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Equipped with nothing more than a small backpack, a water bottle and a mountainbike lend to us by some of our students we started on a three day cycling trip through the Colombian mountains. I am accompanied by the Italian Luigi and the Colombian Diego. Diego runs a English Language Institute were Luigi and I are teaching as volunteers. This weekend there are no classes due to one of the many holidays Colombia has. This morning we left early from the city of Zipaquirá, located one hour above the capital Bogotá and known for the salt cathedral that attracts large amounts of tourists each year. We are now halfway and just made a stop to get a cup of poor quality coffee. Although Colombia is known as a producer of high quality coffee beans it is quite impossible to find a good cup of coffee outside of the touristic areas. Most high quality beans are exported to Europe or the US. The local coffeehouse has to make the best out of the leftovers. This time the coffee is so poor that we can see some tears building up in the eyes of our Italian friend, thinking about the espresso he used to drink at home. From the little mountain town we are now at there are two ways that lead to our final destination of the day. We have to decide between the main road or a smaller road that leads is along some big big ascends and descends. Hoping for some spectacular views who choose the latter. We buy some extra bocadillas for our sugar supply and hop on our bikes. Only a hundred meters outside the town the road starts to descend extremely. I’m the first one of the group and energised by the coffee and sugar we just had I start to attack the corners aggressively making the most speed I can. I know from previous descends that Luigi is the fastest on descends, but I feel like challenging him this time. I look over my shoulder a few times and seem to have created a nice gap with the other two. After ten minutes of descend an older woman is waving me to stop. She starts to mumble in Spanish. My language lessons have been just been enough to understand the words 'peligroso', ‘criminalidad’ and 'FARC'. Maybe it’s wiser to wait until my Colombian friend is here to translate the rest. But where are they? The woman is pointing in the direction I am coming from telling me I have to turn around. I'm trying my best to explain that I am waiting for my friends. But after a few minutes of waiting they’re still not here. What happened. Did one of them crash in the fast descend? I start to worry. I have no choice but to turn around and go back up the road to find my two companions. At some parts the road is so steep I have to push my bike. It takes me 45 minutes up the same way it took me 10 minutes on the way down. Almost back in the town I see my friends waiting for me on a couple of comfortable chairs. They're smiling. “There he is”. Someone had stopped them after just two hundred meters to warn them they were heading into FARC-territory. Lucky bastards... They had an extra 45 minutes of rest while I was struggling in the Colombian sun to find my way back up. “Let’s take the main road” says Diego with a smile. “It’s safe, and not that steep”. I decide to stay behind Diego for the rest of the day in case anybody tries to warn us again. Luckily that's not necessary. His words on the main road being safe were true. His words on it being not that steep not so much. But that's maybe because I'm Dutch. For us even a speed bump is steep.