Day 6: to Salamina (56 miles)

We headed out of town after breakfast and right onto a dirt road. We wound our way down into a valley that mainly had small cattle ranches periodically. At a stone bridge over a small river we spotted these two vultures in a tree.

A bit further we had this viewpoint of the valley we had been traveling through.

At about noon we arrived at a nice regional town, and had lunch on the balcony overlooking the town square. It was Saturday and a lot of people come in to town on Saturdays. So, there were a lot of people.

This type of small bus in the picture below travels only on paved roads and a lot of people were arriving to the town on these.

Another type of bus is called a Chiva. These are built on a truck chassis and travel on the rugged dirt roads. These are owned by the driver and transport people and produce such as coffee beans, potatos, etc in large woven cloth bags to town to sell. We often see someone waiting along a dirt road with two or three large sacks with produce waiting for the next Chiva. The Chivas play an important role in these rural communities and farming outposts. The Chivas are often an older large truck from the 50's or 60's. Thd owners keep them running and providing their service for many decades. They truly are their owners pride and joy.

Here are some pictures of a Chiva I saw in the town square. It is based on a truck that looks like it might be from the 1950's. There is a big rack on the roof for sacks of produce and other things. Here is a closeup of the passengers. They are visiting and talking. Notice the woman holding a baby in a blanket. Notice the older gentlemen sitting up from near the driver.

After lunch we headed out of town for a ride on a pavement road with lots of turns which would take us to Salamina. Several miles linto this ride we came to a road construction stop. The road was closed for the next hour for repair. The woman running the traffic stop told us the dirt road to the left would also take us to Salamina but it would take about an hour and a half instead of 30 minutes of the paved road. Rather than wait an hour we headed off on the dirt road.

Here are a couple of pictures of crossing through water from a waterfall, as it began to rain lightly. This is one of the other riders, but you can see the size of the waterfall. After the water spills across the road at the left of the picture there is a sheer drop off about 20 feet high.

Here I am coming through this water crossing.

It did not stop raining. In retrospect we should have stopped and put our rain gear on. It turned into a steady rain and by this time we were soaked. Every inch of the road turned into a muddy quagmire. There are no pictures of this. So here are some pictures from previous days. Today was much worse than these pics.

Eventually the quagmire ended. The rain ended, we came out into a paved road, and the sun came out. We rode the short distance to Salamina, a historic town on the national register. They strive to keep it with authentic looking buildings. It has a beautiful town square. Here are some pictures. We had a nice dinner in town, and headed back to our hotel to continue drying out and get ready for tomorrow.