our nice paved road deteriorates
here we are high in the mountains between Bogota and Medellin
in Florencia - some of our constant companions
some slimy roads
into the mountains - guerrilla territory...coca and FARCOkay here goes the unexpected adventure – we are leaving Bogota, Colombia after a couple of days and are heading to Medellin. We are tired of the slow trucks and buses and see a secondary road marked on our map that goes to Medellin and travels through the mountains. Great, we think – the trucks will stay on the relatively flat main roads and we can cruise the curvy mountain roads. So we head off to El Dorado where we spend the night. A nice little town with friendly people. The only odd thing is the airport that is marked on the map does not appear to be a commercial one, but one where noisy fighter jets are taking off quite regularly. Chris has to bump start his bike, but other than that, the takeoff was uneventful. According to our map and Felix’s GPS it is only about 150kms to Medellin so we expect to get there early. On the road and start to climb into the mountains – great riding, no traffic and winding roads. The roads gradually deteriorate from pavement with some gravel to downright rough, narrow, sharp rocky dirt roads winding through the mountains and the odd house along the road. Lori makes the offhand comment that she is expecting to see the coca fields any time now. When we stop for lunch in Naconsi, we are told that it is still 5 hours to Sonson. We are sure there is a mistake and they don’t know what they are talking about. Later, we stop for a quick break and realize that at the last stop Lori has left the camera on top of the bike when she took off, and it is no longer with us. Chris hops on the 250 and cruises back 8km to find the camera in the middle of the road, squashed by the only truck we had seen on the road.(this has been a very hard trip on cameras!) At this stop, a jeep comes past and tells us we are still 8 hours to Medellin – this is at 2:30 in the afternoon and that we will soon be in Florencia where we should stay as there are no towns for 4 hours between Florencia and Sonson. We arrive in Florencia and debate whether to push on and camp along the way or stay in Florencia. After some discussion, we head to the centro where there is a decent place to stay. While we are debating what to do we notice the town is full of army and police and an army helicopter lands at the centro and more army get out. Everyone looks a little surprised to see us. We get settled into the hotel and Felix goes for a 10km training run and Chris and Lori set off to explore the town. We are approached by the military commander who speaks decent English and he wants to see our passports and know what we are doing in this town and how we got here. Turns out that we are in the middle of FARC Guerrilla territory and now that we are here, the army wants to know our every move so they can ‘coordinate security for our activities’. (they are very upset that Felix has gone off running into the hills and we have no way to contact him). We explain that we are just planning on exploring the town, spending the night and heading to Sonson the next day.
They want us to check in with them before we leave in the morning and they are going to secure the road to Sonson before we travel on it (it is still 5 hours ride to Sonson). They are surprised that we managed to get through Naconsi without being stopped by the army and even more surprised that we hadn’t yet run into any trouble. We decide to return the 2 hours to Naconsi the next day and travel to Medellin by the main Bogota-Medellin highway.
The day and night spent in that town were amazing. They had literally never had any foreign tourists there and hardly any Colombians from elsewhere there either. All the kids in town and the adults gathered around talking to us and we couldn’t go anywhere without attracting a huge crowd of people. The kids were great – they were learning English in school so it was fun to talk to them and their English teacher and her brother met us later that night for coffee. She was telling us that 3 years earlier, the FARC had terrorized this village of 1,300 people. They would come out of the hills into the town and just take whatever they needed from the people. So now that the army and police are thick in the town, it is no longer a FARC stronghold, but they are still around in the mountains and it is dangerous to travel on the roads outside the town (especially for us).
The feeling in the town is of a place divided. Obviously there are still FARC supporters in town so not everyone appreciates the heavy police presence. It is so interesting to see how the conflict in Colombia has affected people in these remote mountain villages. People are super friendly but are very careful when talking about local politics. One of the locals that looked after the Florencia jungle reserve next to the village wanted to take us exploring in the mountains, obviously feeling that it was totally safe for us, but we decided we had already pushed our luck and would leave early the next day. It felt surprisingly sad to leave this little town and we had a large part of the village population standing outside waving us goodbye as we rolled down the road.
They want us to check in with them before we leave in the morning and they are going to secure the road to Sonson before we travel on it (it is still 5 hours ride to Sonson). They are surprised that we managed to get through Naconsi without being stopped by the army and even more surprised that we hadn’t yet run into any trouble. We decide to return the 2 hours to Naconsi the next day and travel to Medellin by the main Bogota-Medellin highway.
The day and night spent in that town were amazing. They had literally never had any foreign tourists there and hardly any Colombians from elsewhere there either. All the kids in town and the adults gathered around talking to us and we couldn’t go anywhere without attracting a huge crowd of people. The kids were great – they were learning English in school so it was fun to talk to them and their English teacher and her brother met us later that night for coffee. She was telling us that 3 years earlier, the FARC had terrorized this village of 1,300 people. They would come out of the hills into the town and just take whatever they needed from the people. So now that the army and police are thick in the town, it is no longer a FARC stronghold, but they are still around in the mountains and it is dangerous to travel on the roads outside the town (especially for us).
The feeling in the town is of a place divided. Obviously there are still FARC supporters in town so not everyone appreciates the heavy police presence. It is so interesting to see how the conflict in Colombia has affected people in these remote mountain villages. People are super friendly but are very careful when talking about local politics. One of the locals that looked after the Florencia jungle reserve next to the village wanted to take us exploring in the mountains, obviously feeling that it was totally safe for us, but we decided we had already pushed our luck and would leave early the next day. It felt surprisingly sad to leave this little town and we had a large part of the village population standing outside waving us goodbye as we rolled down the road.
