I had a very relaxed stay at Hotel Arawak in Sincelejo. I explored a bit of the historic area of the city. For such a large city I was surprised there wasn't more to see. My hotel was almost next to a very big mall. There were lots of food options and I found a place that could accommodate my Keto diet easily. I tend to eat very simple meals and I only eat twice a day. For breakfast, I usually eat eggs with cheese and avocado and then for my late afternoon meal, I have a big salad or sauteed veggies with what ever meat the restaurant recommends. And, actually, for mall food, my meal was delicious. The biggest problem I'm having with the food in Colombia is there is far too much salt. I've been so focused on not eating sugar to stay on the Keto diet that I keep forgetting to ask the cooks to not add salt to the food. After every meal my right ankle and foot swell up with water retention. It takes a few hours for the swelling to go down. It is really crazy how much salt is added to the food. My system has so much salt in it my mouth always tastes of salt. Because there is so much salt everything tastes the same. In restaurants, I often see people salting the food. It is truly shocking. I've never been a big fan of salt and, clearly, I am quite sensitive.
Cycle tourists I saw on the road, they were headed the other direction
Beautiful landscape
This tour, as a whole, has been very tranquillo and much more relaxed than previous tours. I've done something different on this tour than I've ever done before. In fact, I've done a few things very different for me on this tour. On all my previous tours I have always set my start and end points ahead of time. Before I travel, I plot a route to make sure it is a reasonable distance and that I can actually make it to the end point in the time allotted. Often, there are particular points of interest and highlights to see along the way but not always. It's important to pad the time for unexpected events like sickness or impromtu changes. I typically add 2 weeks on top of 2 rest days per week. I used the same formula before starting this tour as well. Originally, my idea was to ride from Bogotá in Colombia to the Caribbean coast just like I actually did but my plan was to continue on into Ecuador where I was thinking to end in Quito and maybe add a tour of the Galapagos Islands. Things changed very soon after I started riding while huffing and puffing in the mountains. Every day I was going so slowly that it took all day to go less than 25 miles. During these mountainous rides I decided to spend 2 nights at every stop. Mostly because I was tired but also because I didn't feel like rushing every day to get everything done that I needed to do.
I not sure what animal I'm being warned about
Cows under a giant tree
On a typical ride, I arrive at my hotel around 3pm. I have a hard and fast rule to never ride at night and enjoy getting to hotels around 2-3 pm. After getting checked in and settling in the room, I take a shower cleaning my cycling clothes at the same time using shampoo. This needs to be done first thing so I can hang them to dry and they will be ready to wear the next day. After plugging in all my electronics for charging, I go get something to eat. Another unusual thing I've done on this tour is I changed the way I eat. Along with starting the Ketogenic diet, I'm also doing intermittent fasting. I try to eat before 4:30 so I can fast for the recommended 16 hours. After dinner, I shop for whatever supplies I need. By the time I get back it is usually early evening and I start working on weeding out and processing the photos and video I took throughout the day. First thing I do is clean out the bad material and then organize what I want to keep into a folder typically named for the city where I ended the day's ride. Usually, a few photos get uploaded to Instagram and Facebook so my friends and family can see where I am. If there is time, I start working on a video or blog posting. In between all of this, I'm talking to family on Skype or responding to posts from friends and followers on email and Facebook. Within all of this activity, I've been so focused on what I need to do that I haven't been able to explore the town or learn anything about where I am. For me, I felt like I was missing the whole point of travel and decided I would have a much richer travel experience if I slowed down the pace.
Coming into Tolú
After I finished riding in the mountains, I decided to keep this schedule of staying at each hotel for 2 nights. It was at this point that I also decided to make this tour solely in Colombia. Another reason for staying in Colombia had to do with learning Spanish. One of my big reasons for starting my ride in Colombia is the Spanish is said to be clearer and easier to understand. I'm hoping by the time I get to Peru, I'll have a good grasp of the language. You can probably see how having another day has been very valuable. Giving myself time to explore each town has had the added benefit of feeling like I now have a relationship with each place I've stayed. I've met many people and had lots of simple conversations. For me, it's always the people I meet that make a place memorable. Each town truly is unique and I've had the time to discover it's character. This has made the tour so much richer, more relaxed and a lot more fun. I'm considering adopting this slower pace for all my future tours as well. Especially now that I'm doing video, I really need extra time.
