Four months earlier it was all new but as I rode around Medellin running errands things started to feel familiar.  Jorge’s place, the bike shops in San Diego and even the little bakery I ate breakfast every morning all resurfaced.  After months of uncertainty and surprises I welcomed the familiar sights and was joined by some familiar faces.

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Small picturesque mountain towns in Columbia are common.  About as common as a hockey rink in Canada or a football pitch in Brazil.  Jardin, with its well kept centre square and beautiful vistas was as beautiful as any I have seen but offered one new experience.  Real coffee shops serving real coffee… and lots of it !

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If the butcher, baker and grocer decide not to open their doors most of us will have a rough go.  I like to think I will make it but even with a bit of warning I’m not sure I have the skills to put food on the table.  So while visiting a small family run coffee finca in Antioquia, Columbia I got a great lesson in just how much is going on in these small farms I pass daily and just how complex the simple looking operations are.

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Picking out the gringo in the crowd is easy by how we walk.  North Americans walk with a starchy purpose that doesn’t really seem to get to the destination any quicker.  Columbians typically saunter, stress free as if they were exploring a deserted beach… that is unless they are on their way to the football stadium.

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Typically full of great ideas, when Jorge said we were visiting El Penon on the way to Bucaramanga I was intrigued.  What would we eat?  How twisty are the roads?  Was there gonna be a riot?  So to say I was a little let down when I found out I would be climbing 600 plus stairs up the side of a big rock would be an understatement.  To say I wasn’t feeling bad for Jorge when he was sucking wind half way up would be spot on.

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I was feeling ill several days earlier in Medellin and it was my second day laid up in bed.  A conversation with another traveller back in Rio de Janeiro about dengue and malaria had me thinking so I went to the hospital and endured the long wait.  Five hours in the doctor stuck his head through the curtain to the small room I was in and said “good news, it isn’t Dengue.”  Words I never, ever thought I would hear.

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I left Bucaramanga having spent most of my days laid up in the hotel but had high hopes for the town of San Gil.  I figured any town that throws a holiday party that includes a car show can’t be that bad.  Unfortunately that is not the San Gil that I experienced.

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I got on the bike early and fortunately it was warm.  I had no riding jacket, the day before was quite possibly the worst day of the trip and I felt like ten pounds of crap in a five pound bag.  I put my head down, pushed my lower lip out and rode all day and some of the night.  I didn’t take a photo, slow for roadside glimpse and stopped only for fuel.  I wanted to put as much distance between me and my bad luck as possible.

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The long day before made for a short ride to the coast.  I sniffed out a quiet beach, found a place to sleep and took a gamble the night would be warm.  It was late in the evening when I settled into the hammock and the refreshing breeze off the ocean was just cool enough to make the 26C temperature bearable.  My luck had made a 180.

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I’m starting to show my age.  A bottle of rum, a good meal and a few hours talking bull should have me in the hammock well into the late morning.  That’s what Hugo was doing but like an old man that went to bed too early I was up with the morning sun watching the fisherman finish their day.

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