Montería to Medellín

Garmin Info and Route Map

Montería to Planeta Rica

Planeta Rica to Caucasia

and Medellín

Monkey in a Montería city park

My stay in Montería was very nice. The hotel catered to business people and was more upscale than most I've stayed in.  My room came with an elliptical machine and I even had a hot shower which was heavenly. After being in Colombia for 5 months you would think I was used to cold showers but I still didn't like it. I especially had difficulty washing my hair and putting my head under the very cold water after every ride. Colombians are tough!

With Oscar, showing off my short poncho
gift from Hotel Santorini Loft

The staff at the hotel was very attentive and after 3 nights they presented me with a gift of a shorty poncho with the name of the hotel. Very sweet and thoughtful. The hotel had very good wifi which was a welcome relief from the very slow connections I had experienced in most other hotels. What was strange is the wifi speeds for surfing and downloading are normally acceptable. It's the uploading speeds which are unbearably slow. Trying to upload photos to my photo storage website or uploading a completed video to YouTube has been painfully slow. Sometimes it can 15 hours to upload a 10 minute video. During my stay in Montería I was able to get my photo processing all up-to-date. I also completed a YouTube video.

Sent-off and saying goodbye to the staff at Hotel Santorini Loft, Montería

I've been using a GoPro Hero 7 Black camera for video and the camera is fun to use with very impressive image stabilization. What I haven't been able to find is a microphone adapter to get better sound. Sometimes in my videos, you can see my mouth moving but can't see hear what I'm saying. There are 3 microphones on the GoPro Hero 7. Often, the internal microphones will pick up all the ambient sounds instead of my narration. Being in a bigger city, I was hoping to find a camera store that would carry GoPro accessories but I couldn't find anything. I went to a few camera stores and they all looked quite pathetic with old products and disorganized displays. There were no GoPros for sale and no one had any idea what a microphone adapter was. Maybe I'll be able to find the adapter in Medellín. I would be in Medellín in another week and I was hopeful to find this much needed adapter there.

Rio Sinu, Montería

Main cathedral, Montería

Lots of pigeons in front of the cathedral

Sweet boy dressed for a wedding enjoying the pigeons

Leaving Montería

My ride to Planeta Rica was on a newly paved road with pastoral scenes all around. Lots of horses, cows, pigs and burros. The terrain was much flatter than I was expecting. I didn't know anything about Planeta Rica and wondered where the name came from. It was another busy, gritty town with a nice hotel. There was a restaurant in front and the staff helped me roll the trike through to the hotel. They didn't blink an eye about where to store it. Myrtle was given a VIP space in the lobby next to a couch in front on the reception desk. 

Pastoral view on the road to Planeta Rica

VIP at hotel in Planeta Rica

My room didn't have a window, shower head or shower curtain. Without a shower curtain, everything in the bathroom gets wet when I take a shower. There also wasn't much of a lip separating the shower water from the floor of the bathroom. The water in the shower was, as usual, cold and I didn't feel like washing my hair. This was a very fortunate decision. Turns out the drain in the shower was too slow to keep up with the water level and the very short lip holding back the shower water from the bathroom floor. I, typically, washed out my cycling clothes but, even still, this wasn't a long shower. By the time I finished my shower, water had spilled out into the bathroom and into the room. The room floor was half covered in water. Fortunately, my bags are waterproof and all my electronics were safe on the bed. I went to the front desk and 2 women followed me up to the room with mops and buckets. It took a good deal of time and effort to clean up the water. Then someone came with a plunger to unclog the shower drain. I wasn't convinced that would be enough but since I had already taken a shower, I let it go.

Video for ride from Montería to Planeta Rica

I went down to the restaurant for dinner and had an unexpectedly good meal. I ordered a steak with veggies and the meat was cooked exactly how I like it. For all my meals I have to explain that I can't eat sugar and go through the same spiel that I'm not eating fruit, fruit juice, potatoes, yucca or fries. I tell them I'm following a diet for diabetics and that gets their attention. It seems everyone knows someone with diabetes. My go-to meal is to ask for a salad with meat for dinner.  I spent 2 nights in Planeta Rica even though there really wasn't anything to see. I spent my extra day making final arrangements for my stay in Medellín. I want to be in Medellín to move in with my homestay family on Saturday. This would give me a day to get settled before starting Spanish language school and my final 2 weeks in Colombia.

Planeta Rica parade for the children

All the children were given horse heads on a stick to walk with in the parade

The next morning, after another terrific meal at the hotel, I got Myrtle loaded up. Once on the road, I found there was a big parade getting ready. It was a special day in Planeta Rica, dia de los niños. Day of the children only happens in Planeta Rica and there is a wonderful parade where the littlest kids march together with horse heads on a stick. There were clowns and music. Older kids participated in dance sequences with wonderful costumes. This parade was very fun to watch and it seemed like a terrific tradition to make all the kids feel special. I really enjoyed the experience and was happy I stayed in Planeta Rica another day.

