PowerCycle

10/18 It was bound to happen sooner or later. The road I expected to lead me east and then down south never materialized. That led to a 60 mile jaunt back up north to where I am tonight. Tomorrow morning the road I’m on now should intersect with the main highway heading back south. The sad part is I’m right about where I was supposed to be in the first place had I not decided at the last minute to ride further south down the PanAm. Once again a major routing error with the ITMB map for Colombia. There is no road east out of El Banco and if someone tries to tell you there’s a road east at Chimichagua they are wrong (someone like the kid that works at the motel I stayed in last night).

Other than riding by some huge termite mounds and seeing a bunch of parrots it was an uneventful ride. There was a 5 mile patch of unpaved road that was covered in a thin layer of mud so the bike and I got a bit dirty. Oh, I did run into a military checkpoint and the guys there were pretty cool. Of course they are all like 19 years old which was funny (because they could kill me in 5 seconds). They really dug my GPS which I don’t get because I know how much the US gives Colombia for the retarded drug war so they must have something better than a 4 year old Garmin (that I love–is anything as good as the 60CSX??).

There’s a gas station in El Paso and the motel sits right next to it. While I was washing my bike over by the pumps a guy and his wife drove over. He lived in New York for the longest time and had lots of questions about my trip. We also talked about the flooding and he told me how he and the other farmers were dealing with it. I guess a lot of what was being grown is now is being converted to coconut palm fields since they tolerate the water more. The coconut oil is used in foods and in the manufacture of soaps, cosmetics and candles. He left but within a minute came back and said he was bringing dinner for me. An hour later I was enjoying a delicious home cooked meal of steak, rice and some fried bananas. That was a nice way to end the day.

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