July 7,8, 2016
Our final push of meeting up with our friends from Austria and a rest day to get reacquainted.
Cycling Stats
July 7, 2016
Start Point: Garzon, Huila, Colombia
Destination: San Agustin, Huila, Colombia
70.6 km trip, 5:30 time, 35 km by van, 11.8 km/h average speed
Route Description:
This day is mostly uphill through undulating hills. No hill seems super large but it is definitely more up than down. You climb over 1000 meters on this day. The road is single lane in both directions with a narrow shoulder that is not rideable at high speeds. We arrived in Pitalito after leaving 8 hours prior and over 5 hours of cycling. We decided to take a bus for the last 25 kilometres to San Agustin knowing it wasn’t going to be easy. The bus was 5000 per person with the bikes and bags and it took 45 minutes for the 25 kilometres. It was a great choice for us. On the route of the day there are a few restaurants and one or two small stores.
Accommodations:
Our hostal in San Agustin was 30,000 for a private room with private bath with hot water and wifi and there was a kitchen for cooking. You could get a private room with a shared bath and cold water for 20,000.
What happened…
Amanda writes: Today was a bit of a blur as we had one goal in mind; San Agustin to see our friends. The mountains continue to grow around us and it really is beautiful. We also came across more protests and these ones certainly seemed to have a bit more tension. There was a far bigger police presence and a lot more protesters. Traffic was slowed as a result of the protests and again we were able to ride through without any incident. As we approached the town of Pitalito I declared to Andrew he had 10 minutes to try and find information about a bus or we’d best get going because time was running out in the day. He made pretty quick work of it all and within 15 minutes not only were we at the bus station, our bikes were loaded and we were on the road to San Agustin.
We arrived at our hostel that our friend had recommended for us and checked in. We saw two touring bikes that initially we thought belonged to our friends Nici and Philip. As it turns out they were bikes belonging to two Brits that we would eventually have the pleasure of meeting. We got settled into our room and later in the evening our friends joined us for some dinner.
Nici and Philip are two Austrian cyclists who we first met in Mexico in December 2014. They were cycling from Alaska to Argentina similar to our trip. In fact they left about the same time as us. The difference was we were in Mexico at the time caring for Andrew’s Grandfather and off the bikes. We were able to host them via warm showers as we were renting an apartment at the time. So a year and a half later it was incredible that we were at the same place on a different continent. We’ve kept in touch over the year and we were so glad to be able to cycle with them and get to know them more. We spent the next day hanging out, enjoying meals and also meeting two other cyclists Danny and Jess who were headed in the same direction as us. It’s so nice to be able to chat with people who not only are doing the same thing as you, but are so great to hang out with. We plan to ride with Nici and Philip for awhile and I just hope we travel at the same speed.