Panamericana adventure

Who would have thought that we spend our 200th day of our trip locked up in a house in Colombia because of a worldwide epidemic? Noone could have predicted this, that's for sure!!
In Colombia, travel has been largely restricted since 16th of March. Since last Friday night, there's state curfews, so it isn't allowed for people to leave the house anymore, except for grocery shopping or going to a doctor or similar. At midnight today, a nationwide curfew started, so these rules apply in all of Colombia.
We still think we are kind of lucky because we found a good place to stay during this difficult situation. First, the climate in San Gil is nice. Temperatures during the night drop to about 20 degrees, so we don't need airconditioning or a fan during the night. Before 10am and after 4pm, temperatures are cool enough to exercise.
Secondly, we have running water all day, electricity, a fully working kitchen and a bed. What sounds normal to most people is actually not everyday life for everyone here in Colombia.
Thirdly, we also have quite some space in the building including a patio, so we can see the sky even if we have to stay at home. It's not allowed to leave the house for exercising, so we use it for online trainings. Good to see there's heaps of offers on YouTube such as Yoga or #lederhosentraining.
In general, we try to keep a daily routine: get up around 6:30am, start with breakfast and followed by our morning exercise. During the hot hours, we puzzle, study Spanish, read, catch up with the news or with friends and family. Once it cools down, we do our evening workout, followed by dinner. Before going to bed, we usually watch some comedy online. We found a way to download videos on the phone, transfer it to the camera and connect it to the tv, so we have a big screen to watch it. In general, we prefer older comedy shows with last year's topics to get a break from Corona.
Yesterday was a highlight in our routine. In between state and national curfew, there was a day of a break. We took our bikes and went uphill for a ride to exercise a little. It was soooo good for our souls to be outdoors, a totally different feeling!! And again, we are lucky to be in San Gil as there's mountains all around. We can make 600m elevation gain on remote roads in only 10km. So we don't even have to go far in order to get a decent training and enjoy the views. Unfortunately, the officials here realized that all people used the "free" day to go out. So we got sent back to town when a firefighter passed us on his scooter. He also critized us for not wearing a face masks.
In general, people go crazy about the masks here. 95% of the people here wear them which is scary to us. We refused so far, but when someone yelled at us on the road again when going shopping, we decided to wear some as well. Lucky, we still had the ones we received in California which were supposed to protect is against the smoke of the fires. They won't help against the virus, but people here are satisfied and we won't end up in the news as the foreigners who refuse to wear masks... Anyways, apart from groceries, we could also buy a skipping rope and 3 balls for juggling which will hopefully distract us a little during the next 19 days.Read more