Riding to Colombia’s Volcan Nevado del Ruiz: Part II

Here’s Part II of our grand ride to the top of Volcan Nevado del Ruiz.   Colombia was an awesome adventure, and my good buddies Juan and Carlos were great traveling companions.  Here you go, folks….

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As I mentioned earlier, our riding positions were Juan, me, and Carlos. Juan was just amazing. I was keeping up, but I was working hard to do it. And I knew Juan and Carlos had dialed it back for me.

Juan made it look so easy. He would sometimes ride through the curves standing on the pegs, almost as if he needed to give himself more of a challenge. At one point, we were taking a set of curves at speeds way above those at which I would normally ride, with the bikes leaned over at an unimaginable angle, when I looked ahead at Juan. He was standing on the pegs again, with his motorcycle leaned way over in a sweeping curve, and he was reaching back to check the latch on one of his panniers. He was doing this as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Both he and Carlos are incredible riders.

Juan knew another photo spot, and we stopped. He and Carlos took positions on the side of the road to take photos, but I zeroed in on my front tire. I wanted to check out my chicken strips.

Chicken strips are the edges of the tire tread that haven’t contacted the road surface. The harder you corner on a motorcycle, the more you lean the bike over, and the narrower your chicken strips become. Our ride during the last 30 miles or so had been aggressive, and my chicken strips showed it. They were about as narrow as any I have ever created on a motorcycle.

Juan and Carlos came over. They thought I had a problem with the motorcycle’s front tire until they saw me photographing it. Both guys laughed. They knew immediately what I was doing.

“I was watching you in the mirrors,” Juan said, “and you are riding more strongly. We will make you an honorary Colombian motorcyclist!”

The spot Juan had selected to stop was indeed a good one. The Nikon 18-55mm lens came off the camera I replaced it with the Tokina 12-24mm. I grabbed a shot that became one of my favorites (it’s the one you see above).

The climb continued, we turned left at an intersection, and then we made a right turn onto a dirt road. We were in the fog, but the fog had not descended to reach us. We had climbed into the clouds to reach it.

It was cold. I could barely see Juan through the fog and I thought it was because my visor had clouded over. I lifted the visor and I realized that it was indeed fogged over, but the visibility wasn’t any better with it up. We were in the soup, and it was thick.

I hit the toggle switch on the left handlebar to activate the RX3’s emergency flashers. I saw Carlos follow my example in my rear view mirrors, and then Juan did so, too. I fixated on Juan’s taillight and his flashers; it was really all I could see in that thick soup. I was glad I was wearing my contact lenses instead of glasses; I would not have been able to see anything if I had worn my glasses.

I could barely see the dirt road beneath my wheels (the fog was that thick). The road had not turned to mud (and for that I was grateful). I felt the moisture hitting my face. It was cold.

That dirt road and the fog we were riding through went on and on and on. I saw a sign that said we were at 3400 meters. Wow, I thought after doing a quick mental calculation. That’s over 11,000 feet! It was about as high as I’ve ever been on a motorcycle, but it was a record that would be broken just a few more miles up the road.

As we continued, the moisture continued to smack my face, but it was stinging more. I thought maybe it was freezing rain. It seemed to bother my eyes quite a bit more, too. I put my visor down and it fogged over immediately. I put it back up just as quickly as I had put it down. This was extreme riding.

Juan stopped at another sign. We were now at 3,950 meters! That’s 13,000 feet. I was cold, but I knew I had to get the camera out for a photo of the bikes next to this sign. I told Juan the elevation was amazing, and he told me we would be climbing even higher.

Then Juan noticed something on my jacket. He looked at my bike and he became very excited. My jacket and the bikes had little specks of dust on them. Those little specks were what I had felt hitting me in the face. They hadn’t been freezing rain droplets. They were volcanic dust! The volcano we were riding up to was belching its innards all over us!

Juan was excited. “I’ve been up here maybe 10 times,” he said, and I’ve never seen this. The volcano knows we are here, Joe, and it is talking to us.”

We rode another couple of miles and we arrived at the Colombian National Park headquarters for the volcano. The bikes were covered with volcanic dust. Our helmets were muddy because of it. My eyes itched, but I didn’t dare rub them. I now knew my eyes were irritated because they had cinders in them, and rubbing them would grind that dust into my eyeballs. Nope, it would be best to let the tears that were streaming down my face do what they were designed to do and wash this stuff out naturally.

The people manning the Colombian National Park told us they were sending people away, back down from the volcano because it was active. Imagine that!

A volcano!

And it was active!

Wowee!

The sign at the top told us we were at 4,138 meters. That’s 13,562 feet, folks. And we rode up here on our 250cc motorcycles!

