PowerCycle

11/08 Left the cold behind and dropped 8000 feet to the valley separating the 2 ranges of the Andes that parallel each other in this area. The downhill was a lot of fun; not too curvy but there were quite a few little landslides, some potholes and some really thick low-lying clouds.

Today ended up being a 77 mile day. My home for the night was going to be the town of Armero but I knew something was up because you can always tell how big a place is based on the number of cell towers. A few miles out I still hadn’t seen any. After riding past several blocks of long abandoned buildings it was clear that Armero was no more. Funny thing is it’s on my map, my GPS and the wiki page that shows the population of all towns in Colombia has 13,000 people living there. Camping would have been easy but I’m stoveless and short on decent things to eat cold. Some farm workers told me there was a hotel a few miles down the road. Not sure what the town I’m staying in now is called. Maybe they relocated Armero. Rolled in here at 6pm and it was getting kind of dark so I’ll see more of the place tomorrow.

For the record I hate dogs with a passion now. At least 20 of them chased me today. I was going downhill most of the time so stopping sucks because it chews up my brake pads. Instead I have to make sure they don’t bite my legs or run into my wheels while simultaneously trying to avoid potholes and trucks. I was really hoping one of them would get close enough so I could kick it in the head.

Crossed over the Rio Magdalena again, this time on a bridge instead of a boat. Tomorrow I climb back up into the range that will take me south to Ecuador. I’ve decided to skip the northern loop up to Medellin. Maybe next time.

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