It's a funny thing about keeping up my blog, but I often have a hard time remembering the hotel I stayed in if I wait too long between updates. Without photos, I'm sure I would forget lots of details. I'm writing this from Valledupar and 6 rides and many more days ahead. Thinking back to San Alberto feels like a month ago. This is such a strange feeling and it happens often.
Hotel room view from San Alberto
I arrived in San Alberto having picked out the best hotel in town. I make this assessment from Google reviews. Hotels have to pay Google to be included on the map and there are typically many more hotels available than what Googlemaps shows. My 1st stop was at the San Alberto Plaza Hotel. I wanted to check in for 2 nights and they only had a vacancy for 1 night. They recommended the Hacienda Hotel Victoria around the corner. I was surprised to see this hotel actually looked better. It also had parking and a pool but no restaurant. They put me in a very nice room on the 3rd floor with a balcony that had a view of the town. I was on the opposite side of the hotel from the pool which was a good move because the pool was full of very young children yelling and having a ball. It seemed that the families all stayed on the 1st floor which also made me very happy. This hotel cost me $20/night. I spent a day in San Alberto where I did some trike maintenance and worked on getting my photos up-to-date. Everyone at the hotel was very nice but San Alberto is quite small and there really isn't anything worth seeing here. There isn't even a public plaza. Every day was very hot and this kept my walking around to a minimum.
Soldiers asked me to stop for a photo
After a good rest, I pushed on to Aguachica. This was a very beautiful ride where I saw caution signs warning me of armadillo, fox, iguana and capybara. I passed areas of water with lots of beautiful birds. This was also my 1st flat ride of the tour. I was now out of the mountains. After a month on the road I had completed the hardest part of the tour. The mountains was the part I was the most nervous about and it was behind me. So many people have been worried for my safety. I never had any worries about my safety. My biggest worry was being able to complete the climbing I knew would be expected of me every day. Even though the mountains have been an incredible experience and the beautiful scenery was totally worth the effort, I now felt like I was on vacation. What a great feeling to not only get through the mountains but to be on a beautiful road pedaling easily. I really felt like I was starting a new phase of the tour.
View from the road to Aguachica
Coming into Aguachica
Bike path into Aguachica
Aguachica was much bigger than San Alberto and usually bigger towns are more interesting. There are a many, many hotels in Aguachica. Since this is Christmas holiday time, the roads are busy with families traveling. The hotels are also very busy. Aguachica is a town that caters to this traffic. The 1st few hotels I went to were full. I ended up at the most expensive hotel in town, of course, Hotel D'Leon Inn. This hotel actually has 2 buildings across the street from each other. I looked at 2 rooms. The 1st was decorated like for a young boy completely in a London motif. The bedspread was union jacks, the walls were painted with a big red bus and a telephone booth. I couldn't imagine being comfortable there. I ended up paying extra for a much larger room in the other building. This room was on the top floor and had a balcony with a view overlooking the town. I was quoted $47 which is a huge amount of money in Colombia. They were not willing to negotiate either. The sun beat down so strongly on the sliding glass doors to the balcony that the air conditioning couldn't keep up. The shower didn't have a shower head. There wasn't even a towel or soap in the room. It took some doing but I eventually had a fan added, a shower head installed and housekeeping gave me a towel and a bar of soap. $47 is really 5-star hotel pricing and this hotel was not measuring up.
Video of rides from San Alberto to Aguachica
View from my hotel in Aguachica
I spent the next day walking around looking for anything interesting. The town has a park that was decorated for Christmas with lots of lighted animals. There was a municipal plaza and mercado which I always love going to. I had a wonderful lunch there of soup, chicken and salad for $2. I also replenished my daily avocado. The avocados in Colombia are fantastic. They are probably 3 times the size of avocados in the US and usually $1. Every day I eat one and have become an addict. But, for a city the size of Aguachica it had very little public or community spaces.
Christmas tree in the plaza municipal, Aguachica
Aguachica Christmas lights
When I packed up Myrtle in the morning and went to pay, my bill was much less expensive than I expected. Instead of paying $47/night, I paid $33. That is a huge difference and more in line with the quality of the hotel. This was a welcome surprise. In the US paying $47 is unheard of but here it really is a lot of money. I was happy they made the adjustment even though I certainly wasn't expecting it.
