to Cartagena: final riding day in South America - Racpat RTW 2015-2017 - CycleBlaze

May 12, 2017

to Cartagena: final riding day in South America

A larger trip is broken down into smaller beginnings and endings. Today's ride into Cartagena marks an end to the South America stage and the beginning of Central America to the USA. We are getting closer to starting for home.

We head out very early, first light and in the rain. The intersection is already very busy with trucks and buses. It takes some navigating to get across and into the traffic. The road has no shoulder, and the first part of the ride is a bit dicey with the wet road and low light. We even come up to a truck that must have just turned over into the ditch. Other vehicles were just beginning to stop. A little further on, there is a huge overpass, and we realize it is over the river. We continue with a relatively flat road along an estuary of sorts. We go through rolling hills again for about 20km up to Turbaco before returning to a flatter road. We lose most of the big trucks when the road spurs off on 90B.

The rain continues all the way to Cartagena, finally stopping when we are 8 km from the Historic Center. The ride into the city is a nightmare with the constant traffic and buses pulling over in front of us to pick up and let off passengers. We see the old wall, cross a bridge and then very near our final destination of South America, Mamallena Hostel. Just as we park our bikes in front of the hostel, a couple on touring bikes ride by saying hello and stopping. We chat for awhile and have a group photo.

It's before noon, so we quickly clean up, and head out for lunch and our first exploration of the colonial city. Patrick has researched a camera shop with the hopes of fixing Rachel's camera. This shop though sends us to another area that fixes cameras. The guy at this shop is wearing a 2016 Cubs World Champion T-shirt. We are hoping that's a good omen for repairing the camera. We leave it and are told to return at 5pm.

We treat ourselves to an expensive celebratory dinner of Pad Thai then return to see if the camera is repairable. It is but they don't have the part. They will see if the part can be located and we'll return in two days.

The next task for tomorrow is seeing if the battery to the laptop can be fixed.

We will be in Cartagena five nights, then leave on the "Quest" for Panama on the 17th. http://www.mamallenatoursandtravel.com/quest/

We'll probably post a couple of updates on the sights in Cartagena, but cycling won't resume for about 10 days. We need a rest.

Wildlife road sign.
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Entering Cartagena. We still have about 15km of city traffic to "enjoy".
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Just as we pull up to our hostel we see two loaded cyclists ready to leave town. They came here from Bogota and are now ready to head south towards Lima and maybe Ushuaia.
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End of our South America ride. Beginning of the ride south for our just-met cycle friends from Spain and France.
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First impression of Cartagena. Shabby but very interesting.
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Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 31,820 km (19,760 miles)

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