Hello.

Have been chilling in Medellin for the last few days and having a very sociable time at the Black Sheep hostel. Good to meet some Americans here making a special trip back to the States to protest at Trump’s inauguration.

The city is surrounded by extremely steep hills and feels modern – lots of urban regeneration and a big turn around since the bad days of the 90’s. We did a city tour and like in Bogota, our guide was passionate about the history and culture of the city/region and positive for the future. She referred to Pablo Escobar as ” this cities most famous criminal”. She was pretty negative about him as you would be if you’d grown up in Medellin in the ’90’s. They call themselves Paisa’s here and are a very proud people.

We had some more bike on transport encounters to arrive here. After a few more days of dramatic scenery and vertiginous climbs  on dirt roads/boulder strewn river beds following our last blog post, we admitted defeat for the last 30 km of unpaved road and had a great ride on a local bus with helpful driver. Did our first 85 km day on account of reaching the tarmac then lost 2400 metres of altitude to arrive in the steamy lowlands of the Magdalena river basin. This is the countries main river and since pre-colombian times a route to the interior.

Unfortunately the roads we connected with here were very busy and seething with monster trucks and busses so we decided to get on a bus for the final push to Medellin. We were a bit concerned about arriving in Medellin at midnight with a damaged bike (again) and 12 bags between us however, our fears were unfounded; the bus terminal is designed to prevent less well intentioned people from loitering and had a reassuring number of security people about.

We’ve made some necessary bike purchases here including picking up a very expensive DHL delivery of a part impossible to get here! – mucho thanks Andy from the UK machine company for his amazing help in getting it sorted.  Now heading off in to the coffee region and perhaps a bit more tarmac for a change but hopefully quiet roads.

 

A bit faint, but you can just make out the 2000m pass we were heading for at the top of the image.

Local denizen….

 

Bike laden bus.

 

 

 

Sculpture in downtown Medellin.

 

 

Tempting snack.

 

 

 

 

Another Botero.

 

 

Some Google maps of our route so far:

https://goo.gl/maps/X3rBbpwY8tP2         Bogota to San Gil

https://goo.gl/maps/zxVdiCqse292             San Gil to Medellin.