On the road again, finally. It puts the broadest smile on my face to cast off cities old and set sights for new intrigues and oddities.

Lying about 4 hours ride due south of Medellin is the mountain top city of Manizales. You can tell it’s high because after sweating in my too tight motorbike jacket along the valley floor in 30 degree heat, things started to cool as I climbed higher and higher towards the city. Quite a bit cooler… cool enough for me to wear a fleece for the first time on the whole journey.

Newly christened Tejon (Spanish for badger) plodded reliably up the steeper and steeper slopes and even made light work of the Alpe Duez-esque hairpins towards the top. What greeted me at the summit was somewhat unexpected. Instead of quaint squares and an easy ride to my accommodation I was battling traffic, navigating on ramps and off ramps on pedestrian bashing dual carriageways right through the middle of a crowded industrial section of town. It felt like Coventry.

Pedestrian unfriendliness seems to be a feature of all the Colombian cities I’ve been to so far. There are very few pedestrianised sections and everywhere else pedestrians are clearly at the bottom of the public space pecking order. Often, what looks an easy walk on googlemaps turns out to be a take your life in your hands dash across three lanes of traffic or vaulting a central reservation. Conversely, driving your car at full speed through sections of busy towns can feel more like the M6 at rush hour. It’s a real shame.

And boy are the side roads steep.. I mean really steep. Like roads that would be illegally steep in Western Europe. It’s not a place to be tentative on the bike, once you know where you’re going you just have to pin the throttle and hope she makes it up. If the bike fell over it would slide down the hill on its side, so let’s avoid that please.

Thermal springs

The real reason for coming to Manizales is revealed to me in full over the next couple of days. Firstly it’s known for its thermal springs. Never being shy at throwing off my clothes and jumping in bodies of water, I decide to give the thermal aquapark a go. It’s a high-class affair, beautiful landscaping and top-notch stonework frame a maze of 4 thermal pool each with slightly different temperatures. There’s burn your ass breath-taking right down to comfortable to slouch in all day. I take part in some ass burning and slouching. Trying my absolute best not to look like a pasty English sex pest with a twat tan hanging about the pools, the only single person there.

This is not helped by the Colombian obsession of taking overly posey selfies absolutely everywhere, including in the pools. I’m not quite sure where to look when a couple of young women decide the best place to take their raunchy selfies is a few metres away from me. I opt for the look in completely the opposite direction and regularly douse my face with the water so my eyes are covered at least some of the time. I’m not sure which appears more pervy to everyone else though. Me looking stoney faced and refusing eye contact with anyone is probably suspicious in itself. I escape to the water slides.

Another feature of South America is the obvious lack of health and safety. Well, the lack of Western European (possibly excessive at times) style regulation. As a consequence you definitely needs your wits about you, a dimly lit footpath is quite likely to have a two foot exposed hole in the middle when you least expect it. Crumbling concrete abounds, Shawn of the Dead impailings are around every corner.

As I walked alone up the deserted paved path towards the top of the slides these things played on my mind a bit. Two of the three slides looked fully enclosed and is it my imagination or are they much narrower tubes than we have at home? I pass this off as being related to my childhood memories of waterslides, everything seems bigger when you’re a kid. I arrive at the entrance to the slide, no staff member in sight, or any other person for that matter. Suddenly the plastic of the slide, the bolts the fixtures don’t seem all that secure. These slides are built for Colombians, which by and large are about half the size of me (in every dimension). I have visions of not going fast enough and grinding to a halt halfway down the slide, stuck for hours until a sufficient number of kids pile up behind me to get me going again or worse still a Homer Simpson removal.

I breathe in and fling myself down the slide…. JEEEEESSSSSUUUUUSSSSS…. The tunnel is pitch black, the first drop feels near vertical and carries on for far too long. My considerable mass has built up record levels of Newtonian force, this slide has seen nothing like me, I feel like I’ve been blasted from a cannon! And then a rapid succession of banks and turns, I feel like I’m doing a barrel roll over the ceiling of the tube.. and then I’m spewed un-ceremonially from the tube like a beached whale skidding to a stop just before the end of the splashdown area. Easily the scariest, fastest and riketyest slide of my life. It nearly ended it.

I throw my shirt on and retire to a seating area to re-conbobulate my brain. I find some peace in watching the humming bird grab nectar from a beautiful plant. Maybe I should stick to nature.

Off-road volcano

The following day (Sunday) I’m up bright and early to take on the mountain track up to the volcano. I’ve left specific instructions describing where I’m going, how long it should take (two hours each way), taken a copy of my passport, a first aid kit, food water and warm clothes. I need to give myself some chance if I have an off on this remote and very high track.

I thought the roads would be deserted at 7am on a Sunday morning but no, they’re already busy. Not with cars but with lots and lots of people in couples and small groups. Power walking, sauntering, running, walking the dogs, mountain biking, road cycling. It’s a sea of lycra. What a lovely custom it is across Colombia to get up early and do something outdoors and healthy on a Sunday, we can learn from this!

Thankfully my journey up the mountain track provides some company, at least for the first hour. The occasional mountain biker pedaling incredibly fast to go incredibly slow on incredibly steep rocky terrain as I tip-toe past in full concentration mode so as not to drop the bike.

And the landscape is simply stunning. Lush green vegetation overhangs the track, endless views across the green valleys and treacherous roadside drops of 1000 feet plus focus the mind. The track is tricky in parts and mostly on the right side of my off-road abilities. Biking just doesn’t get much better than this!

As I climb higher the air gets cooler, my breath gets shorter and my head gets a little fuzzier. As I break into the 3600m zone I realise I’ve not seen another living soul for 30 minutes. Definitely not the place to have an off. Even a ‘minor’ slide off the edge of the track could be the end of me, I’d never be found again. I take it steady, rest when I need to, drink water, eat snacks and most of all concentrate. It’s with some relief that my minor track joins the main road and I see a steady stream of cars and bikes heading up to the roads high point. It’s cold and misty now, I pass a sign for 4,000m. That’s half the height of a cruising passenger jet folks.

Incredibly, at the top is a mad boxing/MMA club doing high altitude training. I can feel my head fuzziness and shortness of breath but at least I’m not punching pads! I decide to take the track back down instead of the main road and delight at each degree increase in temperature and extra breath in my lungs, my off-road skills gradually increasing.

People

I was lucky enough to spend an evening with a lovely lad who I met in a rock bar. Yes rock is alive and well in Colombia. The kind of cringy 80’s rock that they love in Germany. Also Spanish language power ballad favourites sung at full voice by everyone in the pub. It’s all good fun and the people are always nice in rock/metal places. Fact. He introduced me to his friends then took me to the bar around the corner that he owns. Another rock bar.

I’m often surprised and delighted by the generosity and open heartedness of the people I meet on my travels and know that they wouldn’t get the same reception in England unfortunately. I like to think I’m a good judge of character and what might at times seem like risky decisions are hopefully mostly good judgement calls. So it’s always good to be positively rewarded when trusting someone but equally re-assuring to make the right negative decision.

The following night a noticeably well-built guy from Cali speaking too loud to the bar staff was keen to show me his English speaking skills. I listened quietly to his tales of ‘being in the same business as Escobar’ and ‘I’m just in town to buy a couple of apartments’, and ‘let me get you a beer, you won’t pay for anything tonight’. The bar was closing and I found the right way to politely explain without causing offence that I wasn’t going to party with him and some prostitutes tonight. I’m far too old and frail for that!