to Pueblo Nuevo: meeting cyclists

May 7, 2017

We take a rest day in Caucasia. The hotel is very comfortable, not too expensive and there is good food nearby. We start the day watching the Giro d'Italia on television and Rachel does our laundry. Near the hotel are some shops where we find some fruit, yogurt and coffee for our breakfast. By lunchtime we take a taxi about two kilometers to the town center where there is a shopping mall with a large supermarket and a subway restaurant. We still cannot pass-up subway sandwiches.

In the afternoon Patrick cleans the mud off the bikes while Rachel makes a beer run to the supermarket across the street. It is very hot now and we spend the rest of the afternoon watching movies. Dinner is a very nice pizza at an Italian restaurant just up the street.

Sunday morning it is time to move on. We hear it raining when we get up, but that does not last long, fairly soon the clouds break and it gets hot again. About 10km outside of Caucasia we see a cyclist coming our way. We have communicated with Sam Burchell and knew he was headed our way. We had hoped he would have made it to our hotel last night so we could share a beer and stories, but at least we have a roadside meeting. We share some road advice and take photos of our meeting. Sam has an interesting blog on this website:

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/SamsAmericanTour. We wish him tailwinds on his ride to Ushuaia.

In Apartada, we make a coffee and donut break at a nice bakery, and not two kilometers further we see another Subway restaurant. We pick-up two more "Italianaisimo" sandwiches for our lunch later today. We are re-acclimating to american culture.

Our original plan was only to go as far as a nice hotel with swimming pool about 5km before Planeta Rica. When we get there it is still early. There are two more cyclists coming our way that we have been communicating with, Tom and Hillary. They plan to stay at a hotel about 25km down the road. We decide to ride on to meet them there this afternoon. Going this way is not the most direct route to Tolu, but it only adds about 20 kilometers to our route.

The last bit is hard, but we get to the "Hotel Posada de Camino" at about 1pm. There are basic but clean cabanas, a restaurant and a nice swimming pool. We have lunch, clean-up and take a swim in the pool. About an hour later Tom LPand Hillary show up. Both Tom and Hillary have spent quite a few years doing volunteer work around the world. Tom actually lived in Rwanda in a town we passed through on this tour. Hillary worked in India. Both worked with kids teaching bicycle skills. Their blog is www.storycollectorsblog.wordpress.com .

We have a very nice evening sharing stories. It is nice to spent some time with other cyclists.

A couple of kilometers past Caucasia we meet Sam Burchell, a fellow cyclist with a journal on CGOAB. We had been following Sam's progress since he left Los Angeles about three months ago. Sam sure is moving! http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/SamsAmericanTour

It gets hot once the clouds break and the sun comes out.

We stop at a roadside stall and have fresh squeezed orange juice.

Guy dropping off his milk cans by the roadside.

There is a bikelane through Planeta Rica. Obviously designed by someone from ACHD because it is pretty much unusable. We like the sign though, another one for Patrick's garage.

Interesting trees. We wonder if they are related to the Boabab trees we saw in Africa and India.

The "Posada del Camino" Hotel does not look very impressive from the roadside, but behind the facade is a decent restaurant, affordable cabanas and a very nice swimming pool.

A little later Tom and Hillary arrive. We have been in touch with them and were expecting to see them here. Tom started riding in Vancouver BC, Hillary joined him in Cancun and they are headed for Ushuaia.

Today's ride: 85 km (53 miles)
Total: 31,511 km (19,568 miles)

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