Why is everybody in Colombia so nice? Everywhere we stopped and everybody we talked to was happy, smiling, and with a nice and friendly disposition ... old, young, rich, poor, man, woman ... it is like people have not forgotten how to be "present" with each other ... wait, just realized that there aren't a lot of smart phones or electronics around here. A correlation perhaps? : )
Today, we left Salento and rode through the coffee growing region of Colombia, visited a coffee plantation, and had a cup of the best. Still a labor intensive business with worrisome labor practices but I guess things are getting better (e.g., fair trade standards.)
We also went through some spectacular, very high, very steep, and very green mountain ranges. In Cocora, saw 75ft+ tall lonely palm trees growing in the high altitude mountains. Hours of dodging cars, buses, animals, cave ins, people, construction ... on tight and twisty roads with nice pavement. Absolute and total concentration was required. Went up to elevations of 12000 ft at 45 degree temperatures and down to 5000 feet at 90 degrees. Sun, rain, fog, dirt, lightning ... we had it all ... in one day.
We arrived at our hotel in Honda at night again (we need to get our act together and stop this night riding thing : ) The hotel is a nice colonial mansion converted to a small boutique hotel with a great swimming pool that we had to try. Went out for a walk in the town and got back to the hotel to try to catch up on the 4 hours of sleep from the previous night.
Tomorrow, Santa Fe de Bogota!
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