Chris writes
We spent a pleasant evening yesterday strolling around the El Poblado region of Medellin which is where our hotel was located and apparently is the best area of town. We dined in a very hard to find but most enjoyable restaurant (more TripAdvisor insertions to complete) and sampled various refreshments in an assortment of locations.
Paul thinks that our concept of an all-inclusive day rate is an excellent idea and is intent on breaking the budget whenever possible over the next few days he has with us.
In the cold light of a dull day Medellin is not so attractive and there are certainly many areas and Favelas that you would not want to enter into.
Our task today looked on paper to be very simple. A short journey of 126 miles down the Southern Pan American Highway from Medellin to our chosen destination of a coffee plantation close to Manizales.
However our experiences so far of such journeys indicated that our UK thinking of two hours was not realistic and probably English Kate on Waze was more acute at 5+ hours. A closer examination of the map showed in particular how technical the final 30 mile section between La Pintada and Manizales would be.
I took the wheel and promised to take it easy as Mike had injured his back whilst writing on the PC last evening [at least that is how he said it happened]. We headed out of town, climbing steadily on a reasonably good road although slightly damp, accompanied by trucks, artics, buses and myriads of motorbikes and mopeds which are the chosen type of transport for the majority of Colombians.
At one point on reaching high altitude we then faced almost a complete blackout as we became shrouded in mist for a few miles with visibility at some times reaching 20 yards if we were lucky, adding even more challenges to contend with.
Road signs regularly indicated that we would also need to contend with people targeting our van type vehicle in their saloon cars.
Good progress was being made in the middle section of the journey as we threaded our way through the slower moving vehicles when ‘safe’ opportunities arose, which are few and far between when you are four up in a massively underpowered Dodge!
However, although the rain had ceased, and we had better visibility, the roads soon deteriorated and we spent as much time stationary waiting at road works, watching long convoys of vehicles coming the other way, while waiting for the worker (this is a job for ladies in Colombia) to change the red Pare sign to the green Siga sign which could take up to 20 mins due to the length of the road works. We had probably 20 such stops.
The Pan American Highway is an inappropriate name as many, many miles are not a highway at all but an unmade track probably in the same condition as when it was constructed in 1937.
The “Infrastructure Improvements Ministry” have a major job to reconstruct as a large % of the road we were on today is being worked on. It is not just laying new tarmac but contending with landslides and rockfalls from the ‘ravine style’ cliffs where the road has been cut into that are common place. There is much evidence to support this comment and some is very recent where roads can be blocked for hours or days and there is no alternative.
We were actually hit by some stones from a mini slide today adding more damage to our vehicle, but thankful it was not to the scale of the one shown above.
Now down to an average of 20 miles per hour with speeds ranging from 5-10 and 50-60 miles an hour we think this guy had the better idea as at least he didn’t need to stop at road works.
The weather was brightening all the time and the scenery was just stunning with incredibly beautiful valleys and some fairly large peaks as we are now in the Little Andes mountain range region.
Our destination drew closer each hour as we entered coffee growing territory which meant seeing a little more structure to the scenery.
Finally, after 5 and a half hours, without a stop, and sadly not being pulled over by the Police, we arrived at our coffee plantation Hacienda Venecia.
We have two nights here as tomorrow is a rest day, so time to catch up on some admin, meet new friends as there are 7 others staying here and it is communal dining.
There are optional activities available, some we will participate in, and some we won’t, but you will here more about that tomorrow Day 33, a day when we don’t need to drive or wait in traffic obeying the working ladies’ instructions.
Our America’s Challenge Drive 