Bucaramanga is a big, hilly, surprisingly green city in the northern Andes, and for riders it is the doorway to one of the great canyons of South America. It lies at around a thousand metres on a plateau in the department of Santander, with some 570,000 people in the city proper and many more in the neighbouring towns of Floridablanca and Girón. People call it the city of parks, and the bulk of its trees and gardens do, in fairness, make the heat easier to bear.
The ride out is the reason you are here. From the city the road climbs to the high shelf of the Mesa de los Santos, passing through farming country and the small town of Los Santos, then drops away into the gorge of the Chicamocha. This is a canyon of real scale, a deep dry trench cut by the river through bare, tawny mountainsides that look more like Arizona than the Colombia of the postcards. Hairpins fall for long stretches, the views open without warning at each bend, and the road is generally good tarmac, though lorries on the descents and the occasional rockfall deserve respect. The canyon is hot and arid at the bottom, cooler and often cloudy at the top, so layers matter.
On the canyon rim there is a national park with a cable car that glides high over the gorge, a tourist attraction that is easy to mock and hard to resist once you are looking down on the river. The Guane people lived in this region before the Spanish, and the colonial town of Girón, a short ride from Bucaramanga, keeps white-walled streets and old stone churches that are well worth an hour.
Santander has a reputation for its food and its bluntness. Try a plate of local specialities and, if you are brave, the fried big-bottomed ants called hormigas culonas, a regional delicacy. Fuel is no problem in the city, where you can fill up easily before you go, but the canyon road has long stretches with little, so top up when you see the chance. Start early. The light on the canyon walls is best in the morning, and the afternoon traffic builds quickly.