Posted by: perry on 02/23/2009 02:44 PM
Updated by: perry on 11/26/2009 03:15 AM
Expires: 01/01/2014 12:00 AM
El Eje Cafeterro
Our journey through El Eje Cafeterro (The Coffee Axis) took us through the cities of Manizales, Pereira, and Armenia as well as coffee plantations, thermal baths, a punk/ska/hard core concert, and even sleeping for a night along the highway in front of a wood furniture maker. From the first cup of coffee to the final downhill to the Cauca valley we tried to see it all and missed a lot at the same time.
After a four day journey from Medellin we found ourselves still 20km from the first city of the Eje Cafeterro or Manizales. We had no chance to make it since it was all uphill. So we went in search for a place to sleep for the night. We had to ask around quite a bit but eventually we were invited to spend the night on a coffee plantation near Chinchiná, a major refinery and exporter of Colombian coffee. They even made us dinner and offered us our first, second, and third cups of the local coffee. The little girl that lived there taught me how to take a stone to break open a little red berry from a strange type of palm tree to get the nut inside which tasted a bit like coconut. We must have eaten all we could find (can't pick them, too high).
In the morning they made us an arepa breakfast with coffee. Then we started the climb, which took hours including breaks. The highway is new, wide, and smooth, and it has a new bridge too which spans a valley in a wide arching curve (we took a pot break there and spit over the edge). All we could think about was when we'd be able to take this road back down, no breaks!!!
Just before getting to Manizales, sweating and breathing heavy, we ran into another cyclist, Carlos. He's got a bike shop somewhere in NY and lives in Manizales in the northern winter. He's travelled a lot by bike and went out of his way to make sure we would have a good time in Manizales. He invited us to stay for a few nights at his sister-in-law's house near the city center. Then after we got our showers done he met us again to take us on a tour of the city, which is built on a mountain ridge with amazing views in all directions. Then we went for a bit of coffee at the overprices Juan Valdez (Starbuck's style) coffee shop. It was a fun evening but unfortunately he wasn't able to stay in Manizales and left for Bogota the next day.
The family we were staying with, Gloria (sister-in-law), Roberto (Gloria's son), and Yalla (Gloria's daughter) were all really cool. Roberto's a "special kid" which people seemed to refer to him as. He's probably about 17 years old with a 6 or 7 year old mentality. He really liked shaking hands and repeating what people said. At one time he just kicked his sister really hard in the knee after which his mother spanked and (I think) drugged him. But overall he was just nice and friendly and giggling at stupid jokes and faces, which was cool.
For our first full day, we basically wandered around all day. Then in the evening we went to a part of town called El Cable where a really old teleferico's (cable car's) remains are still standing. We walked up and down the street searching for the first bar which wasn't blaring salsa music and ended up strolling up the steps of a bar called Broadway which was playing Pink Floyd. We sat down for a few beers and consistently good rock music, new and old. We ended up meeting a couple university students, one of them (Alex) we ended up becoming friends with. He's studying programming and we got to talking quite a bit. Then when the bar closed we bought a bottle of vodka and went to his place to hang our for a few hours. We were quite drunk when we got home at 5ish.
The next day I didn't do much. Hung over. But in the evening we made plans for the early morning to go with a local guy (Fernando) to the Sierra Nevada Ruiz (high altitudes, natural hot springs, forests, snow, glaciers, and more). We borrowed an alarm from Gloria but it was not set right (I should have checked it) and we woke up a bit too late. Well, we still met up with Fernando and headed to the park knowing that the shepard bus had left. We hoped to hitchhike. Well, we made it to the edge of town in a bus and started walking and hoping for a lift. Nothing came, except the cops. They just wasted a little time (and gave us our pot back). But we never really got going. Austin and I also found out the Fernando didn't come with any food or money and was expecting us to buy him everything. That pissed me off and when I asked him what he planned to eat he said "I dunno". Well, we basically just hopped on a bus back to the city after a good 6 hrs of the day had taken us almost nowhere.