Watch for monkeys
After a relaxing stay in Sincelejo, I got packed up taking my gear back down to the parking garage. While I was loading up the trike, the hospitality employees all came over and wanted pictures with me. The garage is underground and the driveway to the street level is very steep. One of the guys, Eliese, helped push me up the steep drive while I pedaled. Wow was that nice! When I got out to the street I saw that it was blocked to motor traffic. I quickly understood that there was a Ciclovia happening where the streets are free of car traffic and open to anyone for biking, walking, skating or running. Ciclovias are a special event that happen in many big cities all over Colombia every Sunday. Street are blocked to motor traffic for a few hours so the locals can cycle, walk and jog, often with pets and kids. What great timing. I decided to ride it and enjoy the traffic free streets. This turned out to be the shortest Ciclovia ever. It was only on one street and only a few blocks long. If my hotel hadn't been on this street, I would have never known it was going on. From here I made my way to the historic area where I wanted to fly my drone around the main cathedral.
Sincelejo plaza
While I was setting up the drone, a walking club came through Santander Square. The procession was lead by 3 ladies in very colorful skirts. This club was mostly older women, some very old. One woman stopped and chatted with me for a bit. She gave me a kiss on the cheek before rejoining her group.
You can see the crowd while I'm flying
Whenever I fly the drone in cities, there is an audience. Today I had a huge group of people surrounding me. I really need to concentrate when I fly and it's hard when so many people want to see the screen and have questions and I'm trying to get a particular video shot. I didn't fly as much as I wanted but I got some decent shots and wasn't totally disappointed. The group of people were very animated. It was a group of young and old and everyone wanted to know my story and who I was. When I told them where I was riding to, Tolú, they all started arguing about the best way to get out of Sincelejo. Fingers were pointing in all directions - this was very comical.
Video of ride from Sincelejo to Tolú
Eventually, I said goodbye and started out of town. For all the directions the crowd of locals gave me, I ended up doing what I always do, pulling out my phone and following the route Googlemaps plots. Since it was Sunday, there wasn't much traffic. It's possible the locals gave me better directions. Google always plots the shortest route, not necessarily the easiest. Soon I was climbing a fairly substantial hill closing in a guy who was pushing a giant cart filled with plastic containers. When he saw me gaining on him, he stepped up the pace. Next thing I knew we were in a race to the top. He was determined to get there first - and he did. We both had a good laugh while cresting and then I quickly passed him on the way down.
Peaceful Tolú
Tolú beach
Today's ride was out to the coast. When I left Cartagena, I really thought that would be the last time I would ride on the Caribbean coast of Colombia for this tour. But, since leaving Cartagena, many people enthusiastically recommended visiting Montería. And so, today I was taking off of the main road, Hwy 25, to take Hwy 90 back to the coast. At first, Hwy 90 was in terrible condition but within a km, I was greatly relieved when it improved dramatically to become a very nice smooth road. There were gentle rollers through ranch land and the ride was quite enjoyable. It seemed everyone who passed was extra friendly and I felt energized from all the lovely interactions. Soon I was in the sweet beach town of Tolú looking for a hotel. There were many directly across from the ocean but one on Google caught my eye. It was on the far end of town and, quite oddly, had the words opera and pizzeria in the name. This was the highest rated hotel and that's where I went. As usual, this was not a fancy hotel. What I liked was the hotel was just a bit away from the busiest, most touristic part of the town. The beach area of Tolú is very, very noisy. There are lots of people playing music very loudly and drinking. I wanted to be removed from this scene and I found the perfect hotel. My room had everything I needed for $13/night.
Video of ride from Tolú to Santa Cruz de Lorica
Lots of tourists in the water
I stayed for 3 nights and really enjoyed Tolú. This is a touristic town that only Colombians visit. Every time I walked around everyone kind of stared at me. This town doesn't see a lot of gringas. I, of course, tried to act like it was normal.
Bicycle fish vendor
Tourist area on the beach
Looking ahead, I needed to be mindful of the time I had left in Colombia. My visa expires
Small restaurant
on April 23rd and I want to spend 2 weeks in Medellin before flying out. With less than a month to go, I decided to buy a plane ticket. I found a good flight to Los Angeles for less than $500 with only one lay over. Unfortunately, there are no direct flights from Medellin to the US. When flying in or out of LAX timing can be critical. The crazy LA traffic can make a trip to the airport a nightmare. The flight I found arrives on Saturday the 20th at about noon. Unfortunately, this meant I'll need to be at the airport in Medellin around 3 am. I think the sacrifice will be worth it. It's also easier to ask friends to pick me up if the timing is better and my friend Mary accepted my request, woohoo!!
