Riding to Manizales, on the back of a motorcycle

Monday, November 8th, 2010

The departure was put off for a few days, as the motorcycle nor Victor functioned properly. I was crashing at Nicole`s place. If I haven't mentioned Nicole, she's an american girl I really got a long with while volunteering with little kids. We went to see "The Road", in the cinema, the other night. - Brilliant movie!
We did some outdoor yoga, exploring, cooking, silly- movie-watching, went to a small cafe with a thursday night jam session and book exchange(near casa kiwi), where we hung out with some other girls from the volunteering. One of them was supposed to teach me how to drum. I played beachvolley with some locals my last day. Felt goood!
Today, me and Victor were finally on the road towards Ecuador. The bike, Olga, was Packed and it was really tight. I feel really bad for him as he is hurting. - Further motivation for me to pay for all of the gasoline, as it also is his bike. The landscape is B-eautiful, and we were lucky with the weather. Not so lucky with the policemen that fined him for driving above 102 km/hr, when that isn`t possible with that heavy load. I was also watching the meter a few seconds before, and no way. But we were nice, didn`t offer a bribe, and kept on going. Because he was tired after no sleep, sickness and a crammed bike, plus rainclouds ahead, we decided to spend the night in Manizales before going to Salento.

Manizales was a nice surprise! I really like it. We checked in to the pitstop hostel, and I went straight to the Enforma gym, where I paid 8000pesos for normal excercise and an inzane rumba-class. Met some nice locals there, and other than that.. It`s weird to be back in the hostel-life, although I`m not very often staying in dorms. We had a late night after a relaxing jacuzzi session, some Delicious chocolate fudge(trust me, we appreiciate such tastes after some time here) and good conversations.

Victor slept in this morning while I went with some other guys for breakfast. We`re taking it slow before going to Salento, where we`ll be spending the night.