Day 45: Palmira to El Bordo
146 miles
I had a pretty easy start to the day. I was still in the great Cali valley and the first 45 miles or so were very flat. As usual, it took a long time for my legs to warm up. I was fighting headwind from the start which didn’t really surprise me. I had a very light tailwind for a couple hours last night so I figured a little bit of headwind this morning was just going to even everything out. Anyways, my riding was so bad in the morning I figured that if I was going to have the misfortune and pain of a headwind, I might as well have it in the morning. Give me all the bad stuff at once.
Before entering the mountains again I stopped at a little restaurant to refill my water bottles. In Central and South America there are a lot of roadside restaurants that cater specifically to long distance buses. These buses have prearranged agreements with these restaurants and have scheduled stops. This was one of those restaurants and a large bus had unloaded at the restaurant. They had already gotten their food and were eating so it wasn’t a problem for me. I actually feel a heighten sense of security with all of the other travelers around. Now that I’m south of Cali things are supposedly a little bit more dangerous as I get closer to the Ecuador border. I have always felt safe here in Colombia except for that one night in Sincelejo, but it never hurts to have an abundance of caution. There was a large banner hanging that laid out the bus route across Colombia down to Ipiales, the border town at the Ecuador-Colombia border. I hope to be at the border tomorrow night. I got a kick out of the sign because it said that the border was a 10 hour drive from the restaurant. That makes sense. There are some huge mountains and tight twisty roads that these buses must navigate before they get to the border. Still, it was cool to see that even in an automobile my next couple of days journey would take a long time to cover.
I left the valley and begin climbing under the heat of the sun. I was only at about 3000 feet at the bottom of the valley so it was quite hot. I worked my way up to about 6000 feet. It was not a steady climb, but instead a constant up and down with a trend in the positive elevation gain direction. I eventually began my descent into Popayán. I was very hopeful that I would find a bike shop here with a seat post for me. However, it turns out that today is some type of national holiday in Columbia—Google said Race Day—and everything was closed. At times I even had trouble finding food and water today because most businesses were not open. None of the bike shops in town had had anything on their websites regarding the closure, but that is kind of too expected here in South America. I pressed on out of Popayán with decreasing confidence that I will find a sea post here in Colombia.
From Popayán on the wind really began to pick up. Soon it was a pretty consistent 30 mile an hour headwind. Luckily, in the mountains the headwind is almost never that direct for that long. The road is so twisty that and the mountains so jumbled that the wind is quite variable, as is my heading. However, on average, I had a very strong headwind, and on the climbs that were pointing due south, I was getting absolutely hammered by the headwind. It was a little bit demoralizing just because my mileage the past couple of days has already been so low due to the incessant climbing. Being dragged down by the headwind too kind of feels like beating a dead horse. However, I didn’t really let it get to my head that much, and it was hard to be affected by it because everything around me was simply so beautiful. It would be quite a shame if I let a little bit of wind spoil one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. About 30 miles outside of Popayán. I came into an absolutely dropdead gorgeous valley. All of the trees have been cut down and the vegetation had been burned, and the hills were covered in only grass. It was sad to think about the forest that used to exist, but, seeing the mountains covered in just green grass was starkly beautiful. Every single contour of the mountain became immediately obvious. The mountains were fluted from millions of years of erosion. It looked like a snow covered peak from Peru covered in grass instead of snow. It reminded me a bit of the mountains along the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. The mountain was so smooth, so steep, and so riveted that is was undeniably beautiful, even if it was the direct result of man’s exploitation of the land. I descended down into the valley and had a very enjoyable 1500 foot climb back out of it. I then crested pass into the next valley, stopping for some food at the pass. This valley was huge. All day the mountains were beautiful, but they hadn’t been as large as they were back by Cali. The Cali valley was an amphitheater of mountains that seem to stretch well above 10,000 feet. Most of the day I’d been riding among 8000 foot peaks but now I was back among the giants. All around me peaks rose in excess of 12,000 feet. The sun was setting as I dropped through the pass and into a small town with a beautiful church overlooking the valley below. I had a very long descent down to the town of El Bordo where I stayed for the night. The first 3000 vertical feet of this descent were done in the fading light of day. Sometimes these mountains can look relatively untouched by man, but when the sunsets and all the little houses dotting the hills turn their lights on it becomes obvious how developed even the most rural areas seem to be. There was a little bit of haze in the air and as it got dark, I could see that the haze was the result of slash and burn agricultural fires dotting the hills all around me. Lines of orange crept over ridges as farmers beat back the flames. It was another one of those things that has some beauty to it in the moment, but it’s also deeply sad in a brutalizing natural respect. It does hurt me a little bit to see how much we have changed the mountains here. I feel as if I should be seeing more wildlife, but it’s pretty obvious to me why there doesn’t seem to be much around. I’ve seen a couple of beautiful birds, but beyond that, I’ve only seen cows and sheep and goats. In a sad way it’s a bit incredible how thoroughly humans have exploited the mountains here. Way up on these very steep hill sides farmers have learned how to farm and promote livestock.
After the long descent, I came to another thousand foot climb. It was thoroughly dark at this time and I was ready to get to my hotel so I decided to blitz the climb. It was 12%, which is quite steep, especially when my bike is weighed down by all my gear. I let myself have a little bit of fun and really opened the tank on this climb. I felt amazing and flew up it. It only took me 17 minutes to go up well over 1000 feet. A verificar ascent pace of over 3000 vertical feet per hour is quite quick for me. I was happy with how my legs felt. I then had another descent punctuated by a few shorter climbs as I reached El Bordo. I didn’t have any massive climbs today, but I had 18 categorized climbs. I most certainly have never had 18 categorize climbs in a day, even if the majority of them were a cat 4s. For the non-cyclist, if a climb is longer than about 400 vertical feet then it’s given a grade, or a category. The smallest category is category 4. Progressively bigger and steeper climbs get upgraded to cat 3, 2, 1, and eventually Hors Category (HC) which is reserved for only the biggest climbs. Hors Category is French for above category. Essentially a climb that is so big that it exceeds the ranking system. HC climbs usually need to be more than 2000 vertical feet and 6%+. i’m not exactly sure how the categories are calculated by my computer, but anytime I get to a hill more than 75 feet in elevation gain my cycle computer will tell me that it is coming up. The computer also will tell me if the climb is categorized or not. Today it told me that I had 18 categorized climbs.
As I’ve mentioned before, Colombia is incredibly cheap. That was on full display tonight as I had a hotel room with in room dining services for just nine dollars. All of the food and drink pictured from today cost $15USD combined. Unfortunately, the restaurant attached to the hotel didn’t have any chicken so I was given a Carne Asada. As I’ve talked about before, I feel a little bit guilty about eating red meat in general, but especially around the Amazon. I would be lying if I said this did not taste incredibly good though. I was also given some type of juice which was delightful. The workers were some of the nicest people I have ever met. They were all smiles and incredibly accommodating. I didn’t have the best morning on the bike and the headwind really derailed my progress in tandem with the elevation, but I had a wonderful afternoon in the beautiful mountains, and I was in very good spirits. I am incredibly excited for what lays ahead tomorrow as it will most likely be the hardest day of my trip. The beauty will no doubt continue to astound.
