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Announcements
Posted by: austin_arrest on 02/23/2009 03:17 PM
Updated by: perry on 11/26/2009 03:14 AM
Expires: 01/01/2014 12:00 AM
Eje Cafetero
After a lot of talk, we finally got here!
So after far too much time talking about it, we finally got to Eje Cafetero.
We camped outside of Manezales and rode up in the morning. It was very up. We stopped a couple of times and enjoyed the view. One of the breaks was on an awesome bridge. There where two of them built side by side, one for each direction of traffic, but one was a bit higher than the other. After one of the breaks, I approached Perry while he was talking to someone. Then a couple of minutes later we were invited to Manezales with Carlos. Carlos is Colombian and has a bike shop in New York. He was visiting for summer. He showed us around the city and we stayed at his sister-in-laws apartment while we got to know Monezales. He Gave us a tour of the city in his car after we had some time to relax and shower. We also met a cool student named Alex. Perry and I were hanging at a bar enjoying some beers and invited a couple of dudes over to the table. THe bar was chill and playing some decent music. The bartender asked if he wanted us to play anything specific so we asked for queen and gunsnroses because we had already heard a song form the spaghetti incedent and I felt like hearing axel rose try to cover G.G. Allen. They didn{t have the song, but they where sure to have Queen. So we left and they bought a bottle of cheap Vodka.AHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHH. Anything but that. When we got to his house we entered the bedroom of a dungeon and dragons game master. He had magic the gathering and a variety of japanese animations. I thought, where has this guy been the whole time we have been traveling. It{s not often that we meet people that like the weird and crazy stuff we like. He was a computer student so him and Perry had a lot to talk about. He liked dungeons and dragons and magic and japanimation, so we had something to talk about. I was totally suprised to see Uritskidoji{s Legend Of The Overfiend and Legend of the Demon Womb in his collection. He made a copy for me and we finished the bottle of Vodka. We also tried to go to some other nearby agua termales a differnt day with a flaky artesan. But that didtn{t work and we waisted half a day.
So the next day we left and went to Agua Termales Santa Rosa. It was my 31 birthday and I didn´t really want to ride all day. So after a short ride we found the place. It was very resorty which is more anti-austin´s birthday than pro-austin having a lot of fun on his birthday, but we decided to stay after seeing the huge waterfall. The pools of water where huge. There where 4 swimming pools of hot spring water that sit at the bottom of the huge ice cold waterfall. There where hot pools, cold pools, waterfall massage, and even 2 mineral water springs. This is the first time I have ever been able to take mineral water that is fizzy and potable from the ground and drink it. It was strange and cool. We camped for a discounted price in our hammocks under a carport.
From Santa Rosa we dropped into Pereira. We stayed in a hotel for a few nights while Perry was recoveing from a flu. We also started looking for stereo parts and found a used i-pod that works great. We ran into a fellow named Diego that does way to much cocaine. He showed us to some bar that we were allowed to smoke inside while listtening to the relaxing toons of Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix. This turned into a pretty fun night for me. We met a couple of women sitting at a table through Diego the coc-head. One of them like dancing and had some rythm, so she pretty much kept my attention the rest of the time. I got to practice some salsa and some lindyhop, and charleston, woohoo. Her name was Vjarall or somthing like that and she filled my pockets with all kinds of trinketts, bracelets and notebooks. That tradition of recuerdos is going to turn into a artesania sale real fast if people keep giving us boatloads of recuerdos. We give them away, but not at the rate we have been recieving them.
We left and headed toward Amernia. This day sucked because it rained all day and we could only ride about 20 k without getting soaked. We didn{t want to get soaked. So we camped next to the highway at a furnature store.
The next day we got to Armenia and decided to check e.mail for a bit. When we exited the cyber cafe we where surrounded by young punks. I looked for a flier, looked for the venue, and shortly after found the organizer. He invited both of us to the show. I felt very lucky. In all of our tour I have been looking for a punk show, then 1 found us. it was a 14 band show. We moved our bikes to the back of the venue and enjoyed a beer. This day turned into an amazing night. Punk, ska, hardcore, metal, wow! Then we met a nice Diego that gave us a place to crash for a couple of nights and a tour to Salento. He also hooked us up with a contact in Cali.
It took us 2 days to get to Cali. We met Juan Paulo, friend of Diego. He might smoke a little too much pot, but who knows for sure.
While in Cali, we will be trying to build the rest of the bike stereo and I will be learning more salsa. I found a couple of dance academies.
Perry found a battery and charger, now we need a way to make sure the battery does not blow up from overcharging.
Does anyone know how to build an off switch for a litheum-ion battery charger? We have the battery and a charger, but don{t know how to tell it to stop when it{s fully charged.
Since we have been here, I{ve had one lesson that was alright and will be looking for more.
We found the best greens in all of our travels. We all know it´s not easy beeing green, but for the last year, it{s been extreamly difficult just finding quality greens. Quieria Calidad y encontramos calidad!
¡Buenisimo!
From here we will be rushing to the border of Colombia and Ecuador.
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