| Start Page | 1) Ecuador | 2) Peru | 3) Bolivia | 4) Chile & Argentina | 5) Colombia | 6) Central America | 7) Mexico | 8) U.S.A. | 9) Canada |  |
| Start Page | 1) Ecuador | 2) Peru | 3) Bolivia | 4) Chile & Argentina | 5) Colombia | 6) Central America | 7) Mexico | 8) U.S.A. | 9) Canada | |
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The long Road. Part 5 of 9: Colombia
After two more days of waiting I reappeared at the office.
Through a series of green valleys I rode northward. Several dozen kilometers
past Ibarra I started the climb to El Ángel, a long climb that led all
the way up to 3,700 meters. Down below the climate was tropically hot and humid.
With each meter of climbing it got a little colder, but the tropical landscape
hardly changed. Until after two thousand meter climbing I reached the cold,
wet páramo. The páramo landscape was immersed in thick, gray clouds.
I cycled through forests of small polylepsis trees until I reached an undulating
plateau, dominated by the strange yellow frailejones, which grow a few meters
above the yellow grasses and peats. The thick gray fog gave the landscape an eerie,
ghostly atmosphere. The crossing of the plateau took a few hours. The dirt road
meandered in all directions and in the dense fog, I lost my sense of direction.
Happily I had my GPS. I reached the end of the plateau and the páramo and
descended to the northern city of Ecuador, Tulcán, and continued on my way
on the Panamericana to Colombia.
There was a heavy military presence on the Panamericana, in particular at the
strategic places like these bridges. In addition, there were checkpoints every
five to ten kilometers. It was apparently still not completely safe in Colombia.
I was never checked and I was always treated kindly by the soldiers. For the
first time in South America, I passed negroid communities. Often the villages
were messier and more chaotic than the other villages, but it was a pleasant
affair. The people were curious. They wanted to know what I was doing and
ehether I found Colombia a beautiful country. The atmosphere in the highlands
was jovial. Everyone I encountered was in for a chat. So far the positivists
seemed to be right. I felt perfectly safe in southern Colombia.
The further I cycled to the north, the lower were the mountain ranges and the
lower the valleys in between. I had to cope with the extreme hot and humid conditions.
Early in the morning it was around twenty-five degrees Celsius until the sun would
heat up the land. I had been the victim of a heavy coke addiction. These were not
the chemically deformed and illicit coca products that were exported in huge quantities
from Colombia to the United States, but the likewise chemically deformed, but
completely legal soda drink based on the same coca plants that moved in equally
measures in the opposite direction. With a lot of coke and lots of water, I
managed to keep myself standing in the scorching heat of Colombia. With regard
to the other coke product, among the travelers the idea had taken hold that the
times of drug trafficking were over by now and that Colombia is one of the
safest countries in South America now. Carmen, a frank, intellectual woman,
wanted me to help out of the dream: 
Medellín was much more attractive than Calí. The city suffered still
with a drug image though, dating from the Escobar dynasty. But the times had
since changed dramatically. The center was still shabby, but in the suburbs
were flourishing neighborhoods with excellent hotels and restaurants. I dined
with Erik and his Colombian girlfriend. Erik had lived for twenty years in
Medellín and was fully settled. In a restaurant he explained that Colombia
is a stratified society. A small group of people is very rich, there is a small
middle class, there is a large class of people with low-paid jobs and there is
a large class of people who have actually live from nothing. It was clear to
which class we belong. 'Executive food for executive people' we read on the
menu of our eatery. In retrospective the meal might not be executive, but the
price was in any case executive.
The extreme cold was not too bad actually. In a temperature of thirty degrees
Celsius I cycled up, in the burning Sun. I was glad that I had not put on my
mittens. After an hour of climbing, I passed two young men who were repairing
their motorbike. They asked for tools. We are on this World to help each other,
I thought, so I stopped neatly for the young men.
The tone of the young men became increasingly unfriendly and I had lost my
enthusiasm to help. Because the Baco was at the very bottom of one of my
bags, I was not going to mess up the bag.
"Well, I will search myself ..." 
"Stop, stop. Robbery!!!!"
After two days of cycling I reached Caucasia and I knocked on te door of my new
friends. In a restaurant we discussed the incidemt for a moment. 
"Do you come from Europe?"
