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Published: July 20th 2015
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Day 52 Silvia, road hives and a very late night ride
Distance driven today: 276 miles / 444 km
Cumulative distance driven: 9,313 miles / 14,988 km
Today’s trip: Cali to Pasto, Colombia
Driving late night on twisting mountain roads, on very bad tarmac and with rain: yes but not doing it again
We left Cali in the morning with a clear destination: the village of Silvia in the Causa region in southern Colombia. Both of us have been looking forward to visiting Silvia and meeting the local indigenous people there called Guambianos. Apart from visiting the local market at the central square in Silvia, one of the attractions with visiting the Guambianos is their traditional clothing. The men wear rectangular ponchos, red scarf and black skirt, while the women wear a blue poncho with a pink border. Perhaps the most interesting piece of the Guambiano outfit is the distinct bowler black hat that both men and women wear. The bowler hats appear to be a few sizes too small (at least according to western hat size convention) and seem to be, well, a bit out of place. Rumor has it that these black hats
are not part of the original Guambino outfit, but rather an outcome of a postal mistake (!?!).
It is said that the bowler hats were accidentally shipped to the village in the 1950’s through an address mix-up, instead of being sent as a commercial shipment to a hat distributor elsewhere in the country. The Guambianos allegedly liked the hats so much that they decided to keep them, and thus the rumor has it that the bowler hats become part of their traditional outfit. In either case, the bowler hats make for a very distinct feature for sure.
The Guambianos are not fond of having their picture taken, and they will succinctly turn their head away from you if you try to outright take their picture. This is unfortunately since the Guambianos are a delight to the eye, and extremely photogenic, which is also the reason why every traveler wants to take their picture. Zoe and I are therefore especially happy that we got a couple of pictures of Guambianos :-) Before we could take pictures, we stopped at their artisans stalls in the marketplace, and spent quite a few pesos buying handicrafts from them and starting conversations with
them. Showing interest for the locals, their lives and their products, clearly earned us the trust necessary to ask if we could shoot a few pictures of them.
After Silvia, we drove to Popayan, which is the capital of the Causa department in Colombia. By the time we arrived in Popayan it was early afternoon, and Zoe and I took a late lunch and a quick look at the beautiful colonial architecture. By now the time was 4pm and I suggested that we stay in Popayan for the night. However, Zoe wanted us to continue to the next major city Pasto. We checked our GPS route and the distance from Popayan to Pasto was stated as being 250km/150 miles. Of course we forgot to check how many switchbacks and hairpin turns the road had!
By now, you can probably guess what happened next. Once we had driven about an hour on pretty straight and flat roads headed towards Pasto, the landscape changed completely and we found ourselves on roads that resembled a roll coaster. Since it was too late to turn around, we decided to continue driving until we got to Pasto, knowing perfectly well that it would
be pretty late by the time we arrived. By 6:30pm the sun set and it got pitch dark very quickly. The road ascended steeply through the mountains and out of nowhere the road surface deteriorated significantly. Suddenly we were riding on a road surface that looked as if the tarmac had gotten a serious case of hives. Just like skin hives, the road had developed tons of raised uneven bumps. It’s as if the road had a severe allergic reaction to the soil underneath it, having uneven pressure from below braking up the surface in thousands of small pieces floating on what used to be a road.
Not only was it hard to drive on this type of surface for hours, but the whole situation didn’t exactly get better by the complete darkness, the fact that it started to rain heavily, and that the temperature in the mountains dropped to 7C/45F. Having left a rather hot Cali in the morning we were really lightly dressed, and we were freezing now. Stopping in the middle of nowhere, in complete darkness and looking for warmed clothes in our panniers was not exactly an option. I have to admit that
the driving conditions were unusually challenging, and that all of my physical and mental attention as a driver was required to get over these road hives. By the time we rolled into Pasto, the time was almost 10pm (!) and both Zoe and I were understandably tired. In total, including all rest stops and lunch, we had been on the road for over 12 hours today. It is safe to say that we intend to sleep in tomorrow morning and take it easy, before we head to Ipiales and yet another border crossing, this time into Ecuador.
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