MANIZALES, Colombia — “No se dynamite.”
That would have to be the earnest reply of every engineer and architect ever involved in building the vast majority of the buildings and infrastructure that comprises the mountain city of Manizales. There really is nothing to compare it with that I’ve ever seen–a city whose main thoroughfare runs along the ridgeline of a mountain range with streets running into vast valleys on either side.
This makes for numerous roads that snake their way up the mountainsides, or, in most cases, simply drop off with what would have to be 40-degree plus grades that would be much more at home on a ski slope than an urban cityscape.
Seriously, I am no wuss when it comes to the types of roads I’ll ride on, but when I came face to face for the first time with 5-7 block uphill climbs where i could have easily tipped my bike backwards and tumbled down the hill if I just leaned back a little, I was legitimately scared. Especially when I had to stop. I definitely killed it a few times. The city also had secondary peaks and valleys, which made landmarks basically useless. I got lost for almost two hours on two consecutive days, the latter of which was when I was trying to leave the city to head back south toward the coffee region. The road I came in on was closed due to a landslide; I would still be poking around those streets if I didn’t make the shrewd decision to follow a bus out of town that had the city I wanted to go to painted on the back.
Following that bus was a great life choice!
I was not only rewarded with getting out of Manizales, but also the most beautiful scenery I’d ever seen anywhere coupled with the most righteous and pristine twisty curvy roads.
The ride took me through the cities of Perreia, Santa Rosa, Armenia, Montenegro, along with a collection of smaller villas. I also forayed offroad for the first time on my trip–twice–but only once intentionally.
The accidental offroad adventure came in the form of me just riding onto to this massive tropical plantation, where they were growing coffee, plaintains, and a few other crops they had hidden from view–I suspect coca and marijuana. Anyway, I thought I was going to Parque de Cafe Nationale, but the stark absence of anything resembling the tourist trap I was expecting got me thinking that perhaps I had just taken the liberty to ride my moto onto somebody’s gigantic lawn. I went further and further back and very soon this palatial mansion emerged from behind a hill, complete with Beverly Hills style front gate fully equipped with high tech looking surveillance equipment.
I stopped the bike and took off the helmet to get a better survey of my surroundings. I was expecting to hear the barking of vicious Colombian drug lord guard dogs zeroing in on my position.
Nope. Just this little 10-year-old mijo named Juan on his bicycle.
As he rolled up behind, i realized this was definitely not the coffee park.
“Lo siento amigo. No es al parque de cafe?”
“No,” said little Juan with a bit of a chuckle.
“Donde es?”
He replied unintelligably, but his gestures clearly indicated I should not have veered off the main road.
“Lo siento amigo,” I said.
I then told him where I was from and what I was doing in Colombia en Spanglish. He smiled and went on and on, once again unintelligably.
Little Juan lived in the small “ordinary” house that I had passed on the trail up to this gate. Servant quarters perhaps? Anyway, I started the bike back up and rode back to the main road and eventually found my way to the actual parque de cafe–20 minutes down the road.
Parque de Cafe Nationale was an amusement park with an educational slant to it; it also housed a small but interesting coffee museum.
My other offroad adventure led to my discovery of bonafide paradise.
In the town of Santa Rosa, I started seeing the words Termenales painted on the road with arrows pointing the way. A quick glance at my map revealed that Termenales was, in fact, a place…one where the road, well, terminated.
However the pavement portion of the road terminated well before I reached “Termenales.” I was a little unsure about going offroad for the first time (forgive the non-chronological order here). Echoes of all the bad things folks said about Colombia were reverberating in my head. If I were to find those things, offroad would certainly be where.
I pulled up on the bike and slowed to a crawl as I neared the gravel.
“Fuck it,” I told myself as Pink Floyd’s “Time” came up on shuffle. “If it’s my time, then it’s my time. I’m not going to let fear of something unknown dissuade me from something I really wanted to do. Hey, I can’t take my bike at home off-road…the fucking mirrors would fall off.”
Don’t get me wrong; I love my K1200LT. We’ve had amazing adventures on the smooth easy roads in the states. But here I was out in the third-world wilderness with no GPS (I had my droid phone, but GPS didnt work), no functioning cell phone, no and really bad language skills. I did, however, have the right bike to take on this challenge. The BMW F-650 was built for riding into undiscovered country, paved or otherwise. It handled like a dream. I would later find out from Mike at Motolumbia that this is because the gas tank in this machine is mounted in the rear of the bike. I mean, yeah, the fuel cap was on the right side of the bike just under and behind the seat. Makes sense! German genius! Just didn’t put it altogether until the end.
Now confident despite my inexperience, I downshifted to second gear and twisted the throttle.
Good things happen to those who say, “Fuck it!”
Fifteen minutes later, I found myself face-to-face with paradise.
And yes, its name was Termenales, a quaint five-star quality resort built around a natural hot spring waterfall! Yes, a hot spring waterfall! I didn’t realize it until I dipped my hand into the water and found it as warm as any hot tub!
The resort has been around in some form since 2007, and they appeared to be wrapping up construction on some fresh improvements or remodeling.
I only stayed long enough for a couple cups of delicious coffee, but that was plenty for me to decide in the highly unlikely event I ever get married again, this place will be the setting for my honeymoon. Haha. All-inclusive resorts and cruise ships, SUCK IT!
Termenales was skillfully built into nature to complement it. Not over it, through it, or instead of it. Truly, a masterpiece of eco-friendly design and engineering…apparently a recurring theme in Colombia, regardless if the end result is a little dangerous or breathlessly awe-inspiring!
-AVEB
