Group riding from Cali to Popayan

Sunday, November 14th, 2010

Still alive!

Today`s riding was great. We got out of Cali at the perfect time to avoid traffic. I had to get used to driving very close to the others, as we were seven bikes sticking together. I was "assigned" to be in the middle, for safety`s sake. It was really great fun to ride like that, because there was so much strategy involved in placement, overtaking, signaling and safety. The first period outside of the city is long flats, before the more normal turns, small villages, etc. As we were a big group, we didn`t get stopped at any of the military checkpoints. There were a Lot of them, and they all gave us the thumb up. The first hour from Popayan to Pasto is however supposed to involve a poor road, and I think the ride itself will be tough. My neck and shoulder are in agony today, so the extra day the others wanted to spend here will probably do me good. I also need to practice a few things like tight turns and picking up the bike without straining my back too much. You can either lift or squat it up.

We found a hostel in Popayan that had a really big indoor parking(that`s the most important thing about chosing a hotel or hostal now), for 18000 a night. The owner and his family took us to eat a good lunch, and showed us around a little bit. Popayan had a big earthquake in 1983, and a whole area just crumbled in the 19sec quake. He also took us to the most expensive hotel here, which used to be a monestary. Seing luxury like that again was a bit strange. There had been a motorcycle ralley in the area, and they all met up in the center square before heading off. After watching the huge bikes pass and talking to some locals, we went walking around the city, up to a church on the hill and down. We met and went with some people that were going to a video conference event, that was going on in Tokyo, New York, London and here. The shortfilm we saw was about the indigenious people of Colombia. Now I`m going to do something useful, and hope to see this nice town in glorious sunshine, tomorrow. It`s "so long" to Victor in the morning, as he`s heading towards Ipiales. We agreed to keep in touch and work on promoting free voluntary work on his website: www.dondeestavictor.com . Bike travelling on a schedule, I`m afraid the website catch up is just going to keep growing if we don`t push each other a bit.

So as I said.. I`m alive! No uncomfortable or dangerous situations today, besides Victor almost running over a dog. Doing this, I`m not really taking things for granted.