the APPC that travels in my panniers since the beginning of the trip.
I would like to take this opportunity, to remind you that this trip is not only mine, but also of the special children of the APPC-Leiria (Portuguese association of cerebral paralysis) and would like to thank all of you that, until now, have collaborated with the APPC through this trip. You also can help the special children by supporting them with a donation for the APPC-LEIRIA (details in the page of the charity on this site).
I would to extend a special thanks to Lynn Pilgrim and "las Chivas Coffee roasters" in the US. That besides sponsoring this trip with a generous donation for the APPC for each kilometer that I cycle, recently launched a campaign of fundraising for the special children of the APPC-Portugal, in her native town of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the United States.
The Cauca Valley
I leave Manizales late. It was 11.30 Am. Andrea escorts me by car to the exit of town. An accentuated downhill takes me to the bottom of the valley where I find myself - for the first time in Colombia - cycling on the Pan American highway, the EN25. After 11 days rest, and perhaps because of the many bottles of wine consumed in a way of farewell, the previous night, with Andrea, Lina and Andrès, I felt weak and without energies, and make a short day of 59 km until Pereira.
I arrive already by night, and look for a place to sleep, cycling around the city center looking at the entrance of several hotels. All with stairs. Certain type of travellers looks certain type of hotels. Cyclists look for hotels without stairs. Nothing more painful after a hard day`s cycling, then to go up one or two floors (3 are out of question) making 2 trips with the 4 bags, tent and sleeping bag, plus another trip for the bicycle. After some cycling around, I found the ground floor Tucan hotel for 15.000 pesos a night
The 2 days that followed through the valley of Cauca, known only as "el valle", provided a absolutely flat ride. The valley (1000 meters of altitude) is "sandwiched" between the central and occidental mountain ranges . It is the most fertile zone in Colombia where sugar cane predominates. I pass through some black communities, descending of the slaves who where brought here to work in the sugar cane, and that centuries later still do that hard work job. In the excellent 2 lane road, I`m overtaken with frequency by "trens cañeros ". A Colombian mini-version of the Australian road trains , or by the occasional "chiva", a typical old Colombian public transport.
Cali
I was undecided if I should bypass Cali or not. Cali is the third biggest Colombian city with 2.3 million inhabitants, and someone had informed me that the traffic was in an absolute chaos due to the constructions of the new meter-bus.
After the success of the Transmilenio of Bogota, a bus system masqueraded as metro, with self contained stations, and their own lanes, some Colombian cities including Cali, had opted the same system.
A comment in my travel guide helps me to decide, and I enter in the city: "Cali remains sulty 12 months of the year, and that`s why the third largest Colombia City wears less and parties more. In Juancito district you can dance until dawn seven night week, no questions asked ".
Besides of the best "rumba" in the country, Cali is also known as the Colombian capital of plastic surgeries. A stroll through the "salsatecas" of the sixth avenue was enough for me to see the result of the medical surgeons. The breasts may not be real, but they are certainty big. I enter in a "salsoteca" and ask for one Club Colombia. For moments I thought that I had entered in some sort miss universe contest.
After several club Colombia, I question myself if I also should not ask for help of the "Dr lookgood". After almost 25.000 km with the my bottom on the saddle. my beyond kind of got the prolonged form of the saddle of the bicycle. But after the blow in the trip`s budget with the money spent on the new smile, I decide to move on..
Leaving Colombia
"El valle" finishes in Santander de Quilichao about 40 km south of Cali, and the Pan American initiates its up and downs among rolling hill, part of the two mountain ranges that are joint together around Popayan. I spend a night in the white city of Popayan, with its pretty colonial architecture and inhabitants of Andean descendants. The first traces of a culture that I will follow in the next few months.
From popayan until the border of Ecuador the Pan American highway presented me with the prettiest landscapes since the rocky mountains in Canada. A nature`s show, particularly spectacular between El Bordo and Ipiales.
A farewell to Colombia as great as the entrance, in a country so full of contrasts but at the same time united by the warm hospitality of the Colombian people.
The 3145 km cycled in the in almost 3 months, have earned Colombia as one of the favourite countries of the Pan American journey. Tomorrow I will enter in Ecuador and continue my cycle-deambulation through the continent, and leave with only one certainty: I want to came back. As any proud Colombian would say, using a popular expression heard constantly all over the place: "Here we are....À la order"
Nuno Brilhante
In Ipiales, Colombia
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