Today was the big climb! Alto de Letras is reputed to be the longest climb in the world at just about 80km. It climbs about 3700m across the Cordillera Central, the middle part of the Andes here in Colombia. We had a detailed briefing last night and some interesting charts on the scale of the…
Monday, Day 2: Viani to Mariquita 99km 650m
Definitely a day of two halves! A short climb out of the overnight stump village, which was a small remote rural village, followed by a spectacular descent of about 45km then about 50km along a busy hot highway in the valley, on a road that just gradually climbed throughout. The descent today was one which…
Sunday, Day 1 Cajica to Viani 99km 1200m
First proper day of the tour finally and my plan was to ride conservatively until I get used to the altitude. We had a long briefing at the start of the day with all the safety matters covered from busy roads, wearing sunscreen ( we are at altitude and near the equator, which is a…
Saturday: Getting ready to start
Today the group I’m with met for the first time. There are 7 riders, 4 ladies, 3 men, from the Uk, Canada and the USA. We are supported by 2 tour guides and two drivers. A bit of a hanging around morning, our obligatory covid briefing, then after about first lunch together we transferred out…
Bogotá days, Friday
After yesterdays experience of cycling in the city, I didn’t really fancy risking it again today, so instead I did a bit more acclimatising by walking up to Mount Monserrate, which has a monastery at the top. You can see this landmark from the city, a white church on the top of a big hill….
Bogotá days, Thursday
I decided to come out early before the formal trip start day to get chance to look around Bogotá and also acclimatise to the altitude, time zone and climate before we start cycling proper. The first morning I rebuild my bike out of its travel bike bag and decided to give it a spin out…
The Journey to Colombia
The journey to getting to Colombia has two parts: the planning and training, then actually flying out after two years of restrictions on travel abroad. I’d had my eye on this trip with Skedaddle https://www.skedaddle.com for a while but with all the uncertainty and flip flopping by government s on travel restrictions, it wasn’t until about just…
Stephanie in Colombia 2022 