February 8, 2017. Santa Rosa de Cabal, Colombia
So after a little break from cycling and a lot of video editing with two videos barely finished I decided to go out on a ride to Los Nevados, which has been my first impression of Colombia (when Nickolas Gault did it). It somehow set the expectations for the future. With only 2.5 days however, I arrived at Santa Rosa de Cabal in the evening.

With Deadhorse clinking and clanking worse than ever, I moved up a surprisingly well graded road. I managed to get a $5 v-brake for the rear since the BB7 had finally melted off in an unrepairable way.

A man from Pereira pedaled up with me for a ways, it was great to have company and definitely helped me to go faster.

I was in horse and cow country, a man resting up on the hillside and watching his friends gather the cows explained to me why the horse next to my bike was wet. Apparently horses can sweat! I watched him go uphill and gather the cows resulting in a minefield for me.

Just when you think cows cannot be cute, your expectations can easily shatter

I pulled off to camp at 3200m but despite gathering the wood, it never got cold enough for a fire. Listening to the sounds of the forest under the full moon, I could not see any lights anywhere.

I continued riding through photogenic landscapes and unphotogenic cows with the smoking volcano in the distance. Nevado del Ruiz.

Somewhere above the cows and the horses and the potato fields, rain caught up to me. I hid in an abandoned building when a dog-friend came by and surprised me. We went together up a little ways.

Then it was bird country, very nice to see something other than cows.

Laguna de Otun was prohibited for bicycles so I continued on toward the 4800m pass, which is also closed.

these fences are to keep the cows out from the fincas below, last thing you want is letting the bovines on the loose in the high altitude natural park.

At 4000m I spotted a bobcat or a lynx with a rabbit in its mouth but it quickly ran off before I could take out the camera. The rain started pouring and I, unheroically spread my tent fly from the top of my bike using bottles and bags and selfie stick to hold it above me. I fell asleep for a little bit and set up my tent when I woke up. For a moment or two the skies cleared up offering barely a glimpse at the massive mountains.

I woke up just 30minutes before my 12:30 alarm with blasting headache, the worst I have ever had, must be altitude sickness. I wondered if I could still push my bike another 800+ vertical meters to the pass but decided not to. By the morning the headache was a little better and I snoozed from 6am until 8am when the sun finally came out and melted the frost on my tent.

There will be another go at the forbidden pass but I need to return to Manizales today.

All in all, it was a good morning, only few hundred meters down the headache was gone and I was enjoying the sun just like this horse

I hung out for a bit with the ranger at a small house, he wrote my name, took two photos of me but i gave him a fake passport number. He confirmed the pass was still closed and the road from Laguna de Otun is not possible on bike. We will have to see about those...

Back into cow territory, this kid pointed up to the hill indicating where all the camps are as he tied 40L jugs to the horse cart.

Another Carlos (Carlos was the ranger earlier) walked up with his radio. When I asked to take a photo of him he put the radio behind his back but I told him it looked good.

I stopped to say hi and pet some dogs at a house which turned into a 40minute break. Such an amazing atmosphere here, my new friends told me that Colombians are some of the happies contries on earth and i believe them. One of them assured my ideas to take some hiking trails with my bike.

Well into cow country I stumbled upon a mini-sawmill.

This is actually the last ride for Deadhorse, although I really wanted to do the pass this was also a good way down.

Jose, a man from Manizales rode up behind me and decided to accompany me on the way down, not worried that I am slowing him down we spent a lot of time riding and a lot of time pushing our bikes up.

We were about to take the chairlift to the top of Manizales but it was sadly closed.

Midway to his place I found a restaurant where I can mooch wifi, work on videos and update blogs until I catch the night bus to Bogota.

NIGHT BUS TO BOGOTA.
I made the mistake of moving the curtain and looking outside. With the full moon you can see the hillsides and the towns and villages far away. You could also see the bus driver passing semi's like a madman, around corner, one truck.. two trucks... two and a car at a time. All in all I only fell asleep for the last little bit before Bogota. A very nice moment passing by the Avianca office and thinking that if the agent did not refuse to book my penalty ticket without an exit ticket out of colombia I would have missed Morocco and Spain!

garbage pile unintended. Avianca has awesome food on their airplanes!

Already at 2600m but feeling like on the bottom of the ocean with all these tall mountains standing around, all covered in cellphone towers.

It has been a long time coming and with the help of many people, namely Paulo, Chris and Fuzzy (from fatback bikes) but I was finally getting some bike upgrade. Not once have I felt the need for bigger tires on these roads I am on, so this was it. I just gotta figure out what goes where...

In my effort to hurry up a little and get to Argentina I had thought of a quick way through Ecuador, maybe do a quick one through Colombia too... that's when Luis comes in. He invited me to join him for 10 days on a bike ride and chose a route heading in the completely opposite direction to the most eastern town in Colombia and next to Venezuela.

He even had a rafting component planned and all his gear laid out nicely.

I had everything laid out nicely in my own way too...

After few years of that the bike was finally ready! Fathorse! Used wheels from team CoreCO (Chris Murray was the one who built them though so I am ok with that), Chris also managed to find new and used stuff at amazing price for the rest of the components and Fuzzy from Fatback helped me out with a Rhino FLT frame. Paulo and his aunt helped me smuggle frame and parts from USA to Colombia over 3 months (haha!).

I had also grown tired of lugging the laptop around, its a heavy piece of a laptop, add the mouse, charger and harddrives. For now it will stay in Bogota and I will take a chance with UPS or whatever else there is when I need to make more videos. I put the finishing touches of SEE THE WORLD #17, Morocco (The High Atlas), which I feel is one of the best episodes. Everything seemed to flow well and the life in the Moroccoan mountains was as unique as ever.

So yeah... to be continued...