Contact Admin. After a sleepy, rainy birthday, it was time to hit the mountains of Colombia. We had planned to ride north to Cali, would take a couple of days there to rest up, then we'd do the final push to Medellin to meet my and Eli's dad.
The first day out of Ipiales started with a long km decent towards Pasto - on the way out of Ipiales, I ran into the first of a series of national police.
They came complete with a mascot and smiles, and despite their intimidating outfits, they were more than happy for a photo op photo 1. We'd continue past a number of national police checkpoints throughout Colombia - and we were waved through with friendly thumbs ups for all but one stop where I was quickly searched and sent on my way.
The rest of the day continued quietly to an end destination of Chachagui. The next morning, while eating breakfast at a roadside restaurant, I would meet Graciela, and her husband and three children. The took an interest in my bike - wondering about the weird internal hub and what I was carrying, etc. It was a quick interaction, but very genuine, and little did I know I'd end up in another hotel that felt slightly pre-established as a place couples went for private time On a bit of tangent, our time in Ecuador and Colombia in particular had us start thinking about prostitution legal in both countries and whether it was something that we believed should or should not be legalized.
While we all agreed that we do not believe in a society that necessitates women to resort to sex work to survive, we also agreed that legalization of sex work, accompanied by regulations, testing, etc. Maybe prostitution should be legalized, but being a pimp or selling others' sex labor should not be legal? It's obviously a very complex issue, but the legalization of prostitution in Ecuador and Colombia did make us question whether woman in the U.
