Jesse, Last night I finally started reading your blog and realized I was a week late regarding your travel down the Cauca river valley.This is the area Silvia's family is from (Armenia to Cali with most of the family around Buga.Last june and february of 2007 she organized trips daily north from Cali to visit friends,relatives,museums,parks,and The new tourist attractions around Armenia--The Coffee Museum and the elaborate agricultural promotion, Pinacia,featuring horse shows,cattle shows,dog shows, and hourly pig races are both in the hilly coffee and fruit growing area with cattle grazing ranches on the surrounding rougher land.Going south I recall a large Momsanto-Dekalb seed growing facility before the highly mechanized sugar cane for ethanol fields took 90% of the irrigatible by gravity land both sides of the river to south of Cali. Buga,about an hour north of Cali,has a very large bus terminal with very good service up and down the valley with all grades of busses and mini-vans. The truck traffic was often heavy with all sizes fron old Willys and Chevys with corner windows ,lots of single and tandem axle diesels with covered flat beds and many de la Montana Kenworth's pulling tri axle trailers with large shipping containers comming from Buenaventura on the Pacific coast.Towards evening heading to Cali on the 4 lane , each side would widen to 3 and 4 lanes as the motor bikes go between the cars and trucks.Even on the major roads there always seemed to be cows and goats grazing the narrow shoulders. Hope things go well going into Ecuador.Last year they almost started a war with Colombia over the attack on the FARC bese on the Ecuadorian side. When I heard you were riding a motorcycle around South America it brought to mind finacial trader Jim Rogers trip on a BMW and Che Guavaras revolutionary attempts that ended in Bolivia. I believe Rogers tried riding From Panama into Colombia and found it very difficult and dangerous. Take care, Alvin
1 comment:
Jesse,
Last night I finally started reading your blog and realized I was a week late regarding your travel down the Cauca river valley.This is the area Silvia's family is from (Armenia to Cali with most of the family around Buga.Last june and february of 2007 she organized trips daily north from Cali to visit friends,relatives,museums,parks,and The new tourist attractions around Armenia--The Coffee Museum and the elaborate agricultural promotion, Pinacia,featuring horse shows,cattle shows,dog shows, and hourly pig races are both in the hilly coffee and fruit growing area with cattle grazing ranches on the surrounding rougher land.Going south I recall a large Momsanto-Dekalb seed growing facility before the highly mechanized sugar cane for ethanol fields took 90% of the irrigatible by gravity land both sides of the river to south of Cali. Buga,about an hour north of Cali,has a very large bus terminal with very good service up and down the valley with all grades of busses and mini-vans. The truck traffic was often heavy with all sizes fron old Willys and Chevys with corner windows ,lots of single and tandem axle diesels with covered flat beds and many de la Montana Kenworth's pulling tri axle trailers with large shipping containers comming from Buenaventura on the Pacific coast.Towards evening heading to Cali on the 4 lane , each side would widen to 3 and 4 lanes as the motor bikes go between the cars and trucks.Even on the major roads there always seemed to be cows and goats grazing the narrow shoulders.
Hope things go well going into Ecuador.Last year they almost started a war with Colombia over the attack on the FARC bese on the Ecuadorian side.
When I heard you were riding a motorcycle around South America it brought to mind finacial trader Jim Rogers trip on a BMW and Che Guavaras revolutionary attempts that ended in Bolivia. I believe Rogers tried riding From Panama into Colombia and found it very difficult and dangerous.
Take care,
Alvin
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