Colombia: Andes and Caribbean Grand Tour

Thirteen nights in a loop from Medellin, from Andean mountain roads to the Caribbean coast and back through the coffee region. Bikes are rented.

Medellin is the start, a city at around 1,500 metres in a narrow valley, known as the city of eternal spring because the altitude holds the temperature steady all year, and transformed over the last two decades to the point where it is now a standard stop rather than a cautionary tale.

The Andean riding is the substance of the trip. Colombia has three separate cordilleras running north to south, so the roads climb and drop repeatedly, and the country packs more variety into a day’s ride than almost anywhere: cloud forest, high paramo, coffee terraces and river valleys, often inside a few dozen miles.

The colonial towns follow, built on gold and salt and left largely intact, with painted balconies and cobbled squares, then the coffee-growing region, where the fincas are working farms rather than exhibits and the wax palms grow to sixty metres. The Caribbean coast is the turning point, warm, flat and a different country in character from the highlands, before the loop closes back to Medellin. The price is quoted per rider. Colombia is one of the best motorcycling countries in South America and still among the least ridden by visitors, largely for reasons that stopped applying some time ago, and thirteen nights covers both the mountains and the coast without rushing either. Medellin is also an easy arrival point, with direct connections from Europe and a climate that makes the first day’s riding pleasant rather than an ordeal.