August 13 - PAPALLACTA TO ARCHIDONA

I won't show you the white board, but the basics of today's ride are 113 km, 1113 meters ascent and a whopping 3517 meters descent.  So, the good news is that we are going to have a lot of downhill today.

No photos from Papallacta.  It rained & drizzled all night, so the tents are good and wet, but dry inside.  We pack everything up and have breakfast at 0600 and head off about 0700.

The first section is downhill, wet, slippery with all kinds of treacherous spots.  The road looks to be fairly new but has suffered recently.  Ruts, slumps, gravel patches, and land slides are a few of the hazards.  Drivers are not - they seem to be very good at avoiding us as we weave & dodge about in the drizzle.  One rider goes down, but only ends up with a big black eye.

My first photo is of the river valley we are riding down.  We are definitely entering the jungle.












More of the jungle.  Its stopped drizzling now but still threatening.  Laura and I are averaging about  30 km/hr on these downhill stretches.









The town of Cosanga.  Pretty much carved out of the jungle.













Further down the road we stop at a wide spot in the road for "Cafe con Leche."  This can mean anything from coffee with milk to Cappucino to what we got, which was boiled milk with maybe a bit of coffee in it.

This cafe is build of round sticks stacked upright with a thatched roof and no doors.  Cafes range from this right up to spiffy shops with Cappucino machines and baristas.

 This is the lunch truck, which today was at the top of a small pass at Km 64.  The serving table is on the other side.  One of the staff, Jodi is talking to John.  The 4 bikes on the right belong to a German family who have been touring for 2 years.  She is home schooling her kids on the trip.





Now the fun starts.  The downhill side of this pass is hours long and is a concrete road in almost perfect condition.  The weather has cleared, cloudy with some sunny periods.  We are in the lowlands on the east side of the coastal mountains.  We finally end up at the Hosteria las Bromelias resort in Archidona.  Nice place, very modern with multiple pools and cheap beer.  The Tour basically takes overt the place for a night. The arrangement is that we camp for free, or we can take a room in the hotel (pay for it yourself).  Laura and I choose the latter and enjoy very good showers and a hot afternoon which dries out our wet gear.  The beer is cheap ($1.50 US a ahlf litre bottle).

Mark, the tour cook prepares an excellent meal of BBQ'd chicken, rice & veggie skewers.

All in all a great day.  Laura did very well on the ride and we enjoyed it immensely, as did everybody on the tour except the poor lady who crashed.  She's fine and will probably ride tomorrow.

I never got around to taking photos of the resort.  Will try before we leave in the morning.

Hi Sue, Nancy, Judy and anybody else who knows what I am trying to do.  Photo taken at the top of the pass.