"The only risk is that you want to stay." The large poster on the wall contradicts the Colombia travel guide on my lap. But we can't go back anyway, as we are already sitting at Bogota airport waiting for our connecting flight to Armenia. The city is located in the interior of the country, 290 kilometres west of the capital, in the western foothills of the Andes. One of the safest tourist regions, confirms the travel guide. With coffee and banana plantations, giant palm trees and a temperate tropical climate. Only the volcanoes in the nearby Los Nevados National Park could erupt from time to time. Attacks by humans are not to be feared.
Trails like in the jungle
If the cows weren't grazing under palm trees, we could be cycling across a mountain pasture in the Alps. Lush green hills, agriculture, pastures as far as the eye can see on the horizon. Only the palm trees don't fit into the alpine picture. On closer inspection, the fields are not planted with maize and rapeseed, but with banana trees and coffee bushes. As our trail dips into a jungle-like forest, we scare up hummingbirds and parrots. Bike guide Gabriel is as happy as a child because we keep wanting to stop to take a closer look at this exotic flora and fauna. We also need the short breaks to calm our pulse.
The dense vegetation close to the equator line constantly disguises the fact that we are pedalling at an altitude of well over 3000 metres. The suspension bridges that we regularly have to cross also have a pulse-quickening effect: two rusty steel cables on which someone has placed wooden planks. At the latest in the centre, you wonder which is more rotten - rope or wood. Every step seems like a potential landmine. But we reach the Plaza Bolivar, the main square in Salento, without falling and head straight for pulse-pounding step number three: a real Colombian coffee.
You can read all about the journey of discovery in the Andes in the BIKE app (iTunes and Google Play) or download the issue from the DK shop reorder:
