April 25, 2017
to La Feliza: back to the Cauca River, hot!
“That was refreshing,” Patrick says after the shower. “Is that your way of telling me there’s no hot water?” Rachel asks. Today a cold shower is not so bad; it is hot outside and in our room.
Once we arrived in La Feliza around 1pm, it took some searching for a hotel. We passed the bridge across the river and rode through town. Just before the peaje on the right was a nice looking brick building. Patrick asks to be shown a room, it’s small, there’s a balcony and the staff says “no bicycle” in the room or balcony. That’s a non-starter for us. So we went back through the town and checked another two places, with rooms that were dismal. We crossed the bridge and were told there are no places on that side of the river. We finally backtrack to John’s Parador at the south side of the town, a big yellow and red building that’s a restaurant, (mostly for buses) has shops and a Hospedaja. The room is nice and big, bikes in the room, TV with sports, just no hot water for the shower. WiFi is available in the restaurant.
The room costs 30,000 COP, but it takes some explaining that we indeed want to stay the whole night. All through Colombia are 24 horas service motels that include a pull in garage so no one will recognize the car. We are a bit puzzled by the anti-bicycle attitude at the nice hotel in town. This is the first time on this trip where we were refused a room because of our bikes. And that in Colombia, one of the most bicycle crazy countries we have been to. If there is room we prefer to have the bikes in the room, sometimes the hotel proposes a safe lock-up place, and sometimes, if the room is really small we just leave them in the hallway outside our room. On this trip we have not come across an establishment that does not want our business and is not interested in finding a safe place acceptable to both parties. Had we done our research a little better we could have read that only a week or two ago Timothy Tower had the same experience at the hotel. http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/CSam17 Well, with that attitude we wish them success (not!) in the hospitality business.
Today’s ride was lovely. For most of the downhill sections, there was a perfect grade requiring little pedaling and little braking. There were only two sections of longer climbs. New along the road were signs warning to take care of the local wildlife. The first sign looked like a cat being chased by a rat. The next sign the cat was facing the rat. Then the next one, the rat was huge. Later we saw signs for various other animals. The country side is green with large coffee plantations and fruit orchards.
There were many construction areas where contractors are fixing the road damage from floods and landslides. They are also in the process of straightening the road which will require large new cuts. In many places the road is narrowed to one lane and a flagger stops traffic. We are lucky getting through and not having to wait too long at these sections.
It is a lot hotter and humid along the Cauca River. We settle into our room, have a cold shower, read and watch some sports on TV. Patrick talks to a guy called John (not until later do we make the connection that he might be the owner), who lived in the Netherlands for 8 years in the late nineties. He was in training to become a professional bike racer, but did not quite make the cut. He still speaks Dutch though.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Today's ride: 78 km (48 miles)
Total: 30,891 km (19,183 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 0 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |