Milagros

Here in Cali, Colombia, I have reconnected with a long lost sister.  Ana Maria Casasfranco lived with my family in Connecticut in 1979-1980 as an AFS (American Field Serivce) exchange student.  I was off at college, but have fond memories of her when I returned to Darien for holidays. (It took the evidence of her scrapbook for either of us to remember that she had even attended my Middlebury college graduation.) 

Ana Maria with my sisters Elizabeth, Amy and Alison

My parents lost touch with Ana Maria about 20 years ago when they moved from Connecticut to Vermont.  But Mom thought that Casasfranco was a fairly unusual name in Colombia and suggested that when in Cali, I find a phonebook and see if I could track Ana Maria down. A few days before leaving Florida, I used PhoneFacebook to try to find Ana Maria, and (of course) my mom was right: there was Ana Maria Casasfranco, little changed from the 17 year old girl I knew 35 years ago.

Besides a sister, Ana Maria has been a guardian angel to us in Colombia.  We stayed in her beautiful apartment in Cartagena, and took advantage of the advice and hospitality of her family as we traveled.  Here in Cali she has welcomed us, nurtured us and surrounded us with the warm embrace of her family and her world.  In fact, we have been taken in and charmed by the entire extended families of both Ana Maria and her husband Fernando. 

Lunch at the 26th

We arrived in Cali on October 5, after a 2-day marathon drive by Luc through the mountains from San Gil with a stop overnight near Bogota.  I had picked up some sort of stomach bug in Santa Marta, and had my first real meal in 7 days at her sister, Amparito’s, home outside of Bogota.  Chicken has never tasted so good!

Amparito and Juan Carlos' house near Bogota

We arrived at the beginning of a school vacation.  We were welcomed by Ana Maria, her husband Fernando and their 14 year old daughter Elena.  Ana Maria whisked us off to Lago Calima, where we stayed in her sister Diana’s beautiful house.  Lago Calima has a consistent afternoon wind that makes it a wind and kite surfing mecca in South America. We enjoyed several days of R&R with her daughter Elena and two of her friends, Natalia and Catalina.  Many students here attend bilingual schools, and we had mutual extensive second language practice with them!

Lago Calima with a corner of the deck

Elena and her friends with the wonderful sushi they made

Back in Cali, Ana Maria and Fernando’s two other children, Emilio and Mariana arrived home for their cousin’s wedding.  They share an apartment together in Bogota where he is a student and she works for the government in the peace process with the FARC. We enjoyed these two so much!

Fernando, Mariana, Elena, Ana Maria and Emilio

The arms of the extended family once again surrounded us, and we were invited to the wedding of their cousin Mauricio Otoya and Beatriz Mondragon.  But first we were prepared in Cali style.  Here I am dressed in Ana Maria’s sister Maria Virginia’s dress, Luc’s outfit courtesy of Fernando.  I also received my first make over, including a full mani-pedi!

The wedding itself was an incredible affair.  We sat at a table with a group of young parents who had all attended bilingual schools and studied or worked abroad.  Everything you have heard about Salsa in Cali is true. An incredible 15+ person band started up after dinner and the dance floor was instantly packed!   We staggered home at about 1:30, missing the mariachi band that arrived at 3:00 AM.  The kids rolled in with the sunrise.

Luc on the dance floor with Ana Maria

Elena and Mariana

Men in traditional white shirts, with the bride

The next day we were off to the 26th.   Outside of Cali, everything is identified by the number of kilometers it is outside of the city.  The hill at the18th is a well know respite from the heat of Cali. 

The house at the 26th

We pressed on to the beautiful country house at the 26th where we enjoyed hiking, biking, a tea plantation, oldeas and merengues (two local desserts) and a family evening of cards.   We spent a lovely evening talking with Carlos. He is a doctor who attended a Swiss bilingual school in Bogota and conversed with us impeccable Swiss french. The next day we visited his beautiful home.

Tea Plantation

Mariana, Luc, Carlos, me and Fernando

In all of this, we were whipped back into shape. Luc enjoyed several vigorous bike rides with Fernando, Emilio and their friend Mauro. I climbed up to the hill of 3 crosses and got a little stronger every time.

Emilio, Luc, Mauro and Fernando at the top of 3 cruses

Reliving memories from Madison, Wisconsin with Ana Maria's parents

Dad gives the kids a ride to school

We saw a bit of Cali, too!

A Cali Cat in downtown Cali

Luc got the van and trailer in shape with his new friend Edier, and we finally piled back into the van on October 17, heading toward Ecuador.

Luc and Edier, mechanic extraordinaire

Luc and Fernando, ready to ride

 At the wedding

What a incredible 2 weeks we spent with the Ana Maria, Fernando and their wonderful extended family.  We are looking forward to seeing them again on our way back home next year, and to their visits to Vermont where we will be challenged to live up to their incredible hospitality.

First week of riding in Colombia

I would like to shed some light on the motorcycle traveling. Jen does a marvelous job of writing on all the rest of our trip, but she does not talk about that big bike.

