Montezuma Road

We left Otun Quimbaya after lunch.   The road to Pueblo Rico is under construction (as is most roads in Colombia) so we took the long way around since it would be closed 2 to 5.  When we got to Pueblo Rico, we picked up groceries for the lodge owner.  Most people in Colombia have motorcycles, much less expensive.  Police presence is very evident.  The guerrillas have been pushed to certain areas.  In Pueblo Rico there were AK47s everywhere you looked. 

The road to Montezuma Lodge is very bumpy and needs 4 wheel drive.  It is 14 kilometers from the main road, up the mountain.  The lodge is nice, basic.  Where we stayed had 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.  Hot water only going to one bath right now.  There is a big open area between the bedrooms.  The lodge is located in the cloud forest. 

The owner, Leopoldina, known as Leo is a Seventh Day Adventist, that is a widow with 4 teenaged girls.  Also living with her is her father, sister and her sister's daughter.  Leo's girls did the cooking and cleaning.  One also did our laundry for us!

This part of Colombia is generally sunny in the morning, and then cloudy/rainy in the afternoon.  The temperature is between around 60 and 70 from morning till afternoon, and it is the same 365 days a year.  The fog also rolls in as you can see in pictures.

The food is excellent!  The best food of our stay.  There are feeders by the dining area.



The doors are generally open to the outside all the time.  At night you have to be careful with lights because of bugs.  This is the main house, we ate on the left side.  The kitchen is detached to the left.  Dining is open air with a roof.  My favorite part of breakfast was the cheese sandwiches.  And I loved eating everyone's tomatoes and avocados!

 

This is how foggy it can get.  Jose and Leo were not far from me. 

 

Leo is very interested in having serious ecotourists and not the casual tourist.  She wants birders/botanists/ecologists.  She knows her mountain.  The first day we went almost to the top.  There is a military base on the top but the whole day we only saw 2 soldiers on a motor cycle come down.  It is about 30 kilometers on a very steep road to get to the top.  From the lodge it took us 2 hours to get there.  The plants were gorgeous.  Leo even showed up a very rare orchid that she found.

 

 

The views were stunning.  Unfortunately I think I lost a lot of pictures when my hard drive crashed.  Moral to the story is immediately back up twice. 

 

Lunch was delivered hot to us by one of Leo's daughter's on horseback.  We would walk down the hill and Arley would follow us in the car.  The quote of the day was Bill stating I got my sense of adventure from my parents.  He was a little anxious on the roads. 

 

There were growing in the wild.

 

The pet parrot.