26th February Medellin – Anori 117 miles

Once again a late leave after Skypeing our families this morning and the usual bunfight to get out of the city. Soon after leaving the road turns right although there is a minor road ahead, sadly about 30 miles later we realise we should have taken what looked like the minor road, how ridiculous. We decide to continue and should be able to cut back in about 20 miles, well the road is on my GPS but does not seem to exist. Continuing on we get a bit of rain and hope to drive out of it quickly as it is still very bright. A few bends later it is getting quite heavy and fortunately there is a cafe so we seek shelter and have a coffee. Well it absolutely chucked it down and then very high winds came and everyone in the cafe had to go in behind the counter as the chairs were blowing away and the tin roof started to be blown down. A chap turned up on a bike with a poncho on and it looked as though he had a backpack on, but when he stopped his son appeared from under the poncho.
After about 40 – 60 minutes it eased and we donned our waterproofs and headed off, the guy with his son in hot pursuit, when we stopped to decide which road to take he stopped and offered assistance so we followed him and after a while the tarmac disappeared and we ended up on a dirt road which was quite good to start and then deteriorated rapidly, glad I had my road tyres fitted yesterday. Well the best we can hope for today is to make it back to the main road and a town we can see on the sat nav.
No such luck, we make it to Anori in the dark and Andreas, as we now know him, guides us to a hotel and shows us somewhere secure to leave our bikes, even giving us a lift back to the hotel on his bike. Having been so helpful we offer to buy him and his son, Aleandro, dinner which he gratefully accepts.
He and his son disappear off to bed and when Martin goes to pay he realises that we do not have enough money. OK, so find a cash machine and away we go, this town doesn’t have one and we are not sure how near the nearest one is, OMG. We have plenty of money but not in the right currencies and we have plenty of resources but nowhere to use them. We will see what we can sort out in the morning, if all else fails Martin will have a long day in the saddle whilst I am held as ransom.