Near death, gold & salt

Ahoyhoy wonderful UKers and commenters,

Thanks for all the comments and keep them coming, I love them. Carl - the church was finished in 1949 or 50 I think having been rebuilt.

I left Prof Alvaro´s house at 6.30am and made for Bogota but the road was massively twisty and busy. Having long chats with the fuzz didn´t help but they were friendly and were just interested alothough they did check my documents and reassuringly confirmed all was in perfect order.

Alas after a quick rest stop I stopped again but not out of volition. I was overtaking a lorry who decided to suddenly pull over to a rest stop without looking or indicating. I slammed on the brakes but slowing from 70mph takes time and as I was forced left off the road and onto the gravel of the large layby I had two options: 1) plough head on into the back of a stationary lorry or 2) put Sir humphrey on the ground on his left side and hope for the best. I think I made the correct choice deliberately laying Sir Humphrey down on his left side. In other circumstances I wouldn´t have wanted to be near me after this. I could well imagine me putting my helmet through the lorry´s window for so nearly taking my life but my first thought was for Sir Humphrey who was bleeding petrol. A group of people ran over and helped me right him. I forgot everything else and got straight to work on stemming the flow of go juice. I found me tool kit in my left pannier 10feet behind us. The lorry driver came up and seemed to be saying something which didn´t look like an appology but he and all the others were very helpful.

A lady from the roadside restaurant brought me a drink and a kitchen knife to cut out a section of crossover fuel pipe. I am running out of slack in this pipe this being the third time I´ve had to cut it. Eventually the leak was closed but one of the crash bar mounts had taken a pounding and all was not well was the tank was resting on the crossover fuel line valve. If that valve gets damaged it could stop the trip until replaced. I used a packing strap to help secure the pannier back on and went back on my way soaked with sweat.

I was never going to make Bogota so I rode through Armenia looking for a hostel near a mechanics but got diverted twice. Emily even got lost but we followed signs for Bogota that we found after 20mins and before I new it I was in beautiful green mountains but with sun was setting, it was starting to rain and I had no where to stay. Lucky I came across a roadside stop that had a sign saying Hospidaje or something like it. I paid for the room that was meerly a shed with a bathroom I wouldn´t use and, I imagined, nasty bugs in every nook and cranny but as it was raining as hard as I´ve ever seen I was grateful. The next morning, having slept with the light on, I could seen the beauty of where I´d stopped:

I headed on along the twisty and lorry festooned road making slow progress but eventually Emily guided us perfectly to the Bogatoan Glod Museum. I stored Sir Humphrey in a preivate car park and went in. It was busy as Sunday´s are free and the background noise made the audioguide almost pointless but oh my what exhibits. I´ll only show you a few for flavour but it was impressive:

A golden conch:

Part of a breast plate:

Part of a haul of jewelery from a woman´s grave:

The doors to one of the exhibition rooms:

And one of the best pieces, a raft of gold showing a chief with six oarsmen floating out onto a lake to make offerings of gold (like the sun and therefore representing the upper world) into the lake (representing the middle, inhabited by us, world). This piece really was beautiful and is approx 5" long in a display room of its own of 20´:

After lunch in a lovely little deli that wouldn´t look very out of place in Clapham I started off for Zipaquira, the site of the underground salt mine cathedral. People in Columbia are just so nice. I completely accidentally rode down a road reserved for cyclists and the police stopped me and were very nice about it and directed me to a detour. Alas I missed a turning and this combined with heavy traffic and heavier rain meant it was slow going but on arriving there I had a lovely chat with two local maths proffessors. I then started the descent into the salt mine (still producing).

First where over a dozen stations of the cross each with a huge cross carved from the living rock:

And then there was the cathedral itself. There were many caverns to it all lit in bright coloured lights. It was breathtaking:

You did have to be careful of the giant killer rabbits though:

The salt and rock carving was amazing:

A very cool place formed by a lake evaporating and the resulting salt flat being folded in on its self by the rising Andes. From here I freewheeled into town and found a nice little hotel who gave Sir Humphrey pride of place in the only covered parking space. I then had my first proper shower in days and it felt SOOOO GOOD. I followed this up with one of the best burgers of my life (all I could afford) and a fair sleep. This morning I´ve been trying to take away some worry about Sir Humphrey´s left side. I´ve secured the pannier a bit better and have fudged a temporary improvement to the fuel tank/fuel pipe/crashbar bain of the trip. In the end I used a pannier fastener. I think I should send this photo to a publisher for inclusion in a photo dictionary next to the entry for Heath Robinson:

So that brings us upto now. I am sore with tender bumps on my head and thigh but we all are still fit for travel and travel we must for the Venezuelan border, or somewhere near it, awaits.

TTFN,

Tinkery Tiggery