When they built South America, they didnt skimp on the relief!
The scale of the country I have been riding through since I landed here is enormous!
Pretty much every day that I ride, I am climbing up and down the sides of valleys that are well over a Km deep. Its mostly beautiful green farm land with a patchwork of fields and little townships with red tile roofs nestled in amongst the fields... But to call it "rolling green" really does no justice to the scale of the place. I cant capture it on the camera but suffice it to say that "temperature control" is a major problem while riding... Im regularly gaining or losing 1500m in the space of twenty minutes or so, and that results in 15 or 20 degC or more change in temperature!
And thats just for Colombia and Ecuador... Things get even more interesting further South.
A couple of days ago, I rode down to the coast of Colombia from Cali. There was not much of tourist interest there but one of the fishing villages on stilts was interesting...
A day later, I left Cali and rode South to Pasto as I mentioned in the last post.
Its big country in the South of Colombia as you move into "volcano country". In fact, Pasto is perched on the flanks of a volcano that is nearly 4000m high... and just for interest, its still active... and to add to that, scientists apparently say its got the explosive potential of Mt St Helens... And the day after I left (yesterday), it decided to erupt, throwing fiery rocks into the night sky!
Its the first day of a week long festival in Pasto, so I guess it sets that off quite well, but I hope it doesnt get "out of hand" for the sake of my friends Nancy and Henry there :)
But I had moved on to Tulcan on the boarder with Ecuador... Where I got stuck for half a day and a night due to there being no power and customs not being able to process my bike documents! Oh well, what can you do?
But, now Im in the land of the real volcanoes.
Here in Ecuador they grow them real big... I climbed a couple of them way back in the day... Chimborazo at 6300m and Cotopaxi at 6000m. But the first one I can see now is Cayambe at 5800m with a beautiful white glacier covered summit on a blue sky day :)))
