Long time no news, but I’m still around, alive and not captured. I got land under my feet in Cartagena on Feb. 29th. Oh, it wasn’t easy to walk. Being 5 days on a sailboat must have change some balance feelings in my brain. I had my bike fortunatly and could ride instead to walk into the old city. The day was facing an end and I had to ask around a few times until I had my room at a Hotel. Yeah, it feels great taking the first shower in a while, scraping off all the salt of my skin, making laundry and and and…

 fortress San Felipe, Cartagena

And watching TV! It’s not the first thing I usualy do though, but I heard some news about FARC Guerilla gets killed by colombian army on ecuadorian territory. Was that the way I wanted to take? I guess, because Venezuelas President Chavez freaked out and closed the border to Colombia. Well, let’s roll dude - that’s what I thought, and things are getting smoother with time. Colombia is huge and it would take me probably three weeks until I would reach danger zone. And that’s how it finally happend. Everybody is friendly with each other.

 one less FARC guerilla…

I had a few different choices how to get south. The Andes split immediatly after the ecuadorian border in the south in three cordilleras. But most of the roads are winding up in the mountains, where the climate isn’t that hot and more comfortable. Beside the big cities Cartagena and Baranquilla at the caribbean coast, most of the major cities are way above 1000m. I knew, I get a bunch of mountains anyways. That’s way I decided to ride into the only possible slot, between the east and central cordillera. It’s the valley of the Rio Magdalena, the longest river of Colombia. But there is no valley where it’s merged into the caribbean. There is hundreds of miles lowland and it gets down to 25m below sealevel. Everything is flooded for 10 months a year. There is no wind, what makes the heat unbearable. Thousends of mosquito start hunting for your blood when dusk arrives. Those people who live here are really poor - and not for just dealing with heat and bugs.

In the middle of everything is Mompox, a old colonial town. I thought, why have the spanish build a town right here. I got the answer a couple of weeks later. It was in times where the Magdalena river was the only connection between Bogota and the sea. I wonder anyways, how did they managed to get up this intense currant…  I was expecting seeing some tourists here, but nothing. Maybe Mompox is too far off the way, because after the town is the end of paved roads. From now on it’s loam, which rides fine when dry. That was the case at the beginning but it would change within one night. That’s when I lost not even the smooth surface, I lost half of my clothing equipment to a thief. So, don’t think where is no tourists at all, there were no thiefs. The guy actually wanted my bike, but could not handle those weird canadien steelwire locks, because he saw the rubber casing and thought, cool - it’s a rubber lock, that works with my fish knife. The guy was so frustrated that he took my cloths and thought, this biker guy will freeze in the Andes - or he didn’t think at all. I saw the guy and I could have ran after him. The problem is, if there a second guy, meanwhile he grabs all the rest.

 friendly sunset at Magdalena river, followed by unfriendly thief action at night

For the 40 rough slippry and muddy kilometers with lifted bags tooks me the whole day. I was in El Banco a dirty town on the Magdalena shores. There is no direct road up the river. And even if there was, I would have taken a speedboat anyways, to not get lost I a (former?!) coca plantation. I saw it in a book where the main areas for drug produce were or/and are. And for those 200km until Barrancabermeja was just everything marked. Maybe that’s why our boat had to stop several times to get luggage checked and ID’d. The boatride was like formula 1. The driver had to take hard turns for those 9 hours for not getting jammed by driftwood.

 gas station for motorboats

I saw some mountains on my right side ones a while. Parts of the central cordillera, but the valley was still too wide to see mountains on my left. Barrancabermeja is the oil center of Colombia. The biggest refinery is the main employer and carries all the side business, what makes Barranca to a lively city. I rode through hilly terrain with cattle farms and oil wells right next to each other. Two long days further south is Honda, that’s when it began to be nice. Mountains on both sides of the river - fantastic to look at. Honda is a tourist town, but I was the only foreigner.

 mercado, Honda

Through all this rubbery and thief action within the past weeks, I became a little less of a bike nomad in Colombia. I slept more often in Hostals now. It’s a big change, if you’re not use to it. Finding affordable accommodation was not easy. And giving a piece of nature away and change it for white painted walls and the sound of the city broke my heart. But I took comfort in having a pool to swim. Yeah, that was something! Lots of Hotels in Colombia have their own pool. I had three times the chance to swim 1500m after the 100km of riding my bike.

 Hotel with pool, a great thing

South of Honda is a goast town I came through. The town of Armero had one of the biggest tragedies in Colombian history. In 1985, a huge mudslide went down, to be caused by an erruption of a volcano near by. The erruption was underground, but it melted the glacier top and made the groud fragile. 20,000 people lost their lives in one shot. Today you find thousends of cross and a few half buried homes. In Ambalema is another crossing and I was on the eastern side of Magdalena again.

 I just wanted some gas, but the boulder arrived before me at the pump

I approach to San Agustin within 3 more days. San Agustin is located on 1700m elevation. First time I took a cool breath in Colombia. The climat is feels like spring. Everything is green, water is basically running anywhere down the mountains. And, of course, it rains quite often. But what makes San Agustin to a real attraction is its UNESCO protected world heritage site, the "Parque Arqueologico San Agustin". Some Archaeoleogist found tombs at the past century. They found out, the San Agustin culture was way older then the Inca. It’s backtracked until 9000 B.C.E. All we see of this culture is beautiful made and bizarre locking sculptures. The Park is well maintained and I enjoyed wandering around. There is another great thing in San Agustin. It’s the "Casa de Ciclistas". This is owned by two germans, who went through the americas and liked it so much, that they came back and developed the casa. Unfortunatly no one was around when I got there. Everything was locked up, except the shower and bathroom. Which was just fine for me, because I could lock my bike in the shower room while exploring the park. Later on, I met Teo, a neighbor. He takes care of things while Igel and Paola aren’t around. So, he gave me the key for the kitchen. I decided to stay for two more nights. We planted a fruit tree, because that’s kind of a rule for all global bikers who take a stop over here. I had a great time, thank you Igel + Paola and, of course, Teo!

 sculpture at the archaeogical park San Agustin

 casa de ciclistas, San Agustin

It’s time for some serious mountain action. The call of the Andes was in my ears. I felt recharged after two zero days and was mentally ready for the rollercoaster like ride. I had enough energie to get in one day 160km to Mocoa. That went like this: leaving from 1700m elevation, down to 1200m, up 2100m, down 300 and up 600. But I learned quickly, it’s nothing, if you decide to take the rugged road from Mocoa to Pasto. Because that goes like this: 600m up to 2000m, some 15km down and up to 2700m, down to 2000 and up again on 3250m down 2600m up 3100m and arriving at 2400 in Pasto. This road was just beyond awesome. Wild nature pure, deep valleys and endless forests - the most beautiful lookouts above clouds and above the amazonian low lands. I got so many offers to jump on a truck but I was happy to refuse them all.

 above the clouds and amazonian low lands

I hit the Panam in Pasto again. The first time after I have left this endless highway in Panama. And it was so nice to be back on the highway. Almost no traffic just before the easter weekend. But thousends of people pilgrimage the 80km south to the border town of Ipiales. I camped in a huge cañon that night and heard them walking by all night long. On my last day in Colombia were hundreds of people with road bikes besides me. It felt like whole Colombia is walking or biking on the Panam that day.

 back at the Panamericana

My last action in Colombia was waiting 90 min for the exit stamp, just to wait another 2.5 hours to get entry on ecuadorian side. It’s Easter and quite a few colombians wanted to cross the border the same time as me. Well, next time I’ll tell you more about Ecuador and the "Avenida de los volcanes".