We met for breakfast at 7 in the hotel breakfast area. This hotel was a pretty good deal at 104,000COP (about $23). Breakfast was real with real servers. Coffee, fruit, eggs, toast and cheese.
We start out not sure where we would end: either Pereira or Chinchilla. There was a long, very gentle climb out of town for 20km. After that it was mostly downhill.
On the way up we stopped for jugo at a roadside stand. Alpha started taking to the girl at the counter and asked all kind of questions. Those questions lead to a tour of the farm behind the stand. We got introduced to all the goats. They were very nice to us. This was one of those things we would have missed without a Spanish speaker.
Riding along I hear the hiss of sealant and the accompanying profanity. Mike pierced his tire in two places with a nail. Fortunately, he had a spare tire and we were able to transfer the sealant to the new tire. How many engineers and physicists does it take to change a tire? It was like the 3 Stooges.
We had a long descent into Pereira and decided to take the short day plan and ended there.
Traffic in the city was crazy and we were on twisting under and over passes. I was trying to follow my route - which I probably didn't vet very well. We got off at a quiet place to look at hotels. We lucked into a lunch spot that turned out to be quite good except for the jugo naturales. The sopa was excellent and the simple fried chicken was tasty. It was a pleasant surprise.
We selected a hotel and it turned out to be quite close over a pedestrian bridge and across a concrete square. Hotel Catuluna nice place except for the tiny bathrooms. The normal price was 90,000 but since we got four rooms we got a discount to 80,000.
Post clean up it was still mid afternoon and we walked around. It's a busy town. It was either payday or bill day or both because every bank and ATM had a huge line.
Back at the hotel we all took a little rest. I contacted GoogleFi and got my disappearing cell connection fixed. Success! I was back online. I don't know that I can function in the populated world without my phone any longer.
Dinner was at a highly rated pizza place and it was ok. I really take Colombian restaurant ratings with a lot of salt. If Colombians rate something highly it may not be to North American taste. Sometimes they are meaningful, but more likely not. You find the same thing everywhere - Wendy's has a higher rating than fancy pants burgers because the are cheaper.
On the way back we went to a D1 to get water and I needed toothpaste. Not a very exciting day but it was nice to finish early enough to have some nothing time and get to bed early.
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