Terranova Expedition: Manizales

We decided to leave Medellin in the morning, but not without some regret. Troy and I literally arrived in this wonderful city, and went to our hostel rooms, where we stayed most of the time, coughing and feeling bad. So both of us were pretty bummed out that we couldn't enjoy Medellin more.

After 3 days laying around being sick, where ready to go, so we packed our gear and headed south towards Cali, our destination.

Cali isn't far from Medellin, about 425 km, but we weren't going to try and do it in one day. We had done a bit of research and knew we were riding into the Colombian Coffee region, where a large percentage of the world's coffee is grown, and we wanted to explore this fascinating area.

The road was good, twisty and winding, and fairly decent pavement. There is the odd pothole we have to dodge, but otherwise, it was a fine ride, except for about 1/2 hour of torrential rain we hit coming out of Medellin.

We had been told that the road to Manizales was even more interesting, and only a bit further, so we turned off the main route, and detoured. The road here was very winding, with a lot of full switchbacks, and not too many trucks and busses.

After an fairly easy riding day, we arrived in Manizales, a city we had never heard of prior to yesterday, but which we now know is the "Coffee Capital of the world". It's amazing what we don't know.

Like most of this trip, we seem to have landed on our feet, as it we were surprised at the size of this mountain city, and awed by what can only be described as it's "abrupt topography"..

Manizales is built into the side of a mountain, and the entire city seems to be hanging on the side of the hills. Since the area is seismically unstable, they have worked hard to make it safer from the numerous earthquakes that plague the area.

Our Hostel (Manizales Hostel) is run by two of the nicest girls we have met (Gloria and Christina). They both have a wonderful sense of humour.

I was exhausted when we arrived from being so sick, but as we sat down to register, Christina started telling us about all the wonderful Thermal Hot Springs that are in the area, and we quickly perked up. "Thermal Hot Springs". Hmm…. after riding for a while in the rain, and feeling like I have been, a nice soak in some thermal springs seemed like just the thing we were looking for.

So we dumped our gear, and jumped in a cab, and were off for the 15 minute taxi ride up a mountain side to the hot springs.

We got there at about 7:30 and didn't leave until 10:00 pm. I'm not sure it was good for us to be in that long, but it sure felt good. :)

The springs have a very high concentration of dissolved minerals in them, and the water was very hot. In addition they had a few smaller pools that were even hotter.

My hostel room in Medellin. I spent way too much time in here.

Getting ready to leave Medellin.

We stopped for lunch and these local kids immediately took an interest in our bikes.

This one was a real character.

As soon as I turned my camera on this little girl, she started posing. Her friend was very shy and tried hiding behind the bikes if I tried to take her picture.

These guys stood and watched us eat lunch for 30 minutes. They really wanted us to buy them lunch or give them money. We shared a bit of our fruit with them, and I gave them change at the end of the meal.

Gloria, our wonderful hostel host.

While doing the dishes this morning in the Stainless steel sink, I was suddenly getting shocked. We hunted for the short for a bit and finally found it in some wires below the sink. Interesting sensation. :)