Termite mounds
The ride to Pelaya was, again, very nice with lots of trees and lovely scenery. It's been interesting to see the difference between the towns and the landscape between the towns. The towns are, frankly, ugly, dusty and busy. The landscape in between is lovely. If you click on any of the Garmin map links at the top of the page you can see where I am. On the map this area looks amazing. There is a huge area with lots of water, lagoons, inlets, inlands and rivers. It looks like a birder's paradise. In every town I come to I've been asking how to get to this area. From Pelaya, the distance to water appears to be less than 10 miles. I would love to see it. Everyone I talk to either has no idea how to get there or no idea if there are boat tours. If this was Mexico or Belize, every hotel would be working with a tour company. There would be a boat tour I could sign up for where a van would come to the hotel, pick me up and take me to a dock where I would meet other people wanting to see the area. This is a huge missed opportunity for the area. Someday, someone will figure out how to implement this. It will take awhile to catch on but, eventually, it will bring tourism to the area and many people will be making money. I was disappointed to miss out on seeing a bit of the waterway but I think I can see it from the other side after leaving Cartegena probably in another 6 weeks. It looks like there is a ferry to the lovely island of Santa Cruz de Mompox that I want to see and that side also appears to be more developed for tourism.
Anteater sign
Caution, Fox
Fox and armadillo signs
Pelaya was a very poor town. Another town that only caters to truck traffic. I stayed one night at a very basic hotel in a room that didn't have a shower head, toilet seat or wifi. But I was safe and Myrtle was secure.
Toll booth
The ride to Curumani was, again, very beautiful. Being the holiday season, I'm seeing lots of cars full of families traveling. Everyone gives me a little beep-beep as they pass. The busses are also busy. The bus drivers, too, are always saying hello as are the semi drivers. All day long I am waving and saying hello. Luckily, this is one of my very favorite things to do and I'm loving it. The car and truck traffic can be quite loud and wear me down so I typically listen to music to drown out some of the noise. There were lots of cows, lambs, buffalo, horses, goats and birds to look at. I really am enjoying seeing the animals.
As I have been traveling and meeting people I've been able to use my Spanish. Until recently, my Spanish has been very hesitant and I've been quite shy to speak. There has always been a bit of panic whenever I need to speak. I have felt that I kinda know how to say what I need but I'm not totally sure and I've been speaking without confidence. This is starting to change. I am beginning to feel like I do know how to speak and this change feels great. I just need to stop and think for a moment to gather my thoughts in Spanish. For the longest time, I simply didn't know what to say when someone spoke to me. Before I would speak I always needed to check the online dictionary to double check my word choice. And then when I needed to answer someone, my mind would be blank and the words just wouldn't come. I was completely tongue tied. I think some of that was I didn't really understand what was being said to me and now I am also starting to hear the Spanish better. But, like this morning at breakfast, I was able to have a conversation not just ask for what I need. I actually asked questions of the people at the table. This is a big step forward. If I don't know a word, it's ok to say it in English. People are happy to hear me try to speak and will help me out. It's also ok to ask people to repeat or to speak slower. The Spanish I am hearing is also changing. People at the coast speak faster and slur their words together more than in Bucaramanga or Bogotá. This is a new challenge. I'm quite close to the bigger city of Santa Marta on the coast and I may look into studying a couple of weeks privately or at a school. It would be great if I could be more comfortable speaking in the past tense and also more comfortable with reflexive verbs.
The other big development is with my diet. 2 weeks ago I started intermittent fasting (16:8) and a Keto diet. The 1st week was a challenge as I went through sugar withdrawals and my body switched from using carbs to using fat for fuel. What's interesting is that I'm not hungry. This is such a strange feeling. I am someone who is always thinking about food and what I'm going to eat next. I used to eat every 2 hours to keep my blood sugar up. Now, I eat in the morning before cycling around 7:30 and then have a 2nd meal before 4pm. It's crazy but, so far, I haven't been hungry while riding. I always have snacks with me but I haven't needed to eat them. Even at 3 in the afternoon, I not super hungry even though I haven't eaten since 8 am. I'm ready to eat but it's not like I'm ravenously hungry. In the past when I finished cycling, I would sometimes be so hungry I couldn't really think clearly. This is a very different experience. Emotionally, I also feel more even-keeled. When I used to experience low blood sugar, I would get quickly hot under the collar but now I have moments of being annoyed but not nearly as emotional. The real reason I'm doing this diet is to alleviate inflammation in my body especially around my feet and ankles. Almost every time I ate before Keto my feet and ankles would swell up terribly. To the point it was hard to wear shoes. Since starting Keto I haven't had any inflammation and I'm also losing weight. I think we have all heard that sugar is inflammatory but I had no idea just how much. We'll see how this continues but...so far, so good.
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