It is always hard to sum up over a weeks worth of travel, but I will give it a shot.

We left Cartagena amongst a spree of scooters and buses. We headed out onto a nice flat easy highway that left the city quickly and we made it 60 kilometers to a small rural gas station where some young kids running the place let us sleep under a small palm branch shelter. They shared with us coffee, yuca and some fried fish. It was a very nice introduction to Colombia. People say that Colombians are talkative and are chatty. It is very true. Wherever we go people stop and ask where we are from. In fact, we probably spend up to an hour a day speaking with random people at gas stations, market stores, and anywhere else we decide to take a break. It also makes Merilee a happy camper because she does not have to try and keep conversations going anymore. On the other hand we still meet odd folks. For example, we stopped for lunch one afternoon. While I was fixing a spoke (again) a dude came up and started to talk with us. Quickly though, he decided it would be better if he sat in the road and just looked at us. So, Merilee and I decided to move on as we did not want to eat lunch in front of the random guy not saying anything. Another guy stopped us when Merilee was taking a picture and told us to take his picture because he is a traveler too. And we should send it to some random town. Alright then.

Colombians, we have also discovered, can have a very hard Spanish accent to understand. A couple of nights later we stayed in Sahagun where neither Merilee or I could hardly understand people. Later, we asked folks we met in other places about the town and everyone agreed that Sahagun has a strong coastal accent, which differs from the rest of the country. But, Sahagun was very kind to us, and the school of fine arts let us sleep on the floor of one of their classrooms surrounded by giant paintings. One of which was a man defecating on a stump from a tree he had cut down. It is famous in Spain I hear, but that is a lot of work just to poop.

Another odd fact about many countries we have gone through are what small town communities are built upon. Often times we will drive through a town and everyone will be selling the same one or two things. For example, in Oaxaca one town would sell nothing but Mezcal. Here in Colombia we have gone through two such towns; one was selling nothing but chairs, tables and beds. Every shop was exploding with furniture. The other town was a bit more creative, and most people had several hoses connecting water sources on the hillside and left running for passing trucks to clean their rigs. (this is pictured with the hoses shooting water into the air) What makes this even more puzzling is that after we went through this "water town" we made it to a small town, where we stayed, that hadn't had water for 15 days! Yes, development occurs very unevenly. This town without water though was the apex of our climb into the nothernmost section of the Andes. (I am not even sure to call the mountains the Andes here)

We stayed the night in a pueblititito called el Silencio. We were at the base of a three day climb up to over 3000 meters so we wanted to find a good place to rest before our grueling climb to come. We stopped in at a small school to ask for a spot on the floor to sleep. We ended up meeting a woman named Luz Marina who invited us to stay at here house with her mother. We agreed and her "companero" led us to their house. We found a frame of logs wrapped with blue tarp. The roof consisted of a thicker black plastic. We were met by her mother and many small children both of Luz Marina and her eldest daughter. They were very nice people, perhaps a little puzzling though as one question went "how did you two learn english?" But, both me and Merilee were blown away by the fact that these extremely poor folks were still willing to help us find a safe place to sleep. It caught both of us off guard I think when we first saw the house, but at the same time people are people.

Anyhow the next day we started to climb and climb! Wowza we just we up and up to the clouds, into the clouds and finally through the clouds. And we found ourselves far away from the humid heat that we have been so accustomed to. We needed to break out our jackets and long pants. Merilee went gaga over the small coffee and bread shops we started finding and we discovered another drink called agua panela. Agua panela is a block of cane sugar boiled into water making a lightly sweet wonderfully caney tasting warm treat on a cool evening. After several days of hard work to climb into the mountains, we made it to the top of a huge valley and looked down to see Medellin at the bottom! yikes! (The pictures again) And we began our arm workout as clenching brakes for 30 kilometers can make your forearm burn. We also got to play chicken with semi drivers who like to play how many people can you pass on a blind corner. Needless to say I feel much safer climbing than descending! But we rode into Medellin safely until we saw the weather approaching. It had been a beautiful sunny day until we arrived to the bottom of the valley. We could see rain clouds pouring on the east side of the valley and lightning striking the top. We rode as far and as fast as we could but we could not outrun the rain. We took shelter under a little gas station next to the police station, which did not keep us very dry so the police invited us to stay dry in a bus they had there. Kinda funny. But finally the rain subsided and we continued on...only to find the streets completely flooded! (I hope the video uploads!) We had to walk/wade/ride through rush hour traffic with the motorcycles and cars sloshing their way home. Anyhow, we made it safely again, a bit wetter than anticipated, but safe. We found another love hotel and decided to stay there because we are disgusting siblings. Actually it is cheap, has wifi, and near all the hustle and bustle.

More Colombian facts; Most people here think people in the USA are scared to death of Colombia. Beef is cheaper than chicken. It is much poorer than Costa Rica or Panama. Postobon is the name of a soda, and cola can be strawberry flavored.