This morning I said goodbye to Rene and Liliane in Medellín. We first linked up back in Panama City and had spent the last few weeks hanging out together on the Stahlratte and in Medellín. Take care and ride safe guys!

My ride out of Medellín was a bit wet this morning. As I climbed up and out of the valley, the clouds thickened and I got a bit wet but overall it wasn’t too bad. Instead of riding South, I was making a 1-2 day detour East to stop at El Peñón, Hacienda Nápoles and the small town of Honda before making it to Pereira the next day.

El Peñón is a giant monolithic rock formation located in the quaint town of Guatape. It’s a popular tourist destination even for the local Colombians.. and today being a Sunday, it was very busy.

It’s about 700 steep steps up to the top. It’ll give ya a work out.. especially when your wearing big moto boots. 😡

Along the way I stopped at a cool restaurant for lunch. It had one helluva view of the valley down below.

 

After El Peñón, I rode for a few hours East and eventually came to Hacienda Nápoles. This is one of Pablo Escobar’s famous luxury estates. He even had his own personal zoo here with zebras and hippos. Since it was getting pretty late and I was still 100+km from the town of Honda, I only made a short stop to get a few photos and then rode on.

It ended up taking me another 2+ hours to get to the river port town of Honda due to an auto accident that halted traffic for at least 45 minutes. I rolled into town in the dark and rain.. luckily I had a hotel loaded up in my GPS so I didn’t have to waste anytime finding a place.

The next morning I packed up the bike (in the rain) and made my way towards my friends house in Pereira. On Google Maps, the road looked very squiggly.. so it should have made for a nice ride as I ascended back up into the mountains. Unfortunately, it would rain on me nearly the entire day and I often had very limited visibility of less than 25 meters. This means I didn’t get any photos.. which is too bad since this seemed like an awesome road.. I just couldn’t see anything!

From Manizales to Pereira there is a really fun road called the Autopista del Cafe. It’s a scenic curvy road that goes through the heart of the coffee region. I highly recommend you ride it if you’re in the area.

By late afternoon, I arrived at my friend Johns house in Pereira. I haven’t seen him in about 18 months, so it was cool to catch up. I think the plan is to spend Christmas (and maybe New Years?) here in Pereira.. Should be some good times 😉