The ‘T’ Word

Our last post about La Linea ended with the rather abrupt splitting in two of Liam’s Tailfin (rear pannier rack). As we rolled into Salento, a small town famous for it’s coffee estates, beautiful scenery, colourful colonial houses, wax palms in the nearby Cocora valley… and gringos. It was so bizarre to hear English being spoken on the streets. Up until now we hadn’t really felt like tourists, considering ourselves a few trophic levels above the backpacker in the tourism food chain. Getting to a place under your own steam, travelling through the landscape including it’s many puddles and landslides surely counted for something. Yet here we were pitching out tents in the campsite outside of town preparing to be tourists. Urgh, dirty word. Even though we are bicycle tourists on a bicycle tour, surely that doesn’t make us *ghasp* tourists?! Well reader, that’s not where it ends!

While we enjoyed the colourful colonial houses and hipster coffee shops of Salento, we racked our brains on the best solution to the broken pannier rack problem. Thanks to a zip tie and a voile strap Liam had managed to bodge it enough to limp on for a short while, but it wouldn’t last another classic Andean descent! We thought about ordering an off road touring rack from the States, although not cheap, Tailfin had very kindly offered to pick up the bill for the fall out from their equipment failure. However, nothing would arrive immediately. Keen to keep moving, Liam suggested we divert to the nearest city, Armenia, where we trawled the bike shops to see if we could pick up a rack IRL. Sadly, nobody stocked anything that was quite right for the brief.

As the day drew to a close we rode to our Warmshowers (like couch surfing but for cycling) host for the evening and thought we’d come at the problem again after a wash and a bite to eat. Juan’s two dogs eventually warmed to us when we started cooking and I for one enjoyed being in the company of a sausage dog again.

We’d previously heard about the Casa del Ciclistas in Medellin and the owner Manuel who makes his own racks (parillas in Spanish). After dinner, a message came through from the ‘Riding the Americas’ WhatsApp group from a rider who had purchased a rack from him and was very happy, and we knew that our newest pal Greg was another happy customer. Although Medellin was in the wrong direction for us, a combination of the city’s excellent reputation, as well as the thought of supporting a Colombian business that does a lot for the cycle touring community swung us. Plus, the Casa would be quite economical and we needed to wait for a package containing a new axle (Liam’s was bent by the ejecting pannier), replacement derailleur hangers (thanks Mr Stooge) and adaptors to arrive from Tailfin (we might have lost faith in their proprietary racks but their panniers are pretty good, although require some adaptors to run with a traditional pannier rack). I was also not against waiting around for a few days, with my cold still lingering I knew my body needed more than a single day off to recover.

Decision made. Except that Armenia is around 183km away from the Casa del Cicilstas in Medellin. Luckily, Juan informed us that there is a direct bus and we could even take a night bus if we wanted. That made sense. So the next morning we pedalled down to the bus station to buy a ticket for the night bus to Medellin. This practically made us backpackers, like the algae of the traveller food chain. Liam was particularly uncomfortable with our newfound identity! We killed the day in cafes and watching a local tennis club’s friendly tournament, coming to the conclusion that Armenia is probably the least interesting place we’ve visited in Colombia so far. We headed back to the bus terminal before dark and waited anxiously, unsure about how exactly we’d get our bikes on the bus. Turns out we should have been much more worried about the bus trip itself! I’ve had better quality lie downs (no sleep was had) in a damp bivvy bag in howling Cornish rain. Give me a bicycle over a bus any day! Perhaps backpackers are a little above algae in the traveller food chain after all. Minnows perhaps.

A short (uphill) ride out of Medellin and we arrived in San Antonio de Prado and the front gate of the Casa del Ciclistas. Manuel and his partner Marta greeted us with a jug of black coffee and some friendly wagging tails, which meant the events of the night were soon forgotten. We met fellow guests Lizzie and Simon from Cambridge, UK, who had already been on the road for 10 months riding down from Canada. Liam went down for a nap while I was revived by exchanging stories of our trips so far with our new friends. They were also riding rigid mountain bikes and contemplating what kind of lives they wanted to build for themselves after returning from their trip.

