Day 100

I got up at the crack of dawn today, showered up and waited for Afshan in the common area of the hostel. As I was waiting to drink my coffee I saw a guy from the hostel walk in with a Rukka jacket and a helmet. I immediately said to him “Well I know you ride a lot since you’re carrying a Rukka jacket!” He’s from Germany and bought a bike down here since he’s in Colombia for a while. We chatted a bit before Afshan walked out and we were ready to go. I told her since we only have one helmet she has to hide her head behind me on the 6 mile ride to the trailhead and she was cool with it. I was praying no cops would see us on the ride because it’s a big fine getting busted riding without a helmet meanwhile everyone else does it here all day everyday.

We hit the road and it was quite chilly but the view was insane. Once again it looked like a mini Switzerland. The wax palm trees were incredible. They were so skinny and maybe 100′ – 150′ tall just reaching up into the sky everywhere around us. Green mountains, beautiful green grass everywhere with old Colombian houses on the mountain sides. What a beautiful day already!

We found some parking for $5k pesos for 6 hours. We were told the hike takes about 6 hours so that should be fine. We walked up to the trail and missed the main entrance thanks to catching it on my maps.me app. We got back on track and found the main entrance. We paid our 5K pesos each and off we were. The view here was incredible with the hills and the huge trees. We had a 6.5 mile hike with 2600′ of elevation gain. For not being very active like she claims she was moving at a pretty decent pace. We chatted about a lot of stuff about back home, traveling, life and so much more. We stopped at a few spots for pictures where all the nice viewpoints were. We were both sniffling all morning long and she didn’t have any tissues. I literally taught her how to blow her nose using a finger to block off the other nostril and blow. She was so excited about it I couldn’t believe it. It was also her first time peeing in nature. I can’t believe these city people that dont ever do these things!

We got to the top of the mountain and it wasn’t too bad at all. We started to descend into the jungle following a river pretty much all the way back to the end of the trail. We crossed about 15 bridges that were crossing over a river. They were just some old rackety hanging bridges with wooden planks on them. I loved it! She found some cows that she wanted to pet which she’s never done before so I snapped some shots of her doing that.

The whole walk out looked magical. Hell, even the way up looked magical. We both kept saying this looks fake and none of this seems real in front of us, that’s how beautiful the views were today. Afshan walked out of Cocora Valley as a new person. Blowing snot boogers out of her nose and peeing in nature. We made our way back to my bike. She mentioned she wanted to take the jeep ride back into town last night and this morning but when we got to my bike and said screw the jeep ride i’m getting back on the bike! She took some videos on the 6 mile ride back and luckily we didn’t see any cops once again.

I dropped her off at the laundromat to get some laundry and I went home. I worked on the blog for a while and got a huge lunch. I did nothing for a few hours just being lazy. Anastasia got into town today as well so we met up for a few hours and got some food. I went shopping for some coffee for some friends at home. I got a bunch of mangoes in a cup in the town square. I’m sure going to miss these cheap mango cups when I go back to the states.

I got back to the hostel to work on my blog some more and I met a man named Eddie who I later found out owns the hostel I’m staying in. He’s from New Jersey and ended up moving down here a few years ago and opened this hostel. He also has a BMW 1200GS and rode it to Argentina right when covis started and had to leave his bike in Buenos Aires for the last two years. He’s flying down there this week to throw it on a plane and bring it back home. We chatted all night about riding. Once we were done Afshan walked in and we started talking about psychedelics. Next thing I know it was nearly midnight and I was exhausted. Nap time!