Mudslides, mountains and missing roads!

Mudslides, mountains and missing roads!

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Hello! We are still a bit shocked about the news ( Mocoa devastation ) from Mocoa in Colombia! We were there only 4 weeks ago and are a bit discombobulated by this turn of events especially as we were camped down by the river ourselves. The situation here in Peru has also been quite discomfiting and seeing the daily news reports of flooding, mudslides, destruction and death puts our safe, tame, easy European existence into stark perspective. We are now in Caraz in…

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Torrential rain, trapped and tyred!

Torrential rain, trapped and tyred!

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Hola chicos y chicas. We’ve had a long gap mainly due to not much to report and difficulties getting good wi-fi and a mobile phone sim. When we first started cycling together back in 1989, there was no email, no internet and no mobile phones. When we set out to cycle in Africa, my family thought I was actually on the way to China ( the Tianamen Square massacre scuppered that plan ) so the first thing they knew otherwise, was…

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Goodbye Ecuador, hello Peru and proper mountains!

Goodbye Ecuador, hello Peru and proper mountains!

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Hola blogistas. Yep we’re still alive: some of you were worried at the lack of updates so here you go. As you might have guessed from the title, we’re now in the land of marmalade eating bears and real mountains. Apparently, so said an Ecuadorian, Peru has proper mountains which implies that Ecuador and Colombia don’t, that we just imagined pedalling glacially up all those bloody huge hills and well, we probably don’t want to think about what’s to come. In our…

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Ciclistas, Cotopaxi and more bloody cobbles!

Ciclistas, Cotopaxi and more bloody cobbles!

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Hello. We thought the we might be at the Casa de Ciclistas for two or three days but broken bicycle and mechanic work load meant we were there camping in the garden for 6 days! The Casa de Ciclistas, just outside Quito, is a rambling old hacienda-style house with an orchard, run by friendly Ecuadorian bike mechanic Santiago and his family. They have been providing hospitality for cycle-tourists for the last 25 years! We were keen to stop by as…

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Hello Ecuador!

Hello Ecuador!

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The 8 weeks we spent in Colombia exceeded our expectations. When we arrived we had many trepidations lurking in our heads but the subject of remote roads with bandits, revolutionaries and heavily armed coke merchants all wanting a piece of freshly arrived gringo seemed to pop up more often then others. All our worries were for nothing! No-one tried to rob, kill, kidnap or rip us off and at no time did we ever not feel safe. The Colombians are the…

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Friends, Frailejones, and a beautiful trampoline of death.

Friends, Frailejones, and a beautiful trampoline of death.

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Hola! Back again. So, we survived the the Trampoline of Death but more on that later! After Salento, (hummingbirds, wax palms and more chilling) we cycled to Armenia to stay with Karen and Jorge. Karen is an old friend of Michelle’s who she last saw 34 years ago when they were exchange students together in Mexico! Karen now lives in Atlanta with her husband Jorge a Colombian but they also have a house in Armenia that they frequently visit and invited us…

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On our way to the Trampoline of Death….

On our way to the Trampoline of Death….

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Hello bloglets! Have been off the radar for a bit but we’re still alive! Currently down in the Amazon where it’s hot, steamy, and jungly.  A zillion little beasties are queuing up to drink your blood and the hotel has the worst wifi ever. We’re heading back up to the mountains and on towards Ecuador via El Trampolin de la Muerte. Going to be off the radar again for another couple of days but will hopefully be able to do…

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Vertical coffee and coloured houses; Medellin to Salento

Vertical coffee and coloured houses; Medellin to Salento

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Blog writing is hard. Probably all writing is hard especially when one is rubbish at it and is trying to make things non-boring and interesting…..   Anyway. As ever, leaving cities sucks! After 5 days in Medellin we were glad to be leaving.  The ride out during morning rush hour was pretty awful though;  Trucks and busses squeezing past with inches to spare, motorbikes and scooters zooming past on all sides and every vehicle belching out clouds of toxic fumes and…

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Mooching in Medellin.

Mooching in Medellin.

