“Tarzan Boy” back in Colombia (Part 2 of 3)

Beautiful morning in Sonson. Our lodging included breakfast in the main lobby.

After eating I walked around the plaza for some pictures and to gather and load the bikes

Chris was having an in depth conversation with a local. I walked up and told him not to invest too much in the discussion as I had just seen the man having a similar interaction with a pigeon 5 minutes before.

Leaving Sonsón, we followed a paved but very winding mountain road through coffee and sugarcane country to the cowboy and coffee town of Nariño.

While stopped, I saw a gathering across the square. I walked over to take a look and saw a cluster around a man selling some kind of elixir in a bottle. Felt like I was in 1800s America with a traveling salesmen selling a cure-all tonic to unsuspecting locals

Turning onto an off-road route that descends into a warm river valley. At the bottom, we had lunch at the Espíritu Santo Hot Springs.

I was planning on taking a dip in the hot springs, but it just seemed so fabricated and commercial for our journey. We decided instead to drive a quarter mile down the road and swim in the stream.

After the swim I tried to look for a couple offroad sections. The first one was a fairly deep stream that came up to the foot pegs. Once you dropped into the water the front end just took a dive and you knew you were in for a struggle, but surprisingly we all made it through without dropping. Boots and feet were soaked though. We tried to continue on the trail but it became impassable. I was basically taking our route and looking for offshoots in the Gaia app. The next section had a bridge but quickly turned into nothing. With are boots soaked I opted to stay on the main trail for the rest of the day

We pulled into Pennsylvania about 4pm and checked into the Hotel Colina Plaza. And found a garage for our bikes

Chris had asked me earlier in the day where our destination was for the night. I responded, “Pennsylvania” and he thought, “Why does he have to be such a dick and tell me that.” Turns out that was the name of the town and not just me coming up with sarcastic answer to his question.

We dropped our gear and did a walkabout. The coffee plantations were full of these modified Jeeps. I had rode one, standing on the back, in my previous trip to this area.

We found a bar and decided to watch the local happenings for a Sunday afternoon. We were invited across the street to take a shot with some gentleman and this how we were introduced to aguardiente. Aguardiente or "fire water," is a traditional distilled spirit popular in Colombia and other Latin American countries, typically flavored with anise, giving it a licorice-like taste. It's made from sugarcane molasses. When we walked back to our perch we bought a couple bottles and set them up on our table. This was the equivalent of me laying a line of peanuts on my porch back home and waiting the 5 minutes for all the squirrels and chipmunks to show up

And here is the picture about 5 minutes later

This gentleman with the A on his hat was interesting. He would not stop staring at me. I got the impression that he fancied me. He kept trying to stick his finger in my mouth and then place it in his own mouth. A disturbing gesture. I ran through a rolodex in my mind of possible meanings for this move and just settled on a local sign of affection. The guy with the blue hat had these gaudy cheap gold Casio watch which he incessantly showed off. We were also introduced to the “Colombian Beckoning” at this point. Instead of holding your hand up and waving someone over you, you flip it down and wave in this sort of dog paddle motion. About then, the local town Trans sauntered by. She looked like a 35yo Sean Connery with the bushy eyebrows and a formidable nose. It must be a hard place to live while struggling with your gender identity. Not many places to blend in. We walked around after polishing the 2 bottles of Fire water, looking for a restaurant

We passed Sean Connery one more time and Chris says, “That’s a guy right?” Yes Chris, that is a guy, I said in my most sarcastic tone possible. This is where things got a little hazy. I guess we were walking by this place called the Atheus Bar and some lady called over to us. For some reason we followed her through this building under construction, into an alley, and up some back staircase into some restaurant.

We sat at a table. The mayor of the town was at the table next to us and a 3rd table was all set up with balloons and banners celebrating a 30th Birthday party.

High on edibles and Fire Water I guess we ate dinner. After dinner, every 10 minutes one of us would say, “You think we should order dinner?” One of the other 2 would either say, “Darren we just ate” or “ya, that seems like a good idea.” It was a rotating roulette wheel where one of us was the voice of reason. Next, I remember looking over at that empty table for the birthday party and saying, “Man that really sucks, they went to all this trouble to prepare a nice spread and no one shows up. I hope they can get their money back.” Chris tell me, “Its 6:30pm.” Oh, I see, maybe they still show up is what your saying? So, now my brain just ping ponged between wondering if we should eat and empathy for the empty party. I think we were in bed by 7:30 that night.

The next morning after a classic Colombian breakfast we headed back into the jungle

we leave town and follow a winding paved road to the mountain community of Manzanares. We got our bikes tuned up here

From here, the pavement ended and we began a long off-road climb high into the Andes. The route passed through wide valleys where wax palms rise in the distance, along ridgelines lined with tall eucalyptus trees. This region is known as the “wool route” because of its concentration of sheep farms and high-altitude pastures.

We stop for a typical tipica lunch in a small village

We continued on to San Félix and its famous wax palm forest. It was raining as we pulled into San Felix. The wax palm forest was an out and back trip. I led the group up into the hills and took some pictures and informed them we now had to double back to get back on the route. I was hoping the coffee shop would be open when we got up there but no dice. Joe expressed his displeasure with the added milage.

We finished the day on a winding paved road to the colonial heritage town of Salamina and checked into the Hotel Boutique La Leyenda 1860. Probably my favorite town on the circuit. It had a rich history of being built on the backs of the coffee industry/workers. Kinda reminded me of Iquitos Peru with the rubber industry bringing wealth to the town. Salamina had an ornate fountain imported from France in the center of the plaza.

Or lodging was a converted city building.

It was still a bit early so we walked the square, had some drinks and watched some low-level pocketless pool

Excited for our unique dining experience at Don Fermin. Definitely seemed out of place for remote coffee town in Colombia.

We really classed the place up with ur presence.

Here was another moment of comedy that wont come across if you were not there and stoned. We were drinking Aguardiente, as one does, and Joe was complaining that the bottle top was defective. The plunger kept separating from the cap making it hard to get the plunger out. I kept saying, “Why do you care so much, once you open it just toss the plunger. Its not a big deal” He kept trying to tell me that you cant open the bottle with the plunger in. “Joe, who cares, just drink it. “ He then explained to me that when you first break the seal and open the bottle you do not have the luxury of tossing the plunger until after it is open. It took me a few times through but I eventually saw it from his perspective. Like I said this really would not make much sense to anyone, but I had to document because to us it seems quite hysterical.

That was then followed up by a long discussion on how the legs of all the chairs had brown stain on them. I hypothesized that there was a flood and it stained all the furniture legs. Joe came up with an alternate theory where the cleaning of the floors with the mop transferred the stain. We eventually asked the waiter and he confirmed Joes theory. I am still not sold. Joe alerted me that we were on the second floor and a flood was doubtful, but agree to disagree I guess.

We stumbled around for a few more hours and called it a night.

The next morning Joe and I grabbed coffee and walked a bit.

Salamina was also known for their colorful balconies.

The morning ride consisted of winding paved road descending toward Manizales. We stopped for a great typical lunch at a local Colombian restaurant outside the town of Neira

The restaurant was Fogon. This was also where Chris would depart us and head back to Medellin for his flight back to the states.

I mentioned earlier that Chris did not have a phone mount on his bike. How was he going to ride the 4 Hours back to Medellin without navigation you ask? Chris had that all figured out. As you can see he came up with a new phone mount and I believe he know holds the patent on it.

The next picture is probably my favorite of the trip. As Chris is putting the finishing touches on his “Phone Mount” check out the guy in the background staring in confusion.