7 Cerros Medellin Adventure Race
Lots of fun in the city!
16.10.2006
What a fun route - after their long trek down the hillside, they continued down by cable car and then caught the metro into town.We waited for a long time at the top of the cable car in Santo Domingo - a poor neighbourhood in which the government has invested a lot of effort and money to improve the standard of living.
Suddenly, there were teams arriving from everywhere, pushing to get through the turnstiles to hop on to a cable car. First came SOLE (USA) and BOSI(COL) - Paul told me that they had travelled together down the hill and had really lucked out in getting some local directions that sent them on a route that headed straight down the hill to the CP. ABARTH-TEVA (ESP) and NATIVOS (COL) had also descended together. 'We were first' said Spain's Aurelio, 'but then lost 15 minuted to a navigation mistake' Coming in from other directions were FINLAND, INTER SPORT (FRA) and several other teams.
I crammed into a cable car with FINLAND and a television crew. Sitting in the car, the racers were head down, studying the map and shovelling food in. The TV guys asked me to translate 'How do you like it up here in the car?' Petri and Ville looked up and around, for the first time noticing where they were and the spectacular city view.
The locals had all stepped aside for the racers in the line-up to get on the cars, so we were probably ten or so teams all descending at once, one or two teams per car. At the bottom, we all burst out of the cars and down to the metro station. There was no train waiting, so with echoes of The Amazing Race passing through my head, we all stood around together on the platform and waited.
One more metro transfer took them to Estadio Station and a quick run over to the sports complex where they set out on a short city orienteering route, then will return here to pick up their bikes.
Big thanks to sponsor UNE, who is providing the internet access here allowing me to submit this report as it happens...See All Event Posts