On August 20th, after 3 days at the Contacar, (shipyard with miles of containers), and at the Dian, (Customs), I finally drove the camper van out of the yard with the trailer attached behind. No one, unless you have been here, could imagine how nervous I was to drive in the total chaos of cars, trucks, motos, taxis, mototaxis, and all of them changing lane every 10 seconds. The only way that I know is to be aggressive and join the crowd with the trailer attached to the van. Everything went well for about 20 minutes until an idiot slightly touched the back of the trailer with his front wheel. I stopped and waited for about 1 minute until I got an opening in front of me, and went ahead, charging again. It took about 45 minutes to get out of Cartagena. ( Just to show the ratio of cars to motos...and imagine all of them mixed up in the small city streets…)

Then everything got easier because we were in the country. We stopped in Clemencia to visit with Victor Manuel Coneo, our friend from Cartagena. Check Jen's blog and you will know the rest.

I did not ride the first 150 km to Santa Marta. After the campground robbery: Jen's computer, iPhone, and my motorcycle rain gear, I decided that it was time to ride. Getting out of Rodadero, next to Santa Marta, was not a lot of fun: dirt roads with holes and rocks. My big bike is really hard to ride in rough terrain at slow speed, but I made it out after one close call…

Finally, I was on the road behind the van, and sometimes ahead of it, with so many trucks on the road. When you sit on the bike, you get very close to nature. In the van, you are remote from it. It was so luxurious, with so many exotic trees, fruit trees, and palm trees. 

Riding in 95 F is tiring.

 I did not want to take my jacket and pants off because I needed the protection in case of a fall. I was so happy that I purchased a Summer jacket when we were visiting Katie and Alex in Fort Myers.

The bike is comfortable and easy to handle on the highway but not at all in the little towns with the very narrow streets, and the motos and the cars, and the trucks, and the mules, all on very rough pavement or dirt.

At the end of the 3rd day, we stopped in a little town and asked the Policia to park the bike near theirs. The chief told me that he could not authorize me because it was a national law that nothing should interfere in case of emergency. The FARC is active in that region so you want to be as safe as possible. The police chief went with us and found us a hotel with a closed gate courtyard. He then took me back to the bike in the middle of the town. I offered him to ride my bike to the hotel while I got a ride with his assistant on the back of a police bike. I am sure that he will remember this forever. He was so happy. He was a big guy, young and strong. The Policia has super riding skills: they sure know how to handle a bike.

 I will not describe every riding day but there are 2 that I will remember for a long time. The first is riding through Bucaramanga on our way to Giron. So much traffic, and a traffic jam on top of that for around 1 hr.,and the heat! I was so scared that the bike would overheat. Giron is a very old city with cobble stones, and rocks and steep streets. Wow! Going downhill on super, super, super rough surface, I tipped over at a stop. I know that I should never turn the front wheel sideways when stopping on a downhill...One guy helped me out: good thing that my injury was only to my pride!

The best day of the ride was the next one through canyons and roads similar to the Ap Gap, but for about 80 kms. It was so much fun! I left the van behind, sprint through the twisties, waited for the van and repeated again. What a blast! My rear tire has had about 8,000 miles on highway. The center is very worn out but the sides are almost brand new. I was so proud of myself when I took a look at the tires after lunch, with another 50 km to go. The sides were all black, meaning that I was leaning my monster bike quite a bit. No touching the pavement with the stand….It might come! 

Later in the day, we stopped to visit a Colombian Parque. We took a very new lift, Poma cabins, to go to the other mountain, a little bit like the connector lift at Sugarbush. This lift shut down for 2 hrs, so we got back to our vehicles around 5:15 pm, and it got dark at 6:15 pm. Then, the traffic got extremely heavy with a multitude of  trucks on the road: 10 to 12 eighteen wheelers in a row, continuously. And the rain decided to come, and the temperature dropped a good 20 degrees. We were going about 5 to 10 m/p/h and stopping all the time. Jen was dead tired with Montezuma, and I was also really tired with Montezuma Jr…After 2 hrs of this atrocity of stop and go, and stalling the bike once with a trailer truck about 6” from my back wheel, and getting cold, we saw a truck stop that had rooms to rent. We pulled in, ate and went to bed.

In those twisty mountain roads, in every curve, the trucks go way into the other lane before getting into the turn itself. It means that when you are in the other lane, you must be way to the right of the road. It makes you go deep into the turn at the initiation. (Think skiing…)

 I finally put the trailer together to give a chance to Jen to recover. The next stretch of road was a good 10 hrs and the day after was another 12 hrs to Cali.

I will start riding again as soon as we get out of Cali.

I just heard that Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile are easier to drive. We will see if I made a good choice to bring this Beast of a bike to South America. So far, after having almost crossed Colombia, I would have been better to ride a BMW GS 650 instead of a GS 1200. The key is to make sure that you have good skills on the dirt roads. This will improve your overall experience. I got a lot of practice ahead of me...