The ride to Caucasia would be my last of the tour. My visa is expiring in less than 3 weeks and I want to spend 2 weeks in Medellín exploring this famous city while I also study Spanish.  This means I need to take a bus for the rest of the route - about 200 miles. This would be my 1st time using a bus for transport. So far on this trip, I've had a small delivery truck take my trike up a narrow mountain road about 12 miles and then I also used a small pick up to get from Cartagena to Santa Cruz de Mompox because the road was under construction. Talking to people in Montería, they all thought it would be easiest for me to take a bus from Caucasia. After Caucasia, the road rises steeply and the towns on the way up are all very small. Caucasia has a real bus station and there would be people to help load Myrtle. My only question was whether buses that go between the 2 cities, Caucasia and Medellín, would be big enough to carry the trike and how often do they run. The ride from Planeta Rica to Caucasia was completely uninteresting until I saw the sign for crossing into the Departamento de Antioquia. This is the department where Medellín is located. 

Meeting Pongo

The ride into Caucasia was also incredibly hot. I had sweat dripping off my elbows. The highlight of the day was meeting a cyclist from Venezuela who had a sweet dalmatian puppy named Pongo. In this heat, the puppy needed to take lots of breaks from the bike. I couldn't get to Caucasia, off the road and out of the heat, fast enough. On Googlemaps, I located the bus station and I decided to stop there 1st, before finding a hotel, to get information about taking a bus to Medellín. Even Caucasia didn't seem like a very big town, the bus station was very big and busy. There were lots of guys standing around outside the bus station eager to help me. I was unclear how these guys make money but they must make something. They pointed the way to the ticket office and then a security guard escorted me the rest of the way. A bunch of bus station employees were super excited when they saw the trike. I let them take turns on short rides. I asked about buying a ticket and a bus for Medellín was arriving in another 20 minutes. Even though I would be arriving to Medellín at night, I decided to get on the bus. I don't like arriving to big cities at night and I especially don't like riding my trike at night. Otherwise, the whole experience was very easy. The ticket for me cost almost as much as for transporting Myrtle. The total ticket cost me $25 and there was plenty of room in the cargo hold. There were 2 guys loading luggage and they really got a kick out of Myrtle.

Video for Ride from Planeta Rica to Medellín

The road to Medellín is on a narrow winding road and the towns all along the way are not just small but very poor. I think cycling this road would be an interesting experience. For sure I would have to find some place other than a hotel to stay for one night. The bus ride was 4 hours and we stopped about half way to get something to eat and for the driver to take a break. It was at such a high elevation that I was actually cold. It had been months since I had put on a sweater or 2nd layer. I asked the driver if I could get into the cargo hold to pull out a jacket. It also started to rain and was very foggy. I know that this road goes to about 8500 ft in elevation and then there is a big downhill into Medellín which is closer to 7,000 ft in elevation. As expected, it was dark when I arrived in Medellín. It was also pouring down rain. I had arrived in a huge thunderstorm. 

Waiting in the rain for the hotel gate to be opened.

I got Myrtle loaded up and the bus station people said there was a hotel very close. All the roads around the bus station are expressways and I had no choice but to get on the busy road, in the pouring rain and in the dark. This was not a good situation. I saw a poor looking casino and figured there must be a hotel near by. This would probably be the hotel that the bus people told me about. Weirdly, the hotel parking lot was blocked by a gate. I said I wanted to get a room and the gate was opened. This hotel really looked bad and I also couldn't see a safe place to keep Myrtle. It turned out to be a hotel that charges by the hour and it was completely full. I couldn't believe my bad luck or why the bus people would recommend this hotel. Now, when I wanted to leave, no one was around to open the gate. I stood out in the parking lot in the pouring rain looking for anyone to help. I went back to the hotel entrance which had a small window to speak through to request someone come and open the gate. My Spanish has improved a lot during my stay in Colombia but when I get flustered and feel under stress, it is very hard for me think clearly. I did not like this situation - at all. It took a long time to get the gate open and I had to stand out in the pouring rain waiting. There was a young guy standing by the gate offering to show me to a hotel. He wanted me to leave my trike in a parking lot and then he would take me to a hotel. I actually think he was a gigolo expecting I would pay him for sex. Once the gate was opened the guy ran after me for a long while yelling something I couldn't understand. I think he was surprised I wasn't taking him up on his offer. 

Garage parking with 24 hour security - $2

The rain was unrelenting with lots of lighting and thunder. This certainly was a dramatic entrance to Medellín. I was riding on an expressway trying to use my phone for navigation. The phone was so wet I couldn't use the touch screen and I got lost a few times. Cars were splashing waves of water over me as they passed. A crazy homeless guy started running after me screaming to give him money. Luckily I was going downhill and escaped easily. I finally located a hotel and, of course, it was on the other side of the expressway. I had to use a pedestrian bridge with 3 turns on the way up and then on the way down. Sometimes, the turns in pedestrian bridges can be so narrow that I have get off the trike and move the rear of the trike to get around them. These turns I was able to make with simple maneuvers.  The whole time I'm riding, I'm praying to not get a flat tire. The hotel I found was quite basic but it had secure parking for a $2 fee. I got checked in dripping water everywhere. The reception lady was very understanding. My $13 room was cramped with one very small window that looked out into the hallway. There was only one light with a bare bulb. The shower didn't have a shower head but it did have hot water. Yay!! After riding in the wet for over an hour I was very happy to have a hot shower. Everything was soaked and I hung my clothes all over the room to dry. Just as I was turning the light out to go to sleep, a couple of cockroaches decided to make an appearance coming out from a dark corner. 

Welcome to Medellín.

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