Tolú beach
Fishing boats
Lots of fishing in Tolú
After 2 quiet days in Tolú, I got packed up and rode along the beach. The ride would leave the coast through ranch land. I had so many fun interactions with people walking and on motor bikes. Santa Cruz de Lorica was much bigger than I expected. It's funny how Google will make the font of one city bigger than another implying that it is bigger. Here, the opposite happened. Google made the city appear very small. There were many hotel choices and I found my way through the busy streets to an area close to the Rio Sinú. The hotel staff were very nice, Daniel Luis quickly found a perfect space for Myrtle under the stairs next to the reception desk. My room was on the second floor and he helped bring up my bags. This was a room without windows which is always odd but it also means the room will be quieter. I had everything I needed for $14 - not including breakfast.
Fishing boats on the beach
Water toys
Beach art
Santa Cruz de Lorica
In the morning, I walked around town taking pictures in the mercado publico and along the river. There were some very nice scenes. After returning to the hotel, I worked on a blog posting and then I also finished a video. This was the 1st time I finished both in one day. It takes many hours to do each and I was impressed at my productivity. Lately, I've been feeling much better about my videos. For a long time, I was making my videos and felt like something was missing but I couldn't figure out what it was. I wondered if it was simply feeling insecure since making videos is new to me. But then, a few weeks ago, I understood what was missing. It was so obvious that when I saw it I was a bit embarrassed. I didn't have an introduction. In most of my videos I didn't even tell viewers what my name is. I didn't explain what I'm doing, why I'm doing it or give anyone a reason to watch. I've been so focused on working out how to make the videos I forgot to include a bit of my story. Once I realized this I had to think of what I wanted viewers to know about me. This was more difficult than expected. There were so many things I could say about what I'm doing and my history. Knowing how much people like numbers, I ended up with a brief sentence of how long I've toured, how many continents, countries and rough estimate of miles traveled. This is something I have never given much thought to. Every year, I finish a tour and go back to Portland for the summer and then come up with the next one. I had no idea how many countries I have visited or the number of miles I've traveled. It was fun to take stock of where I've been and how far I've come. In each video, as I said my new intro the accomplishment set in a little bit more. I started to get feedback from viewers as well. The thing I love most about making my videos is having a short documentary of where I've been and then the interacting with the people who are watching. There are quite a few Colombians watching my videos and they have lots of good ideas for where I should visit and things to see along the way.
Main church in Santa Cruz de Lorica
Rio Sinu
The next morning I headed out of Santa Cruz de Lorica to Montería. Today's ride would
Getting a ride
follow the Rio Sinú. This area of Colombia is very hot and I was sweating buckets. I had a very interesting ride today to Montería when I approached a group of men working in a field. They had long sticks and where were hitting the water with great force creating a lot of noise and big splashes. All of them were also yelling something I could't understand. I had no idea what they were doing and found the scene fascinating. Soon I understood they were hunting turtles. One man was standing in a small creek that had a net strung down the middle. As the turtles were forced into the creek, the man collected them. Once I understood what was happening, I became very sad for the turtles. Turtle hunting is illegal in many countries but, apparently, not in Colombia.
Jorge from Argentina adding a Myrtle the Turtle sticker to his bike
Friendly faces along the way
Video of my ride from Santa Cruz de Lorica to Montería
Montería is a big city. It is the capital of the department of Córdoba. Many, many people had recommended I visit this city. As I pulled into the city and found my way to 'el centro' Montería, I couldn't immediately see why this city was recommended so enthusiastically. The first hotel I picked had fabulous reviews but when I pulled up I saw there was a crazy steep driveway up to the parking garage. I sat in front of the driveway for a while and then came to the conclusion that this is a big city with tons of hotels and I didn't need to suffer. I pedaled away and went looking for the Hotel Santorini Loft which was just a few blocks away and bit closer to the historic area. The Hotel Santorini had an entrance on the ground flood and a parking lot across the street with a 24 hour guy and lots of security cameras. This was a fairly fancy hotel. In fact, my room even came with an elliptical machine. I also had hot water for the shower. It had been a long time since I took a hot water shower. It's funny how something so normal in the US is a real luxury here in Colombia. This room was also much more expensive than most of the rooms I stay in. Originally, the front desk woman quoted me $45/night. I asked her to lower the price and she gave it to me for $30. I always ask to lower the price unless it's already super cheap. I don't think I can remember a time when the difference in price was so much. Sometimes all you have to do is ask. This room in the US would be well over $100 and $30 was a real bargain. I felt like I was living large! I got checked in for 3 nights.
