June 29, 2022 to July 2, 2022
June 30-July 2: rest days in Medellín
Ahhh...rest. My body awoke on Thursday ready to pedal away, yet here I had the next 3 days free with nothing specific planned. It was divine.
I spent my first morning and early afternoon getting tidied up, picking up laundry, and enjoying several fuerte cups of coffee. Brian and I took our bikes to Bike Experts around noon, mine to get a new or serviced bottom bracket and Brian's for new brake pads. They offered a full cleaning and tune-up for 40,000 pesos ($10), which we jumped on as our bikes were absolutely filthy from the rain, muddy roads, and urban riding. We'd have them back on the following afternoon.
At 4pm we joined a tour of Comuna 13, a once-infamous neighborhood in Medellín that has since reinvented itself. It was a colorful evening that offered a glimpse into some of Medellín darker history.
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The following day Brian and I went to a mall to pick up a new pair of clothes before picking up our bikes. The bikes looked incredible, completely cleaned and tuned up. The folks at Bike Experts Medellín did a spectacular job, and I'd highly recommend them to any tourists passing through the city. We otherwise ambled the day away, enjoying the local restaurants and relaxing at the hostel.
On our final day we took the cable cars up to Parque Arví, a beautiful natural area on the northeastern outskirts of the city. It was wild that we could be in such a starkly different environment in such a short distance. It got both Brian and I eager to get back to some of the smaller towns like the ones we had so recently traversed. We also spoke about putting more effort into finding opportunities to camp, as by the look of it there would be some pretty spectacular areas to do so.
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Going to Parque Arví also offered a glimpse into Medellín's grittier side. Once considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world, Medellín has clearly reinvented itself. However, it is still very much so a developing metropolis. We had to take a taxi to a higher cable car station as the lower cable car was out of service. The cable car station we left from was located high above the valley floor, away from the posh strip of high rises and hip restaurants. Here the streets were so steep that our taxi had to backtrack because his car didn't have the torque to make it up some of the inclines. Houses were piled on top of one another, with little thought put into urban planning, disability access, or environmental impact. The extent of the sprawl was evident as we ascended via cable car and into the plateau on which the parque rested.
Following our visit to the park, Brian, Girish, and I sat down and hashed out our next week of riding.We had a long debate about heading east towards Villa de Leyva and Bogotá or south through the coffee region. After much debate as well as input from locals and fellow blogs readers, we agreed to head south of Medellín towards Valle de Cocora vía several gravel roads and small towns. I'm extremely excited to see where it takes us...as well as all of the coffee that will fuel me on my way towards Ecuador :)
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