From Santa Marta to San Gil

Chicamocha National Park

We finally got the show on the road on Sunday, September 28, Luc on the bike and me behind the wheel of the van.  Our first stop was Aracataca, known as the magical town of Macondo in Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude.  Asking for directions to a hostel we had read about in the guide book, we were directed instead to the museum that is the former home of the writer.  We parked and I set off with my guidebook to track down the hostel while Luc settled in to a comfortable visit in the shade with the Mejio Rodriguez family, whose home is right next to the museum. I returned an hour later with the news that the hostel had closed a few months before.  By then, Luc had fully been taken in by this lovely family. We spent the rest of the afternoon on their front porch, got a guided tour of the museum, then pulled the van and motorcycle into their courtyard for the night.  We had a lovely dinner with Caridad and her friend Paulita at a restaurant called El Patio Magico de Gabo y Leo Matiz.  Everyone in this town has stories to tell and photos to share about Garcia Marquez who died earlier this year.  

with the Mejio Rodrieguez family

El Patio Magico con Paulita

Caridad

But for me the most magical part of our stay in Aracataca was discovering for the first time the depth of pride Colombians have of their beautiful country and their willingness to share their hearts and (literally) their homes with perfect strangers.  This family, like so many Colombian families, houses several generations and businesses under one roof.  Marlon, a former aircraft technician and his sister Caridad live with their 94 year old mother and several other members of their extended family.  Their sister Matilde, who lives a few blocks away, runs a school for 85 children in the back of the house where they have built classrooms.  We parked in the courtyard that is also the playground 6 days a week.

Marlon on the bike

From Aracataca our goal was to rendezvous with our friend Fiona near Bucaramanga in the Santander.  Fiona is the English woman we met in Cartagena who is riding her bicycle alone around Colombia.  Her friend Steve, an Ecuadorian born and raised in NYC, had just flown in from Lima where he had been trekking.  But first, we had a few chores to do:  empty the van's black and grey water, and find way to refill our propane tank so we could continue running our fridge and stove top.  Each of these ended up being a half day project. 

We stopped at a truck/bus stop (more on truck stops in a minute) and found some truckers who we thought might have some suggestions about how to accomplish our chores.  One man, David, took us in.  He had Luc move the motorcycle to a safe place where someone would keep an eye on it, then hopped in the van with us for the sewage and propane tour of Aquachica.  After a few stops, he was behind the wheel of the van and tooting his horn at his friends as we drove by.  The director of the Aguachica port-o-let business arranged for a truck to return to the office and we were soon emptying our tank.

with David and another friend

The next day outside of Bucaramanga, we found one of the propane company David had directed us to.   Unauthorized vehicles are not allowed on the grounds of a gas company, but they pulled a gas truck up to our van just outside the gate and, after security checks gave us a fill-up.

We had left the Sierra Nevada mountains of northern Colombia and by now twisting up and down the significantly more serious curves of the northern Andes.  In Colombia, there are three separate, parallel Andean chains, the Codillera Occidental, Central and Oriental.  Colombia is currently making an incredible investment in its infrastructure, and roads are under construction everywhere.  Nonetheless, we were often traveling app-gap style roads for hours at a time on the major truck route from Cartagena to Bogata.  Having adapted the local driving style, I am now able to pass multiple semi trucks at a time of curves.  Eek.

Along the way, we spent several nights in Colombia truck stops called Hospedaje.  There is usually a good restaurant, run by one part of an extended family.  Another part of the family will rent a row of small clean rooms with simple beds and a bathroom with cold water, the Hospedaje.  A third part of the business is a round-the-clock truck washing and oil-changing business.  Trucks and cars here are immaculate here, putting our van and trailer to shame.  

Between tours of our casa-movile and the chance to be photographed sitting on Luc's mega-motorcycle, we feel like we have a little something to offer all of the people who have been so open and generous with us.  It is also a great way for us to practice our Spanish, which is relatively good at this point as long as we stay within the limited spheres of food, where to sleep, how many cc's is the bike, how much things cost (from breakfast to the van).

The chief of police in Pailitas 

Fiona and Steve

We connected with Steve and Fiona in Giron, where Luc found the cobblestones more than challenging.  We headed from there to San Gil, well known as the adventure sports capital of Colombia.  First we passed through one of many astounding National Parks, the park of Chicamocha, where we rode a gondola down the valley and up the other side.  The gondola inexplicably shut down for 2 hours while we were on the other side, so at 6 PM we were in the dark on a winding steep road in 3k per hour truck traffic.  Fiona suggested spending the night an a Hospedaje, and one magically appeared within minutes.

Giron

 At this point I was on my 4th day of a strict imodium and gatorade diet, so I was happy to pull into the Campestre San Marco in San Gil the next day with its beautiful pool (read: lounge chairs) and gallery of parrots saying "hola, hola".  I did manage a hike to the beautiful Cascades de Juan Curi, where Fiona even took a swim!  

Campestre San Marco

Cascadas de Juan Curi

It was great to reconnect with our friends and to experience a bit more of Colombia without the barrier of the windshield.  Steve and Fiona headed off to colonial Barichara and Luc hooked up the trailer to save me the two day mountain drive to Cali where I have reconnected with Ana Maria Casasfranco, who lived with my family as an exchange student in 1979, and her wonderful family.  But that is the next installment.