Since our plans for the mountains crumbled below us, but since it was finally the first sunny day in a long time, we decided to finally go to the cathedral and climb the tower. Haha, closed. Open Thrus to Sunday. Fuck, bad luck that day. So we ended up spending a good part of the day looking at possibilities for building Austin a bike stereo. In the evening we met up with Alex again. We went to a bar with a Lord of the Rings theme. Fucking awesome. We talked to some cool friends of his too. But as it got late, it got colder and I didn't have any warm clothes. That evening got me sick which has lasted pretty much for two weeks now (now I'm at the final coughing stage). It was a blast hanging out with Alex again.
But that was also our last evening in Manizales so we said our goodbyes and left in the morning. The ride up was hard as fuck but the ride down was a breeze. Hardly any traffic, a divided highway with two lanes to ourselves, wide banked turns with smooth pavement. Hell yeah! At the bottom of the hill we took a pot break, then a truck stopped and gave us a bunch of cacao (yum). Then a little later on the road we were gifted a joint. Then it was back to cycling past mountains full of coffee. Very quickly we found ourselves in Santa Rosa de Cabal and going through the village to the road to the natural hot water springs.
It was a hard ride, especially since I broke my big toe's nail and it's been hurting a lot while cycling. But up, up, up we went with one thing in mind, hot water!!! Eventually we found a place to camp nearby and went to the hot springs. There were 4 large pools of hot water for us to soak in along with a huge cold waterfall nearby cascading down a cliff in an ever widening x-mas tree shape. We soaked for hours. Then we left to go cook some dinner, got stoned, and went to sleep. That was Austin's birthday.
The next day we headed to the town of Pereira. We found ourselves a hotel, but not the easy way. We ended up checking a hotel's prices on a pedestrian street. While I ran inside, there was instantly a huge crown of people that surrounded Austin. When I got out the only thing I could think of was LEAVE!!! We eventually got to a place with a reasonable price and ducked inside. During the rest of the day, I went off to go look for new pants (mine died) while Austin hung out at the hotel stoned. In the evening he brought us a huge chop suey for dinner.
We were originally planning on leaving but I was feeling shitty still. So for our first full day in Pereira we walked all over the fucking place looking for Austin's bike stereo. Well, at least he accomplished the first thing, which was to get an ipod. With that out of the way we could concentrate on the next step. But walking all day totally wiped out all my energy. I should have stayed at the hotel resting. We went out for dinner and ended up meeting a guy, Diego, who lived in Stockholm for much of his life. He took us around town to a couple clubs. Stupidly I drank beer, then we walked more. Then we ended up at a really cool reggae bar, I had another beer, then a joint, and then finally I felt like I'd completely run out of steam. I was sick, walked all day, had beer and grass, and now only one thing was left on my mind, sleep. I left Austin and Diego at the bar and went to the hotel to sleep. But when I got there I found some cool shit on TV including the news and a cartoon in German. Eventually I slept.
And I stayed in the hotel for pretty much the entire next day. I left to get food (falafel at the hare krishna's). I left for a short walk. Austin took off to get some coca leaves for us to chew some day while cycling, that should be interesting. Diego came by also and annoyed me as he kept asking for money and cigs. Eventually, by the time we left, he became really an annoyance. He's quite a coke-head and would just constantly repeat his stories and never listen to either of us, something that seems to be happening more and more lately by everyone.
The next day we decided to leave. The hotel guy woke us at 6. We slept till 8. It was raining. We slept till 10, it was raining. At noon it cleared up. At 2 Austin was finally done packing and we headed out. We didn't get far before running into another cyclist going the other direction. Damián,
www.jamerboi.com.ar, has been cycling for 20 months since Alaska and had a tonne of shit on his bike. Loads of bags and he said weighed 80kilos. I have 45 kilos and I think it's a lot. He's crazy!
But then it started raining again and we took cover in a bakery, drinking coffee and waiting for it to clear up. We got a few more k's done before ending up camping the night right next to the highway in front of a wood furniture factory. The people living/working there were cool and didn't bother us too much knowing how tired we were even though we hardly cycled all day.
