Distance: 115 miles

 Average speed: 14.2 mph 

Moving time: 7 h 54

Door to door: 12 h 26

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Despite the lorry full of cows next to our Motel window we actually had a good night’s sleep and were on the road early knowing that today was a rare opportunity to get in some big miles as we would be cycling through the Cauca valley which is mercifully flat despite being at 900m. This came as a huge relief after two weeks of relentless up and down, and after a breakfast of 20 croissants (!), we powered on without stopping, meaning we had already done 60 miles by the time we stopped for lunch at 1. For cricketers out there it was a huge relief to be finally not facing immense scoreboard pressure and by the time it was getting dark we had already cycled 105 miles, and all was left was to find a camp spot for the night.

The process of finding somewhere to spend the night for the majority of the trip has been fairly simple. If there is nowhere marked on the amazing app Ioverlander (worked much better down south) we normally just cycle down a dirt path, into a field or towards a river, and find somewhere hidden from any nearby roads. Frustratingly we struggled tonight with cattle farms stretching for miles and miles and very few options to take a turning off the road. After a fruitless half an hour we turned off the Pan American highway towards the town of Victoria and decided to ask at a house if we could sleep in their field. At first, the lady seemed unsure with two smelly cyclists but eventually said we could camp in a field with her cows. Relieved we began setting up the tent when two policemen on motorbikes turned up and asking what we were doing asked us to pack up and leave. A very strange situation as the lady had just said was happy for us to stay there! We realised afterwards that she had called the police when we were at the bottom of her garden thinking we were burglars or something and then realised we weren’t and said it would be fine to stay but the Police were still on their way. From the police’s point of view, it was not safe for us to be camping there/they didn’t want the paperwork and so instead they told us to follow them towards Victoria where we could sleep next to the police station.

The situation then got a whole lot weirder when we arrived at the police station, which rather than being on the edge of town was in the town square. We tried not to laugh as the policeman suggested we put the tent opposite on a small patch of grass in what will undoubtedly go down as the most bizarre place we have slept during this whole trip, even beating our night on the hard shoulder of the Ruta 5 in Chile. It was a Friday night and the square was heaving, with bars on one side, a five a side football pitch in the middle (with spectators) and a religious service on the other. After getting used to the strange looks as we set up the tent and proceeded to start cooking, it wasn’t actually too bad and the drunken locals eventually went to bed. We suppose that the Police just had our best interests at heart and thought we would be safest next to a police station!