Main square of Zipaquirá

The trip really started in Zipaquirá, few kilometers after saying bye to the deepeei crew. It felt nice to know that from that point onwards we would experience again the nice feeling of not knowing where we were going to sleep, or what would be our precise route. That is the best feeling when you are bike touring: you have no ties other than possibly a flight ticket coming back home or a final destination.

In Zipaquirá we enjoyed the best of many fine examples of Spanish colonial style. In some streets or in front of the main church I felt transported to Andalucía or Extremadura, back in Spain. Even the people looked similar, with the same parsimonious sense of enjoying live.

However the main attraction there is the Salt Cathedral, a huge labyrinth of chapels and via crucis that ends in an immense principal church. The idea of using an old mine for a church is appealing, one can feel the grandiosity of a big space together with the quietness of a place several meters under the surface. The lack of light in a place where the ceiling is about 40 m tal called for a photo of about 40 seconds.

Main chapel of the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquirá

After the visit it came the rain, that accompanied us intermittently during the first 2 days.  Long climbs and descends with quite a lot of traffic, so we decided to take secondary roads and even tracks. The rains persisted, and so did the heavy traffic, since we were crossing an area of coal mines. Although we enjoyed some good views and the company of nice people, the route started in large plantations of unappealing eucalyptus and casuarinas, just interrupted by large or small coal mining enterprises under the persistent rain.

After taking an extremely broken and small track, where we had to push the bikes in very steep grades of more than 20%, we managed to reach the Candelaria Desert  and the old village and monastery of the same name . There it started a completely different landscape, characterized by desert conditions, nice blue skies and much less traffic.

Asa arriving in the Candelaria Desert

The village of La Candelaria

That night we slept in the surprising and touristic Ráquira, a colorful village with a lot of charm. Again a rehearsal of colonial architecture at its best, just improved (for now) by the famous Villa de Leyva. The road to Villa de Leyva permitted us to cross the first flats of the trip, in the middle of a cultivated desert guarded by mighty mountains everywhere.

The first we noticed in Villa de Leyva was the sense of being in the past, in the 16th century. The big cobblestones that pave everything always lead to the main square, an impressive construction of 120 x 120 m, surrounded by white colonial houses with wooden balconies and a nice baroque church. In the middle a tiny stoned fountain contrasts with the dimensions of the complex, which is one of the biggest squares in all Hispanic America. A 180º panorama of half the square barely shows its grandiosity.

HDR of the monastery of the Carmelitas Descalzas, Villa de Leyva

HDR of a building in the main square, Villa de Leyva

We were walking the perpendicular streets for some hours, filming and photographing. We also managed to visit “El Fosil” a Piosarius of 7 m and around 150 million years old. A lot of other attractions surround Villa de Leyva, but while cycling with about 40-45 kg of luggage and quite a lot of expensive stuff it is better to recognize that for bike tourers conventional tourism is really difficult and tiring. We packed our things and started the long climb to the green Andes again. But that is another story.

First the light came through great tunnels between the clouds, which was great for some pictures. However it was later, when the light went down, that it became trully spectacular. The clouds turned darkish and wherever the light managed to go through them it was unbelieveable colourful. Claudio and Angelica were very nice showing us the place and having pacience while I was photographing. Up there we met the deepeei crew, so Milan (the cameraman of deepeei) enjoyed also a great light and view point. It will be nice footage for the first episode of the documentary.

The next day we went out of Bogota using a path for cyclists (ciclovia), with Claudio guiding us out of Bogota. We expected some more difficulties to exist such a huge city, but it was easy and smooth, at least as much as a big city can be. Nothing compared to Cairo, Delhi or Mexico DF. The Colombian drivers seemed to me quite respectful with the cyclists, which is not strange since they are very familiar with the sport. I grew up watching the victories of Lucho Herrera, and later of Cacaito Rodriguez or Santiago Botero. We crossed with many training cyclists, it is pretty impressive how many cycling fans there are here, many congratulate me as spaniard for the new victory of Contador.

After an afternoon of interviews and good byes with deepeei we started pedalling completely on our own.  We just reached Zipaquira and its salt cathedral, but that is another story..

At the end we managed to depart the 23^rd of July, few days after being successfully examined for the PhD and just about 3 weeks after Asa resigned from her job. However it was stupid to leave so early: we were completely stressed and we managed once more to bother and make miserable the life of the closest we have, asking for many last minute big favors. Big sorry for that to everyone who knows what I am talking about!.

During the last week before departure Asa and I managed to discuss quite a lot and to blame each other for our mistakes and lack of planning. Not the best way to start a trip, but aside for some collateral effects we are now on the road and everything is just fine.

The preparations were basically related to getting rid of the flat and furnitures, cutting electricity, internet and all that stuff, preparing the bikes, and testing a bit the video camera and my new photo camera. Since the brand I use is finally not sponsoring us I won´t say their name. This is my small revenge against Nikon…(ouch !!!)). With the new camera I  got the chance  to shoot some photos in Sweden, which I regret I did not more often in the year and a half we lived there.

I tried some new techniques like high dynamic range photography (HDR). I intend to post some HDRs here in South America whenever I have time to process them. You can see one example of an old machine in this post.

However the most funny part was to prepare and test my old bike steel frame, which I already used in Asia fduring one year and is just the perfect ride to me. I prefer steel since it can be repaired easily and almost anywhere. Aluminium, carbon etc.. are difficult to repair. Some people say that you cannot break a frame of good quality anyway…well I did it a while ago, and since it was made of steel they fixed it in a small village in the middle of nowhere. It is a pitty that they don´t make more light steel frames like ours (tange ultimate superlight and the like). If you can grab one in ebay or something I would not hesitate.

Four days before the flight we got a new sponsor: Sportson, one of the main chain of cycle shops in Sweden. It was great news since we really needed some last minute stuff, but we got our bikes ready 2 days before departure…quite stressy. They made a fast and great job in such a hurry!.

In spite of all the hurries at least we were able to organize a goodbye party with our friends and family from Falkoping and Skovde, something specially needed after not being very social during the last months.

After sleeping in the airport of Goteborg and a long trip we arrived in Bogota, where we stayed in the house of Angelica and Claudio, a couple of bikers that have crossed America from Alaska to Ushuaia in 5 years, including living 8 months in the North of Canada during the freezing winter. They are members of warmshowers.org, a net of hosts that provide free accommodation to cyclists all over the world.

The morning after arriving we were busy packing the bikes and meeting the deepeei crew, which filmed and interviewed us during 2 days. We will hopefully meet them in a couple of months in the Brazilian Amazon, till then we have to film on our own and do our best