The next morning we continued on our way to Armenia. There were competition cyclists on the road and we managed to keep our speed up with them for quite a while, at least till the uphill where the extra weight is a huge disadvantage. We thought we'd just pass Armenia up to see more nature and get more k's done on the way to Cali. But we stopped for a bit of internet and when we came out the street was full of punks. There was a concert going on. We talked to the promoter and he got us in for free and bought us our first beer. The music was great and we were on cloud nine! We hadn't been to a real punk show the whole trip. We'd always just missed them somehow, and finally we got lucky. We met a lot of local guys and girls and talked to everyone. One guy, Diego (a different Diego) invited us to stay at his house. So after the concert we went there. We tossed our bags into his car and followed him. Eventually both of us were hanging onto the sides of the car getting a tow to his house, then Austin fell and almost went under the car. But he managed to not get hurt, amazingly.
The next day Diego took us on a short tour of the area. He's sells frozen fish, so first we went with him on a delivery. Then we went with him to a nearby colonial town, Salento. We'd been thinking about going there but since we wanted to spend more time in Cali we decided to pass it up. But we got a lift there with Diego instead (interesting how things work out sometimes). We went to various lookout points around the village, then it started raining and we went for cover. We had a great view to watch the rain fall. Then when it cleared up, we cleared out. On the way back to Armenia, we picked up a friend of Diego's. Then we all went for coffee. We dropped off Diego's friend and picked up another guy who instantly started telling me that I'm going to hell for not believing in HIS bible. He can go fuck a goat! I hate it when people instantly start cursing you when you tell them that you don't believe in their fucking god. Fuck that old geezer. Then we stopped by an internet cafe (MISTAKE!!!) and Austin spent hours on the net while ignoring the fact that they two of us were waiting and waiting for him. I really get sick of waiting, especially when he's "almost done" and it takes another 30 minutes and I just wait.
Well, anyhow, we borrowed a DVD from Diego's friend, picked up some groceries for dinner, and went back to Diego's. We watched "Legend of the Overfiend" which Austin copied from Alex back in Manizales.
In the morning we had breakfast and when Austin said he'd be ready in just five minutes, I started to pack. I still ended up having to wait half an hour for him. But quickly we were on our way, down a slight grade to the Cauca Valley. The going was fast and strong with only a few short climbs. Now we were out of the coffee region and now in the Sugar Cane region. All throughout the Cauca Valley are huge trucks with 4 or 5 trailers full of sugar cane going down the road to be processed. But at the time time we could start getting roadside sugar cane juice (oh yeah!). By the evening we found ourselves in a town which I saw on the map at least a month ago. Bugalagrade's name stuck out to me when I first saw it. Well, we ended up getting there just before dark and after covering eighty-something k's, a good day's ride. We ended up crashing with the bomberos. Also I got a ride around town in the back of a motorcycle and talked with a lot of interesting people. The bomberos were cool as ever too.
The next day we cycled just over 100k's to Palmira. About midday we took a break and were off the road taking a little shade under a tree when some idiot decided it was much more fun to watch us than the road. We finally caused an accident! The guy slammed the brakes, swerved back and forth, fishtailed a bit, then went down into the ditch to just hardly tap a tree which the car came to a stop. Fucking idiot! The all climbed out of the car to check out the car. There was a baby which was surely sitting on mom's lap, but luckily didn't get hurt. When we left, we pointed at them and laughed. I'm getting really sick of hearing squealing tires because of idiot drivers. And even worse are the motorcyclists who ride for a LONG time with their necks craned around to look at Austin. IDIOTS. We ended up spending the night at a farm since the bomberos turned us down. Also, we ran into someone in Palmira who had made his own recumbent bike. It was well made.
The next day we went to Cali. The world capital of Salsa. Austin's dreams of taking salsa lessons lie in Cali. But all that is another story.
The time in the Eje Cafeterro was excellent. Hot springs always rock! Diego, from Armenia, was really great to meet. We had a great time with him and really connected. Also Alex in Manizales was really cool to meet. We'd had a lot of luck and unluck here. We missed going to Sierra Nevada Ruiz, but we did get to some really amazing places instead like Agua Termales Santa Rosa de Cabal! We've also got Coca leaves and we're looking forward in trying them. It's not cocaine, just the leaves. The indigenous chew it all day long while working in the fields, it should also be quite good for cycling. Also we've gotten some punk music into our bloodstreams again. Much needed after 11 months of Vicente Fernandez.
Peace,
Perry
