Arrived in Bogota

The last 55km into Bogota were ALL downhill, and I am still at an elevation of 2600m!  That does not happen in Ontario.

I am staying with Sebastian and his family for the time I am here, which makes thing very tranquillo. Sunday is famous in Bogota because on top of the 300km of bike paths the city shuts down some of the main highways for bicycle use only.

A long time buddy of mine will be flying in on Tuesday. Otherwise I have not spoken english or seen anyone with a hair color other than Black since Kurt left a week ago!

Barbosa Colombia, 180km north of Bogota

Buenas from Barbosa,

Last night I camped with Riccardo who makes and sells his own cheese and sausages, near Socorro.  It was my best meal since I have been here and we had a great time chatting.   From his door I had a steep 5km climb (or it seemed tough at that elevation) and then I descended for 65 of the next 70 kilometers.  The amazing thing about that was there were still deep deep valleys below me.  I crossed a river and have been climbing since.  The locals tell me that I have a ‘large pico’ ahead…
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750km north of Bogota

Hey,

I am in the first internet cafe I´ve seen since leaving Cartagena and cannot upload photos here…  Though we have passed larger towns, we stuck to the route.

The first day and a half of travel we were actually heading north east along the Caribbean coast away from our destination.  Outside of larger towns are some serious slums.
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Cartagena

After a long night of packing Neil (thanks Neil) woke up at 2am for the drive to Logan airport. It was cold and rainy… fast forward to 12:30 and hello Cartagena Columbia with heat and humidity. During our flight we were given many warnings, including with out a return flight we would never clear customs. Customs clearing took 90 seconds. Re assembling- packing the bikes took 90 minutes. Getting money from an ATM 90 more minutes.

The correct warnings was that there would be no holds street fighting… Donkey cart vs. Dogs vs. pedestrians. vs. bikes vs. many many taxi´s literally on the street. Everyone ignoring all types of signage, and two honks means look out we are coming. But everyone is double honking, yelling, cahos. Everying down to a donky pulling cart we saw in the first 500m from the airport.
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Bruce Trail Hike – Part 1 Queenstown Heights – Kelso

Back before I was born, in answer to the US Appalachian trail a huge team of volunteers in Southern Ontario pitched in to create the Bruce Trail.  My father spent one of his University summers as part of the volunteer team working on the trail.  Today it reaches some 700km across the southern width of Ontario following the Niagara Escarpment.  Growing up I have day hiked the trail in many different parts, some times not realizing until I had seen the white flashes painted on trees.

This spring after the snow melted, and before the bugs came out I decided how much of the trail I could hike.
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I met one of my heros; Beckie Scott, and Cried.

As a Canadian who doesn’t particularly care for hockey my sporting idols have never been well-known to mainstream TV watchers.  However we Canuks do have some great, non-puck handling, sporting figures to look up to.  Especially on nordic skis and bikes.  Clara Hughes, Simon Whitfield, Svein Tuft, and Beckie Scott are not only great athletes but also great all around people.

Last week I had a chance to hear Beckie Scott talk at the University of Waterloo.  The crowd was sparse, her intro was fumbled, and her brief talk moved me to tears.
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Miguel swims Lake Ontario

Last weekend the C3 team had its Childrens race weekend.  http://c3online.ca/2010Events/KOS/index.html.  I was there for a 13h volunteer day, helping on the bike course.  I spent a little while teaching transition skills and bike tactics to a few athletes.  Of course the great thing was being able to catch up with old friends – including great guys Marcello.  And of Course Miguel Vadillo (Malva) http://malvaswimlakeontario.typepad.com/my-blog/ who is training and fund raising for a really cool goal:  Swimming the 52km (as the crow flies, not including the the currant goes the other way, so you actually swim farther).
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quick observations

I just finished a 200km hike over 7 days, here are some of my observations from that.  Most of it was on (the Bruce) trails, but every day there ended up being 3-4km of walking alongside a road.

• hiking makes for sore feet, especially 75-80 h of it
• 5 cars honked/ cheered me on
• One of those was a convertible Lambo and the driver through in a few engine revs
• Zero cars tried hitting me/ were threatening
• I saw one trail runner and he was cheerful and chatty
• 3 triathletes refused to acknowledge me (2 running one on bike)
• all groups of cyclists said hello (I kinda thought it would have been the opposite)
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