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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…

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Impressions, pitstop in Barichara, and back on the road

Impressions, pitstop in Barichara, and back on the road

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Happy 2017 blog readers! Spent the New Year period in the tranquil town of Barichara mainly chilling, drinking beer, swimming (yippee!) and oh yes, a day risking life and limb when we went paragliding! We were somewhat nervous about the paragliding, especially on New Year’s day; both harbouring thoughts of hung over paragliding instructors forgetting something important and smashing us into the ground from a sickening height however, once airborne, we realised that we were just a couple of drama…

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Roads that aren’t roads and now travelling slower than a legless tortoise….

Roads that aren’t roads and now travelling slower than a legless tortoise….

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Dragged ourselves  away from Villa de Leyva and headed for San Gil via the backest of back roads. Day 1 to Gambita was a mixture of stunning scenery, interesting flora and fauna, friendly police, torrential rain, rough roads and riding into town in the dark to a “swanky” hotel with out the swank i.e. no hot water!     Day 2 was something else! We literally travelled 20km in 26 hours! We’d had trouble getting the gps to route us…

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Lazy de Leyva

Lazy de Leyva

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Villa de Leyva was lovely. It’s vast main square (14,000 m² – one of the largest in the Americas) was a great place to hang out, people watch and listen to the buskers – nice benches thoughtfully placed around the edge for resting and drinking beer 🙂 Villa de Leyva main Square Villa de Leyva lookout.   Spent 4 days camped in the grounds of the very relaxing Hostel Renacer. Had a very sociable Christmas meeting people from all parts…

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Leaving Bogota and travelling slower than a tortoise in peanut butter.

Leaving Bogota and travelling slower than a tortoise in peanut butter.

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  4 days for two experienced cycle-tourists to cycle 160km! Easy…. Are we fit? NO! Are we altitude adjusted? NO! Was it easy? hahahahahahah…… The first 65km literally took us all day, with steep climbs, wrong turns and no oxygen. Cycling out of cities on nasty busy roads always sucks however, this was especially polluted, especially busy and especially sucky. Our campsite for the night though was anything but. Our WarmShowers ( CouchSurfing for cycle tourists ) host Daniel runs…

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Chilling and exploring Bogota

Chilling and exploring Bogota

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Went on a bicycle tour ( well, what did you expect? ) of the city with an excellent guide who gave us a broad overview of Colombian politics, history, art, architecture and culture combined with visits to fruit markets, coffee factories, street art spots and a game of Tejo that involves drinking beer whilst throwing heavy chunks of metal at a clay target that literally has explosives embedded in it. Points scored for hitting the target and explosions! Tourist excursion…

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Llegado en Bogota! :)

Llegado en Bogota! :)

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Knackered, shell-shocked and jet-lagged but here. Bikes in one piece. Everything that went on the plane came off it so all-in-all everything is currently hunky dory. We considered cycling the 15km from the airport but couldn’t face it in the end….  Nice Taxi driver. Initial impressions are- lots of street-art, friendly people and a big mountain right there overlooking the city with a cable car thingy and funicular railway going up to it.  We can see  it from our hostel…

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Stressed at the airport

Stressed at the airport

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Travelling on planes with bikes is always very stressful. After thorough research Steve strongly feels that we should pack the bikes in clear plastic bike bags however our arrival at the airport invariably involves protracted discussion with airport staff about the suitability of our packaging. So here is a picture of Steve rigid with stress!  But we are sending this post from the PUB in the departures lounge having successfully put the bikes through the oversize baggage system and been…

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Packing chaos….

Packing chaos….

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Great night last night seeing friends old and new before we flee the dank greyness that is the British winter. Test packing chaos is currently ensuing. So far our packed clothes are about 4kg each which isn’t too bad for 4 months away. Trying to get everything into 2 large bags for the plane. Wrestling with luxuries, electronics and camping gear now.  

Hello

Hello

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Hello. So, we’re off with our bikes for a 4-month cycle trip to South America! We fly to Bogota in Colombia on the 11th December and other than having return flights from Lima in Peru on 13th April, we have no real plans except to cycle, explore and hopefully have a few adventures along the way with a bit ( okay, probably quite a lot ) of hammock time to keep us chilled. This will be our third trip to…

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