52 km. Nov 29. We. 9 km before Chachagui.
This was the third day of riding in mountains. Today the gradients were never higher than 7% and quite often at 5% but basically we've been climbing steadily for almost entire 50 km! With the improved gearing and moderate at times gradients riding wouldn't be so bad but climbing the mountains for the third day in a row, each time all day long, caused a lot of saddle sores. Today we could stop earlier at one of those restaurant /hotels places but when we got there the sun was still pretty high giving us enough time to make another 20 km to the next hotel in the middle of nowhere. There is aways a risk involved when making that type of desisions because if something goes sideways you may end up in the middle of nowhere in darkness without place to sleep. So far in this journey all the accomodations marked on maps actually existed but during ours previous trips in different countries it would happen from time to time that the hotel wasn't there any more where it was supposed to be. The place we aimed at today was a gas station with restaurant and a small motel mainly geared towards truck drives. Usually the rooms in places like this are very basic but not as tiny as those in cheap city hotels, they have large windows and the rural surroundings provide fresh air and tranquil nights. The prices are great too, about 10-15 CAD. In adjucent restaurant a good meal costs as little as 4 bucks. Today we ordered 2 soups, two beers, 2 coffees, two sodas, two pieces of an excellent cake and we paid ...11 dollars. I thought the guy made a mistake calculating our bill. Judging by the price structure one may think services in Colombia are at low standards but in reality it is the opposite. The food athough boring for me is good quality, cheap hotels are basic but clean (I am still traumatized by the disgusting places I had to look at in Central America) and majority of roads we've been riding on so far were excellent. People in general are friendly, other than the armed robbers by the road. Here I must say nothing beats the habitual politeness of Canadians and Americans. Therefore it always takes a little bit of time to get used to somber faces of people in service industry in most foreign countries we travel through. After the meal we browsed the Internet a little bit and then went to bed. For some reason I couldn't fall asleep. Today we witness on the road a small dog being run over by the car. His rear end got crushed and the guts got spilled. In spite of the fatal injuries this poor animal wouldn't die right away. Screaming the dog tried to run away frantically moving his front legs. By the time we were passing him he stopped screaming lifting his head up towards the skies with eyes closed as if asking whoever is in control of our fate, why is this happening to me? I guess in this very moment the numbness took over his tormented body and I hope the perpetual darkness followed after giving him a rest for ever. beach dresses for mother of the bride