Manuel had a few different rack designs and one was just perfect, a front rack that could be run as a minimalist rear rack. Made of steel it was solid and importantly, could be welded anywhere we could find a metalworker (which is most places). We dismantled our Tailfins for parts to be left in the workshop for any future travellers in need of them. We enjoyed our time at the Casa exchanging stories with Simon and Lizzie and practicing our Spanish with Manuel. He’s had one incredible life and is now a peaceful revolutionary promoting cycle tourism in his area and running the Casa. The house itself has been built by the many touring cyclists who have passed through there, a Canadian who was there for 3 months built this wall etc…

Racks sorted, but waiting for our package, we decided to leave our bikes behind and venture into the city for a couple of days. Now who’s the algae! Staying in Poblado we enjoyed being surrounded by many independent food and drink options, though we enjoyed the gringo prices a bit less! We took it as our penance for being dirty tourists. The botanic gardens were small but beautifully landscaped. We saw two iguanas and got caught in a thunder storm before seeking out another fancy coffee. For our second day we went for a walking tour of Communa 13. We’d watched Narcos before the trip and so we had an idea of how dangerous Medellin once was, so it was incredible to see the transformation of what was once the city’s most dangerous and poor areas into a vibrant and artistic neighbourhood. Our guide from Zippy Tours was brilliant and gave us loads of background on Colombia’s history and Medellin’s past including the narco traffickers, guerillas and paramilitary groups and how peace seems to have been brought through diplomatic and police measures. After pedalling up Colombian hills we were excited to take the famous outdoor escalators up the Communa’s Mountain 1 to see all the murals, galleries and dancers. Importantly, our guide highlighted, the presence of international tourists was really important for the social transformation of the area. Not just the money we bring but the diplomatic pressure. ‘Take photos’ he said ‘no one will steal your phone.’ I doubt I’d ever hear a tour guide in London say that!

It was nice to be tourists for a day, although it can feel un-original and in the broad hierarchy of ‘travellers’ as bicycle tourists, we naturally consider ourselves at the top of the pecking order. I also think that fundamentally, although we both enjoy the culture and convenience of the city, we find it easier to get below the surface of a place by moving through more rural landscapes. It’s a totally different experience being 1 of 10,000 tourists in a city, versus being the first gringo they’ve seen in a small town as you ride through on your bicycle. I also find the inequality of the cities here quite hard to stomach with displaced and homeless people living very brutal lives on the street.

By the time we returned to the Casa our package had arrived! But rather than leave the next day we were invited on one final hooray with Manuel and his friends – river gorge walking! Manuel had organised an outing with a small group of friends and colleagues from the town, who were all involved to some extent with promoting ecotourism and conservation in the area. There are no photos of this excursion because we didn’t want to add to our trip admin burden by dropping our phones in the water! It was a beautiful walk, literally up a river, to a small gorge and waterfall. Along the way Manuel and his friends would give us information on the birds, bromeliads and landscape. It was quite a mixed group and it wasn’t an easy walk with strong currents, but it was beautiful to see everyone looking out for each other, fabricating makeshift hand rails out of bamboo and helping each other through crux sections. It was so nice to share this experience with a group of locals, immersed in the language and muddling through. It couldn’t have been further from the previous day’s urban walking tour.

Once back at the Casa and revived by empanadas, we had some bike tinkering to do! Liam replacing various parts which had been damaged and both of us fitting adaptors to run our panniers on our new racks. Some final farewells and the all important writing in the guest book. We got the feeling that Manuel had become quite warm to us over the many chats in the workshop. He was very patient with our Spanish and shared a great many conversations with us from his own personal story, to suggestions of places to go in Colombia. A truly excellent human with a big heart.

Once more onto the bus my friends! Thankfully our return driver was much more tranquillo and the ride back to Armenia was far less harrowing, the downside of this was that the bus arrived much later than we had anticipated. The area immediately around the bus station felt and looked quite ‘dodgy’. To make matters worse a number of well meaning Colombians told us to be careful, that the area was very dangerous. This didn’t make us feel any better, we had to ride through it to get anywhere! We decided to head out of the city and towards the town of Barcelona, but after a few loops we failed to find any accommodation and so rode on. We eventually found a hostel that was full, but were willing for us to camp. It was a strange place with spiritual music playing and everyone dressed in white. Had we just walked into a cult? Tired from the journey we found some dinner and got to sleep.

Apologies that this wasn’t the most interesting of blog entries, (it’s also a bit late because of Wi-Fi availability) but I don’t want you thinking it’s all rainbows and butterflies all the time. A big trip like this comes with a certain amount of mishaps and mechanicals. Although we didn’t expect to have quite so much go wrong with the bikes and their setup so early, Lizzie and Simon reassured us that things break in the first 6 weeks, then everything is generally OK until components start reaching end of life. Fingers crossed that’s our mechanical bad luck out of the way and we can just crack on with riding!