Day 46: El Bordo to Rumichaca

153 miles

It’s hard to pick a single favorite day of this trip because every day is a radically different, but today was certainly one of my favorites. Once again, the mileage does not tell the full story. I had over 23,000 feet of vertical elevation gain today in just 150 miles. I rode stronger today then perhaps any other day of this trip. With all the climbing came the majestic views that I have come to expect from the Andes. Today was nothing short of magical. It was a fantastic way to spend my final day in Colombia.

I knew today was going to have a lot of climbing. I was incredibly excited to get started in the morning. El Bordo was at about 3000 feet. I descended another thousand feet before the sun came up and then wound my way through a river valley for the next 40 miles. Although this section looks flat on my ride profile next to the 8000 foot climb that came after, it was anything but flat. The road jumped and dove over short little climbs of 100 to 400 feet in gain. Things were unexpectedly arid. By the time the sun came up, I was greeted with views of cacti and brown hills, devoid of any green vegetation. I really did expect my time in Colombia to be filled with constant rain. That just has not been the case and today was yet another day of beautiful morning with clouds in the afternoon. I had a little bit of rain outside of Pasto, but nothing major. I wasn’t really expecting to see such an aired landscape in Colombia. I thought the whole state was mostly jungle and high mountains.

I took a brief break in a small town at the base of what I knew was about to be a monstrous climb. I was at just under 2000 feet of elevation and I knew that outside of pasta. I would be up at almost 11,000 feet later in the day. Sure enough, a climb kicked off. First, I had a nice 4000 foot warm-up. I quite enjoyed the climb and loved the views as I worked my way out of the valley into the high mountains above. Even after just 2000 vertical feet I felt like I was way high above the valley below. After 4000 feet I felt like I was truly amongst the giant mountains. I took another break at the top of this hill to refill my water bottles. I stopped at a little roadside store where two ladies were packaging limes in burlap sacks. I got some knock off Coke, and as I sat pouring it into my bottles, one of the ladies offered me a lime. I wasn’t super sure what to do with it because I’ve never really eaten a lime straight before, but she promised me that it would be good. I didn’t want to disappoint her so I bit into it. It was even more bitter and sour than I was expecting, but she was right. If you could get past the pucker factor, the taste was quite nice. I ended up squeezing the lime into my Coke bottles because although the taste was nice, I found it hard to get over the pucker. She tried to give me seven or eight limes for the road, but I didn’t want to take her limes, and I really had no need for them. In retrospect, I should’ve taken a couple of them because squeezing them into my Coke was great.

After my initial 4000 foot climb I had a nice 3000 foot descent. By this time I was deep into a huge canyon. The mountain walls rose several thousand feet on all sides, falling away into rocky cliffs. The landscape was mostly a dirty brown. But in a few spots on the cliffs groundwater was pouring out of the rocks, creating luscious green waterfalls of flora cascading down to the river far below. The descent bottomed out on a huge bridge that spanned a tributary river into the main canyon. In the middle of the descent, the road disappeared into a tunnel that cut straight through a sharp projecting ridge. The tunnel was only about 300 meters long. I went through several short tunnels like this today. This tunnel had a little bit of a bend in it so I couldn’t see the light on the other side when I entered the tunnel. I came around the bend and saw the exit of the tunnel. I also noticed that there were several people standing at the exit of the tunnel next to a crashed motorcycle. The body of a man lay at the mouth of the tunnel. It appeared as if he had crashed on his own volition, but he was clearly dead. It was quite graphic and obviously very disturbing. However, this dead body did not scare me the way the dead man in Queretaro did. Even though it was shocking, it kind of bounced off me. I’m a totally different person than I was just 3 short weeks ago in Mexico. I want to reflect on this more in a future entry, but I’m clearly much more mentally callused now. It is a very intriguing development of mind that I can’t pretend to fully understand. I’m interested in its ramifications and implications.

From the bridge at 3,000 feet I begin my next climb all the way up to over 10,000 feet. There were a couple small descents mixed into the climb, so my total elevation gain for the climb was over 8000 feet. I worked my way out of one canyon and over the ridge into another canyon. The mountains had no trees, just a few small shrubs and grasses. The Andes must have a different rain pattern than the rest of Colombia or perhaps Google was straight up wrong when it told me that this is the rainy season. It felt very dry. I can’t even begin to do justice to these mountains with my meager descriptions. I would have to write a whole book to describe even a little bit of the fascinating beauty and scale of these riveted mountains. I’m not even going to try to describe them to you. I want to do the pictures do the talking. But the pictures feel just as useless as my words. It’s impossible to understand the scale of these mountains from the pictures. In person the valley seem to fall away into the depths of earth. The mountains rise like true walls. It’s hard to know where to look. It’s simply impossible to take in all at once. The only other place where I’ve been so baffled by the magnitude of mountains is in Nepal. While the Himalayas are undoubtedly a different level of magical hugeness, the mountains that I saw today are the second most breathtaking I’ve ever seen. Many of the mountains that I saw in Alaska and Canada have similar magnitude, but the road did not wind up and over these mountains. I was watching them from afar. There are very few places in the world where one can ride in mountains like this.

