beyond Santa Marta

Well I did a drive-through today. I was supposed to be in Santa Marta but there’s been trouble there today so drove through to a small fishing village beyond.

The track

It was a hot day. About 30 bikes huddled under this tree for shade. This is normal – people don’t leave their bikes in the sun

I got a note from S yesterday saying hey Medellin doesn’t look so bad. That’s because I rarely post the grim shots. Sometimes 90% of what you see is grim. Today’s an example.

The ride was mostly across a huge isthmus. A beautiful view to the west, swamp to the east

50 miles of sand

A good sea

On the other side of the road

Then floating shacks with what seemed to be fish pens

Then miles of shacks beside the road

Which became a slum town. The ghetto was piled high with garbage right up to the sides of the shacks. The smell was overwhelming.

A large group of kids playing in the trash

This horrendous place, Puebloviejo, gave way to a small town, Cienaga

So enough of that sort of blog post, although you see this all the time, specially around the larger towns. If you use GPS it’s worse as it routes you the fastest way regardless through populations, shortcuts and all.

Then, after a couple of days of flats, it was up up into the hills briefly