Sorry, No Photos. Will add them later.
Start & Stop: La Pintada, CO to Pasto, CO
Mileage: 477 mile!
Hotel: Hotel Galleries, Cra 26 No. 18-71 Third Level, Pasto, Colombia
Dean: Lisa is getting sick. She is coughing.
Lisa: I hated to leave the Dinastia- dang, it was awesome – but we don’t have extra days to burn, unfortunately. I would definitely return to Colombia – the roads and scenery are amazing. We crested one 11,000’ peak and as I looked down into the valley it looked as though the rugged mountains had been overlaid with green velvet- spectacular. I told Dean I felt as though we were riding in Italy. I do not feel well though and the rain that started as we got to Pasto didn’t make me feel any better. Did I mention the swapped jacket is leaking like a sieve? Yep. Lovin’ life.
Dean: Today was a “sit here, twist that” day. We need to move south out of Colombia into Ecuador. We pretty much rode from 6AM to 6PM. Rode 477 miles today. Left 45 min before sunrise. Mostly cool day with several scattered rain showers.
Tried to go around Cali via Popayan. This route ended up on another twisty-turny road through spectacular passes. But trying to avoid 30 minutes of traffic may have ended us a couple more hours in the mountains.
Last 50 miles was road “patch” run. Vibrated the bike and rider – really rattled the teeth and brain. Then it started to rain the last 30 miles dropping down into Pasto. Rounding a sweeper in the rain we both hit new road paint and the rear lost traction for a second.
Lisa: So let me also share one little tidbit about our choice of tires: They’re great for long miles. Not much good for anything else like mud, sand, gravel, OH! and wet roads, especially with painted lines. Not to mention wet cobblestones. We had no hotel lined up for tonight and it was now 1) dark, 2) raining, 3) Saturday night. This isn’t good.
Coolest thing though: we rode to the center of town, as usual, and it was super crowded, loads of annoying taxis, honking at nothing in particular and everything in general, and we just pulled over to the curb to get our bearings. Dean had a waypoint that was not good (there will be a theme developing here soon, stay tuned) so I pulled up the closest lodging to our location and about 20 popped up. I just took a wild stab, entered one and boom! It was only 3 blocks from us. We inched our way over there, as the streets were only one lane wide, with 2-lanes of cars and scooters jockeying for position. The Stromapotami aren’t exactly lean machines but also, I am not easily intimidated. Dude, honk all you want, I’m stayin’ put. I turned the final corner, spied the hotel and GLORIOUS!!! There is a sign that says Hotel Galerias PARQUEDERO!!! They have a PARKING GARAGE!!!! I am in Fat City baby. Get me out of this rain, off the wet cobblestones and give me some underground parking. Mama is happy. I was so elated I darn near rode over the small retaining wall instead of down the ramp which would have made for quite the grand entrance. No worries, we got in, the rates were super reasonable (not that I cared at that point, mind you) and we could walk about some and enjoy the Saturday night spectacle.
We went out walking after getting cleaned up and there were no restaurants around so we settled for some roast chicken at some semi-fast food place (every meal we had was 14,000 sheckles somehow) and then tried to get a feel for Pasto but they were rolling up the sidewalks. We did pop into the local market and bought a few things including a huge fresh pineapple that they cut up for us – amazing!
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