I left Villa Vicencio at noon after meeting with a friend and waiting out the rain. Richard is from France but moved here. He used to work in Bogota for 6 years and then moved back to his ranch where he has more free time. I pulled out a map and we looked at it, they had no idea where I was going and neither did I. It was a green line to a town but I had never seen green lines before, dotted red line just meant a trail.

It was great to be back in the mountains and so was the cool weather. It rained a little more than I would have liked it to but not enough to get cold.

definitely appreciating the fat tires here

I went past many empty houses spoke to a man at the first house with a light. He told me that many people go to the town to work, he was the only one of his family living here and milking 30 cows. He told me more about the trail and that it is for horses, if a horse can make it, carrying 100+ kilograms of beans, I surely can!

considered camping here but sometimes these shrines are in memory of somebody who has died on the curve

In the morning I got to Monfort, where the trail starts. Possibly one of the littlest town in Colombia. There were 3 stores but they all sold candy and chips, few other supplies but no fresh veggies.

The trail did not look that bad, some downhills/flat sections were rideable. Other times it can be a little sketchy with the wet ground from the rain and the narrow hillside passages.

The funny thing is that people will look at the fatbike tire tracks and think that somebody drove a moto through here. Legends will be told and songs would be sung, who is the motorcyclist that was here?

I tried carrying the bike in parts but unless there were huge rocks, pushing definitely meant less effort.

just when you think you are badass, a mule comes strolling in with 125kg of beans

Later I spotted a school and remembered that my friend told me I can sleep there. I thought I would be out of the trail today but I am barely half way, tired and 4pm. A roof sounds, clean ground and water sounds like a good idea. Normally rain at camp is kind of gloomy but it was different now. At night there were four lights up the hills. Funny to think that getting to any one of these would take at least a day and likely not possible with a bike.

Morning was great, trail conditions vastly improved, making for easy pushing and eventually I was able to ride for a while. On the steep descends I could really appreciate the extra cushion and much stronger grip of the big tires.

Both horses, mules and cows were stoked to see me. A mule promptly took cover behind a rock, ignoring me and staring at the bike.

Significant effort went into building the bridges, for which I am glad. Imagine having to cross one of these streams/rivers manually?

a lot of donkey sweat goes into building those bridges, i imagine that is how they haul everything here

San Juanito was a nice town. A $2 lunch and $5 room. I also met with three locals who hiked the trail from Montfort around the same time as I. I thought I would get a break but the school was just out:
"Can I ride it?"
"No, it's too big for you"
"Can he ride it?"
"It's too big for him too."
"How about him?"
"He is too old."

at the city center, a tribute to the mules and their hard work keeping the bean shelves full! I like how they even went through the trouble to bring rocks in.

Leaving town the next morning left me with many questions. On its crest there are people shaking hands. Who are they and why are they shaking hands? Then is another hand holding out a tree? They don't even have pine trees here.

It was a big climb in the fog but after the last two days it felt like cake.

Then all of a sudden, woah. Paramo!

There wasn't any official entrance or signs so I went on to find nice camping on a river bank and think about the next few days. There was a neat road climbing up and toward Bogota.

Just after I set up, a ranger came and told me that there is no camping in this park, there are no bikes allowed too because its dangerous and bicycles have no insurance. The road toward Bogota is off limits too.
We went to the ranger HQ and I set up at the old house, probably a good thing as it poured all night. The new route not only avoids the capital but has some very interesting red and green dotted lines all over the mountains.

In the morning the FOMO was real, as friend describes it: Fear Of Missing Out. With the clouds I could not see much but I am sure there would be some sunny days ahead.

Soaking wet and cold, halfway down the decend, a car stopped and asked me if I wanted to talk to them in their ranch, few km up the road.

= bread. infact, the best bread in Colombia!

Yaki, Oscar, Gabriel and Matias are big cyclists too and I had great time staying warm and dry at the grandparents´s ranch. They showed me around and the dogs and the fire warmed my hands. The grandparents live here and have 3 cows, 30 chickens and two dogs. Oscar´s ranch is just down the road and he is working on it and hoping to restore some of the native vegetation and make it a frog sanctuary.

We then took off with Mathias to ride down to Fomeque, it was his first time on a pedal bike and it was such a great place to learn.

Somewhere along the way, I became very happy that Chingaza national park had such silly no bike rules, spending time with my new friends in Fomeque was great and from here there are many routes including Paramo, not part of a national park. And although I wanted to make this post longer, I am at the limit of what a computer can handle before squarespace starts crashing and not saving, so... until then.