Manizales

The day went down like this: I walked, and walked, then walked some more. On a day I decided not to ride the bike in order to give the legs a much needed rest, I sure "shook them out" a bit more than i expected. I walked, but I also ate my way around the city. Its a beautiful thing and I do it so often on my travels: I see something that looks good like a deep fried morsel from some roadside vendor, a fresh pastry from a bakery, or the local flavor of ice cream from some Senora's foam cooler in the plaza... and I try it! This country is full of such temptations and ironically I tend to save my culinary explorations until my days off. I could be putting those carbs to use on a big ride day.

Manizales is a sweet town and I´d sure like to see this place on a sunny day. Its a mix between San Fran sin aqua and Darjeeling sin pollution and tea plantations... this is Cafetera. But its been beautiful today -- the clouds played havoc with the sun and the rays bounced around all day. Sunglasses were on and off a hundred times. Hope its nice tomorrow. This morning I cleaned and tuned the bike, and I took off the rack in prep for a big local ride into the surrounding terrain which undoubtedly means huge climbs. There is no way out but down.

Found a decent Vino Tempranillo on sale today and I bought some groceries to do dinner at the hostel... and fixins for about 4 huge fruit shakes. Some good people to chillax with: a Swiss, an Italiana, a couple Israelis, a couple local Colombianos/as and one paisano from Walla Walla. Apparently 8 out of 10 Americans (they even call us Americans here in the Sur de Americas) are from the Northwest. Thats bold, but I´ve met one Portlander and a couple Californians in my survey.