The day started out great. Road construction, or so it seemed because the road was muddy and it was like the start of a motorcycle race, free for all to the first corner but with a twist, there was traffic coming the other way. LOL Unbelievable organized chaos at its best!!
Stopped for a quick snack at a cheese stand.
Man and beast hauling coffee beans to the processing plant.
Typical roadside home with the laundry hanging on the fence, since the back yard is a steep cliff.. Seems like everyday is laundry day in Latin America and laundry can be seen anytime hanging on fences, make shift clothes lines on roof tops, guard rails, barb wire fences, tires, you name it. Coffee beans are drying in the foreground on the burlap.
Roadside repair shop of some sort complete with compressor.
You can see the road cut into the side of the mountain.
Yup, another landslide. Waited half hour for them to clear a path. In the meantime ....
.... a crowd gathered around the bikes.
and RobC handed out our postcards with the blog address. Everybody, mostly truck drivers, were eager to have one of the cards.
A photo just doesn`t do justice to what we actually saw. Not sure how to capture such raw beauty.
The white thing is a tunnel we passed through.
The road into Pasto, the last 60km to be exact, was some of the best to date. Extreme twisty roads, with views of the valley, mountains and steep drop offs that left you breathless, but you dare not take your eyes off the road too long, as the next curve was seconds away!!! Incredible.
A day on the Colombian roads .... no chicken stripes!!
Still working on the front ones.
Rolled into Pasto where we received the warmest reception to date! A young fellow by the name of Oscar led us to a great hotel, The Loft. We parked on the sidewalk out front and drew a crowd of literally dozens of people. They gathered around our bike asking where we came from, where we were going, etc. More people stopped to take a look at the bikes and moved on. These were not just youngsters and motorcycle enthusiasts, but they were people from all walks of life, from young to old, from street people to shirt and tie. Felt a little embarrassed by it all to be honest, as it felt like they were treating us like celebrities.
Our friend Oscar, in the orange vest..
Tomorrow we should be getting into Ecuador.
Posts
Hey, guys!
ReplyDeleteI only just found out about your adventure from the PC department (Danieta) and passed your blog address around to all the project managers. What an incredible adventure! The pictures are amazing - we're all cheering for you!
- Kate U. at Corporate Translations, Inc.
Hi Kate,
ReplyDeleteI am happy you joined us,in spite of having to catch up a bit on your reading. Thank you for passing the blog address around to the PMs. You know you all are my favorite people.
Enjoy the winter in the northern hemisphere, we just passed the equator yesterday, and into the summer.
RobC
Pasto is just beautiful, and the pastucitos are the kindest people...I am very glad you guys had such a good time in Colombia. As many other countries, we have gone -and are still going- through some socio- political issues, but must people just want to live a good life and to help others.Have fun in Ecuador and keep us informed of your everyday adventures in this new territory.
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