It’s all about Climbing, Coffee and Christmas in the latest Colombian instalment of the How Are You? Where Are You? podcast.

We’ve scaled some pretty tough hills during our time here but they were all made to look like midgets next to the giant Alto de Letras. We bring you the story of how we inched up the world’s longest road climb.

Alto de Letras sits at the northern end of Colombia’s coffee axis. They’re the third biggest producer of the stuff in the world so we’ve seen acres and acres of trees and cute little farms dotting the countryside in this region. Normally, we don’t drink a lot of coffee but for some reason during our time here we’ve been guzzling it down. We also really enjoy the unpretentiousness of Colombian coffee culture. To find out more, we went to an organic farm for a tour with a passionate guy called Mateo.

Tis’ the season and Colombians fall for Christmas big time. We’ve noticed lots of differences in how they celebrate the festive season and as a result we are probably going to have to create some sort of nativity scene on our bikes.

Clockwise from top left: pausing alongside some banana trees; all in a day’s work for Shelley; enveloped by cloud above 3000m; bleak and miserable at the summit; resting and catching breath.

Clockwise from top left: Colombian coffee beans; Mateo shells the beans; old school coffee roasting; roasted beans; Mateo shows us his grandfather Don Elias’s plants.

Clockwise from left: Leaving Bogota on its excellent cycle network; Armero abandoned; the town’s missing children; buildings buried.

Clockwise from top left: Chinchina’s church lit up; Miss Universe shocker; a family’s nativity scene in Sevilla; Manizales Christmas bling; nativity scene in Mariquita

We come to you this week from Boggers, a.k.a Bogota, the capital of Colombia and the third-highest capital city on this green earth. (If you don’t count Bhutan’s capital Thimphu, which we deliberately chose to ignore in this podcast)

It was a long but beautiful slog to haul ourselves up here and what a huge and disorganised city we found at the top of the climb. However, the people have been fantastically friendly and this place has a rich history to explore.

On the way here, we stayed in some strange and wonderful places and stopped off at Guatepe,  a picture postcard town with an unusual style ethic.

What’s in the pot is back again and we continue to lift the lid on our breaking story regarding feijoas.

Hey, and thanks for listening to the How Are You? Where Are You? podcast.

Visiting Guatape

Clockwise from top left: The oldest street in Guatepe; Baden’s bike in front of a Zocalo; an example of a Zocalo; Enrique Garcia, owner of the oldest house in Guatape; a fountain in the village

Unexpected sleeping quarters

Clockwise from top left: the bomberos in El Peñol; school playground in Monteloro; the train station in Alban; Andres’s finca in Corona; our spot behind the fire engines in Puerto Salgar

Pictures From The Road

Left to right from top: off-roading between Guatepe and Granada; public transport in Cocorna; a block of panela; dishing out the morning’s panela; Baden and Shaggy posing in front of tanks showing the military presence on the route from Medellin to Bogota; Shelley in Guatepe; lunch spot under a bridge alongside the Magdalena River; the dog who followed us up the road out of Cocorna; Hacienda Nopales; Pablo Escobar’s farm; La Piedra del Peñol

Fun Times in Bogota

Left to right from top: the view over Bogota; Shaggy, Shelley and Baden outside the presidential palace; old men play chess in downtown Bogota; the church in Plaza de Bolivar; hanging in Plaza de Bolivar; a Fernando Botero piece at the Botero Museum; the offering bowl at the Gold Museum; more gold on display at the Museo del Oro; an intricate offering raft at the gold museum.

Seriously, if you are planning to come to Colombia with the sole aim of snorting cheap crap up your nose, you are massively missing out. It’s a cycle touring paradise and in this week’s How Are You? Where Are You? podcast we team up with our new buddies Shaggy and Lenin to discover all the joys of the beautiful Antioquian countryside.

After eight months on the road, a new style of touring has dawned on us and we’re bloody excited. We share all about that. We discover a perhaps little known link between Colombia and New Zealand and go cattle shopping in downtown Medellin.

Viva Colombia!

Clockwise from top left: Lenin and Shaggy in front; road near Uramita; cycling buddies, notice how Lenin’s bike doesn’t have panniers! View on the road to Santa Fe.

Clockwise from top left: feijoas; Baden ready to brand his new cattle at the market; Lenin’s aunt and the coconut rice cooking over a fire; coco rice covered with banana leaves.