In Colombia, Ecuador, and most of Peru, it is hard to find a mountain that does not bear the scars of human activity. In a way, the terraced fields and small villages perched on the sides of these mountains are part of their beauty. However, I find it a little sad to see the extent of which we humans have destroyed these mountains of their natural habitat. The only mountains that remain untouched are those that are simply too steep to be easily exploited by humans. It feels like even in some of the most hard to reach corners of these mountains humans have found a way to strip them of their nature and biodiversity that historically called these mountains home. It’s hard for me to sit here and judge humans for deforesting many of these mountains as almost all of the development and agriculture in the high mountains is done by artisanal farmers. I still find it sad that we have change the landscape so dramatically, but it does feel a little bit different and slightly more justifiable when local and largely indigenous populations are responsible for the majority of the land-use changes. The people who are cutting down the trees and propagating slash and burn agriculture have a certain right to the land here that I am in no place to criticize. When I was biking through Alaska, Canada or the continental United States, I had perfectly fine justification for criticizing the horrific exploitation of natural resources by immense multinational corporations that are raping our lands. The farmers here in the high Andes are largely just trying to make a living and put food on the table. In addition, I have been raving about the beauty of the culture here in Columbia. It’s unfair for me to criticize the practices that are undoubtedly influential on the culture that I have fallen in love with. Yes, of course I would rather see these mountains in their unblemished form, but many of the magnificent roads that I am biking might not even exist if it weren’t for all of the development in the high mountains. I’m a visitor to this country but even if I weren’t, it’s not my place to criticize the actions that individuals take in good nature just to survive, just as their parents and parents before them did. It is more useful to direct my criticisms elsewhere. If I want to make a difference in Colombia that would be best done by promoting environmental education and awareness among Colombian farmers, which is obviously outside the scope of this blog.

After my seemingly endless 8000 foot climb, I came to yet another tunnel where cyclists are not allowed. Workers were doing construction inside the tunnel so only one lane was open and when I got to the entrance to the tunnel there was a long line of cars and motorcycles on my side waiting for the greenlight to go through the tunnel. I saw the tunnel authority policemen at the entrance and knew that if they saw me they would turn me away. This time it would be impossible to bike by them quickly and pretend not to see them since I was now at a standstill, waiting in traffic. There were perhaps 20 motorcycles waiting in a big cluster at the front of the line, so I embedded myself in the middle of the pack. I managed to conceal myself from the tunnel authorities, and when we were given the green light, amid the noise of all the revving motorcycle engines, I was able to pedal past the authorities without hearing any complaint. I don’t know if they saw me and tried to stop me or not because I didn’t look back. This time there had been a shorter work around that I could’ve taken instead of going through the tunnel, but I would’ve had to backtrack about 5 km and it would’ve added on another thousand foot climb. I was able to go through the tunnel at the same speed of traffic so I wasn’t a danger to anyone and didn’t feel bad about my decision to break the rules again.

I was hopeful that I would find a seat post in Pasto. Upon entering Pasto, I found myself descending down narrow roads at grades in excess of 40%. I was off the main road because I was navigating to a couple different bike shops. The road was undoubtedly the steepest I’ve ever seen and I’m not sure I could make it up by bike if I had to. Unfortunately, no shops in Pasto had a compatible seat post. Nonetheless, I quite enjoyed my quick journey through the city. Pasto is perched in a little valley overlooked by large mountains. The roads were well-maintained, and the streets were lively as ever. much of the city seems to be recently constructed. On the whole town felt relatively new and clean.

Even though Pasto sits at 8000 feet with the suburbs well above 9000 feet, I had a very large climb to get out of the city. As I climbed, some clouds rolled in, and a misty rain started coming down. I worked my way up to over 10,000 feet and was quite chilly at the top. On the way out of town and I was passed by a ton of cyclists on little BMX style bikes. They had managed to grab a hold on the back of semi trucks and we’re hauling up the hill at 40 miles an hour without even peddling. That would be such a fun way to commute if you lived up in the hills. You could fly down in the morning then grab a free ride back up in the afternoon. For a second, I was tempted to join one of them behind a semi, but then I remembered that I’m out here trying to set a world record. That would’ve been cheating, no matter how fun it would’ve been. It remains to be seen what the bailout plan is if one of the trucks must come to a sudden stop.

I crested the past at over 11,000 feet and immediately began a 6000 foot descent straight back down. The road was a very nice two lane divided highway. That had just been built. The pavement was incredibly smooth and steep and fast. I got one of the speed trap digital signs up to 94 km an hour. Without bike bags on and in the super tuck position, I could easily have hit 60mph for minutes on end. It was a very quick descent. At the bottom, I stopped for some quick refreshments before tackling the next climb back up to 10,000 feet. I had a very strong headwind once again. It came and went throughout the day as I twisted and turned through valleys, but on the final climb of the day it beat me back with all of its might.

The two lane highways here in Columbia are much safer for me to bike, but they aren’t quite as fun because they don’t twist and turn as much and the climbing is all out in the open. I finished my next descent and had to stop to put on my cold weather clothes. I was back up at 10,000 feet and the sun had set an hour ago. It was in the upper 40s, which was fine while I was climbing, but as I descended down 1000 foot before heading back up, I got quite cold. I made it all the way to the Ecuador border for the night. I found a small hotel about 30 meters away from the border crossing. A nice lady help check me in and cook me up a meal of chicken and rice and potatoes with a little bit of Colombia’s version of coleslaw as well. I was hesitant to eat the coleslaw, but I’d accidentally eaten some the other day and haven’t gotten sick. This was my last chance to eat some produce before going into Ecuador. In Ecuador I have to be incredibly careful about what I eat. The water there has bacteria in it that I cannot drink and even small contamination such as washing lettuce under the water can get me sick. I went to bed under eight blankets. I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that just a couple of nights ago I hadn’t been able to sleep because it was too hot and now at 9,500 feet I was bundled up as cozy as could be.