13th March San Gil – Valle de Lieva 114 miles

Late start today as we are waiting for laundry having run out of clothes again.
Straight onto the right road out of San Gil as it is quite a small town and far less confusing.
The road was quite good to start, with again lots of lorries to overtake and the odd set of road works. We then realise that we have missed a turning and this is about 15-20 miles back but having learnt from our previous experiences we turn back and attempt to establish where we went wrong.
Our error came in the previous town and it is understandable why we missed it as there are lots of street traders half way across the road. Now we think we are on the right road we stop for a drink and a little old lady prepares a fresh orange juice for us using about 20 not very nice looking oranges. Instead of cutting them in half and squeezing them she mearly cuts the top of and juices it in one go. Well the resulting drink was fantastic, really sweet and refreshing.
The road has now become very twisty once again and we are climbing and decending quite a bit. To our right is a mountain and we were on a road on the other side of that before, just as well we turned around.
We are stopped by some army guys who are collecting for their injures colleagues and they want us to but some raffle tickets where we may win a quad bike and other super prizes which will be of no use to us once we return as we would not be able to claim them. We pointed to our British Legion poppys on the front of our bikes and tried to explain what the organization is, I think they understood some of it. We ended up giving them a donation rather than buy any tickets, which is a better option for both of us.
Our destination is just a few miles away and the army guys help us with directions, well the road winds and twists everywhere and the few miles ends up being close to 25 in the end.
Now picture this, we are in a small town in the middle of nowhere and we are stopped by the police and asked for our documents, I get mine out first and show him the registration document for my bike, he quizzically looks at it and goes off to show a colleague rushes back to me and says OK. He checks nothing else and Martin is left standing with his docs in his hand and no one interested in looking at them. Don’t know what that was about or what it achieved but there we are.
We are now in a town which is a National monument and the roads are like cobbles but made with massive stones, it is murder to drive over. Another first, normally you can stop just about anywhere at anytime, buses pick up immediately after traffic lights so that they obstruct the junction, her we stop outside a hotel in the square and a young policeman came and informed us we were not allowed to park there, wow.
We book in and go and park the bikes and then off to see the sunset and have our ritualistic beer. Whilst looking at the sunset Kevin, the Canadian guy we met in Medellin, walks by, we go and have a beer with him and his girlfriend who has now joined him and catch up on the last couple of weeks.