Juan told us there was a trail that went all the way up to the volcano’s rim, and that was above 15,000 feet. The Colombian government no longer allowed any kind of motorized traffic on that trail, so we couldn’t take the motorcycles. Juan told me he had done that ride while it was still legal to do so, and he had done it on a 100cc two-stroke Yamaha while riding two up! This guy is one hardcore biker, I thought.

We stayed for a bit, we had a cup of tea, we took a few photos, and we left. That would be one more checkmark on my bucket list. I didn’t even know riding up to an active volcano had been one of the things I wanted to do in my life. Having now done it, though, I can tell you what we accomplished that day deserved a spot on the list. It felt good knowing I could say I had done it.

We rode another 10 miles or so on dirt roads, downhill all the way, to a hotel that was about as far off the beaten path as I have ever been.
It was still bitter cold as we rode down the side of the volcano, but I was feeling good. I’ve said it in every chapter, and I’ll say it again: Juan was showing me one hell of a good time. This Colombian adventure tour was the most exciting motorcycle ride of my life.

Our destination that evening was the Hotel Termales, and it was at the end of a long dirt road. The Hotel Termales was interesting. As we rode in, there were springs emerging along the side of the road. The springs were small, but they gave off a lot of steam in the cold air. I could smell the sulfur. It was obvious we were in a very geologically active region.

As we were unloading the bikes I realized just how cold it was. The sulfur smell was heavy, but it wasn’t too objectionable. The aroma reminded me of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming or that stretch in Baja between Mexicali and San Felipe (two other geologically active regions I had ridden through on previous motorcycle adventures).

We checked in and a young guy carried my bags up to my room. It was a great room at the far end of the hotel. I had a huge window just above the bed with a commanding view of Manizales, the nearest town nestled in a valley perhaps 30 miles away. The lights of Manizales sparkled in the evening air. It would have made a good photograph, but truth be told, I was about photographed out that night. The ride up to the volcano had been demanding and I wanted to get in that hot pool.

The bellboy explained how to work the heater. To my surprise, it was an electrical heater that blew air through an electrically-heated grid. It was noisy and I thought it might keep me up, but I enjoyed the heat it threw as soon as the guy turned it on. I thought it was odd that with all the hot water coming out of the ground the hotel opted for electrical heating. That’s what happens when you’re an engineer, I guess. You look at things and wonder why.

I met Juan and Carlos in the lobby and we went outdoors to the hot springs pool. We were in our swimsuits and, wow, it was cold out there! Juan had warned us that he pool water was scalding hot and it was best to ease into it gradually, but it was so cold out there I wanted to get submerged as quickly as I could. It was a real shock going from the frigid air into that super-hot water, but I acclimated to it quickly. It was wonderful soaking up all that heat. I had been chilled to the bone, and now I was being boiled. The water had a strong sulfur odor, but I didn’t mind that at all. I was enjoying the heat.

I found that the water temperature, while hot throughout the pool, was much hotter where the water fed into the pool. I stayed close to the water inlets as very hot water cascaded over my shoulders and neck. These areas bothered me every night, no doubt due to the muscle tension associated with riding the Colombian twisties. Those hot springs helped enormously. It was better than being in a Jacuzzi.

That night we ate in the Hotel Termales restaurant. I strayed from my usual evening meal (nearly always chicken) and I tried the truche (that’s Spanish for trout). It was exquisite. Trout in the US is always a dicey proposition. Usually there’s only a small amount of meat on the fish (US trout all belong to Weight Watchers, I suppose). That was not the case here. Even though the truche was about the same length as a US trout, it easily had twice the meat on the bone. It was succulent, it had a pink hue to it, and it almost tasted like salmon. It so intrigued me that I looked up truche up on the Internet, and I learned that trout is actually in the salmon family. In Colombia, I guess the trout family relationship is much stronger than it is in the US.

I slept like a baby that night. The hot air heater didn’t keep me up at all. It was very cold outside, but my room was toasty.

So, back to what I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter…as I fell asleep that night, I thought about everything we did that day. Day 7, just like Days 1 through 6, had been a full day. Breakfast in Honda, exploring the town and the very first bridge to cross the Magdalena River, the river museum, Fresno, hard core cornering as we climbed into the clouds, bitter cold, fog more obscure than the US tax code, dirt roads, riding higher than I had ever ridden before (above 13,562 feet!), volcanic dust from a volcano that could have used some Pepto Bismol, a hot springs bath, and a delicious trout dinner. It had been another day in Paradise. I was loving it.

I thought about everything we had done during the day, and then I realized tomorrow was Day 8. I felt a strong twinge of regret when I realized it would be our last day on the road in Colombia.

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And there you have it!  If you want to read the entire story, get yourself a copy of Moto Colombia!