Colombia: Offroad Fun and Exploring Pablo Escobar’s Past

The plan was to head west direction Medellin to Guatapé along the Highway 60. On the map the road was marked as a highway with the same thick white line leading all the way there. The road started out paved and lead up to 4’000m over a misty mountain pass and soon turned into a great offroad trail with water crossings, lots of mud and rocks. There was no where to stay along the way, so we were pressed for time to get to the next town before darkness and still 180 km of offroad ahead up us after lunch. Suddenly George realised that Flo’s tire was going flat! Pulling up to a house in the middle of nowhere the locals gathered around the bikes and assisted with the tire change – we found a giant nail in the tire! Soon we were on our way again. Exhausted but with huge smiles on our faces we finally arrived in Puerto Boyaca.

After another days ride passing by many small island we made it to Guatapé. The day was spent snooping around former drug boss Pablo Escobars mansion “la Manuela”. After having a drink at the bar with Pablos former butler as the bartender, we paid them a small sum and were allowed to sneak past the barrier and got to ride circles around the mansions pool and down the driveway.
Followed by a hike up 725 stairs to the top of the Stone of El Peñol with an amazing view!

From there on the journey led south, leaving out Medellin, as we had planned to meet up with Flo’s friend Basil in Bogota soon. There were many road works which lead to waiting in the hot sun for long periods of time. Arriving at a guesthouse in the evening we were once more amazed by the overfriendliness and hospitality of the Columbian people. Our hosts were so eager to hear about our journey, they kept asking us tones of questions, despite our lack of Spanish – which made for a fun conversation with lots of sign language.