MOTORCYCLE TRAVEL IN Colombia

Climbing the Alto de Letras by motorcycle means crossing, in under 40km from Manizales, every thermal floor Colombia has to offer: you leave through coffee fields, ride through high Andean forest, break through the cloud ceiling into páramo full of frailejones, and end up facing the glacier of the Nevado del Ruiz.

The pass tops out at 3,650-3,677 masl, the highest point reached by a main road anywhere in the country, and the climb from Mariquita —80.7km without a break— ranks among the longest mountain climbs in the world, contested year after year in international cycling races.

Waiting at the top of the páramo is the Nevado del Ruiz, an active volcano under permanent monitoring by Colombia's Geological Survey ever since the 1985 Armero tragedy, when an eruption melted the glacier and buried the town in a matter of hours — always check the official alert level before heading up.

The payoff for the rider is twofold: the lunar landscape of volcanic sand fields at nearly 4,000 meters, and the hot springs bubbling at the mountain's foot to thaw you out after the descent.

Descending into the Chicamocha Canyon by motorcycle from Bucaramanga is a string of tight switchbacks dropping nearly 1,500 meters to the canyon floor, only to climb right back up the other side on the way to San Gil.

The canyon stretches 227km and reaches depths of up to 2,000 meters at 1,450 masl — locals from Santander unapologetically compare it to the Grand Canyon, and at the highest point of the ride sits Panachi, home to one of the longest cable cars in the world, a 6.3km line that crosses the canyon end to end.

The route crosses the historic Pescadero bridge before climbing back up toward San Gil, Colombia's capital of extreme sports, so once you're off the bike there's still rafting, rappelling or paragliding if your body wants more adrenaline.

It's one of the few routes on this Top 10 that any bike can handle, with no real off-road, just a well-maintained national highway — ideal for anyone just starting to travel Colombia by motorcycle.

Riding into the Cocora Valley by motorcycle from Salento means crossing hills of coffee plantations to reach a valley where the tallest wax palms in the world grow, some over 60 meters high and living nearly 200 years.

The Ceroxylon quindiuense is Colombia's national tree, and this is essentially the only place on the planet where it forms forests this dense — a landscape that feels out of scale, with impossibly thin, towering palms poking through the mist of the Andean forest.

Pavement runs as far as the restaurant and lodging area; beyond that, the track gets technical if you push toward the edge of Los Nevados National Park, and the valley is also home to the yellow-eared parrot, an endangered species that only survives where wax palms still stand.

Salento, the gateway town, keeps its colorful balconies and vintage Willys jeeps from the coffee-boom era — the perfect contrast before or after the ride on two wheels.

Crossing the Puente de Occidente by motorcycle means riding over an 1895 engineering relic, built by José María Villa — the same Antioquian engineer who worked on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

It was once the longest suspension bridge in South America and the seventh longest in the world; today only pedestrians, motorcycles and mototaxis cross it, so feeling the structure sway slightly under your wheels is part of the experience.

The full loop covers 165km from Medellín: it drops from the cool paisa climate down into the dry heat of the Cauca canyon at Santa Fe de Antioquia, crosses the bridge, and climbs back up tight gravel switchbacks to the Horizontes viewpoint at 2,800 masl, before passing through the coffee towns of Sopetrán and Olaya.

It's the ideal route for anyone who wants colonial history, 19th-century engineering and mountain off-road all in a single day, without leaving Medellín's area of influence.

Climbing the Alto de la Línea by motorcycle between Ibagué and Calarcá means crossing the Cordillera Central at nearly 3,200 masl on one of Colombia's busiest freight corridors — cyclists nickname it the "Colombian Stelvio" for how demanding its grades are.

It's a route of contrasts: you climb through fog, tractor-trailers and interdepartmental buses on a winding road built for trucks, not for the joy of leaning a motorcycle through curves — the appeal here is the feat more than the scenery.

The heavy truck traffic isn't an exaggeration: this corridor carries much of the freight moving between the country's interior and the Coffee Region, and its mix of fog, blind curves and tractor-trailers makes it a recurring site of crashes between trucks, buses and motorcycles, with periodic closures reported by Tolima and Quindío road authorities.

Since 2024 a 30km tunnel crossing between Cajamarca and Calarcá has been under construction, one that will eventually replace this open-air route — until then, La Línea remains the obligatory, and dangerous, toll between Tolima and the Coffee Region.

Riding into Villa de Leyva by motorcycle means arriving at one of the best-preserved colonial towns in Boyacá, with cobblestone streets and whitewashed 16th-century houses around an imposing, all-stone main square.

Minutes from town, the Desierto de la Candelaria opens up — a small Andean desert of red earth and rock formations that was, barely 100 million years ago, the floor of an ancient sea.

In 1977, the fossil of a Kronosaurus boyacensis was found here — a marine reptile up to 12 meters long — one of only two complete specimens of this species ever found in the world, now on display at the Museo El Fósil, built literally around the original find.

In a 20-minute ride you go from Boyacá's most photographed colonial plaza to an arid landscape that looks like another planet, with loose dirt tracks that test your balance through tight curves.

Connecting San Agustín and Tierradentro by motorcycle through the Páez river canyon means covering the 176km that separate two of South America's most important pre-Columbian necropolises, both UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

San Agustín holds more than 500 stone statues carved by a culture that vanished before the Spanish arrived — gods and warriors up to several meters tall, scattered across forests and plateaus.

Tierradentro, on the other side of the canyon via La Plata, holds the largest concentration of monumental underground tombs from the pre-Hispanic era anywhere in the Americas — hypogea carved into volcanic rock, with staircases and mural painting that has survived for over a thousand years.

The last few kilometers before Tierradentro turn to dirt as the canyon closes in, so on top of the history, the route adds a real off-road stretch through little-touristed mountains of Cauca.

Reaching Cabo de la Vela by motorcycle means crossing the Alta Guajira desert through ancestral Wayuu territory, 160km from Riohacha where the pavement runs out well before you arrive.

From Uribia, the last 60km are loose sand, dunes and rock — according to local guides, only large-displacement bikes manage to cross without getting stuck, and continuing on to Punta Gallinas, further north, is strictly 4x4 territory.

The landscape makes up for the difficulty: the desert runs literally into the Caribbean Sea, with red cliffs like the Pilón de Azúcar and beaches where the Wayuu wind never lets up — the same force that makes La Guajira a breeding ground for kitesurfers.

Along with Palomino, it's the other face of the Colombian Caribbean on two wheels: no jungle, no river, just pure desert, wind and an endless horizon with no road reaching it.

Riding from Santa Marta to Palomino by motorcycle along the Troncal del Caribe means skirting the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the highest coastal mountain range on the planet — its peaks top 5,700 masl and sit just hours from the sea, a world record for how close snow and beach can get.

The 72km of pavement run with the Caribbean on one side and the sierra's jungle on the other, crossing rivers that flow straight down from the glaciers to the sea, like the Palomino river, which separates jungle from sand on the beach of the same name.

The Sierra Nevada is ancestral territory of the Kogui, Arhuaco, Wiwa and Kankuamo peoples, who consider themselves the spiritual guardians of the world's balance — seeing them come down from the mountain with their woven mochilas is part of the route's human landscape.

It's the most accessible route on this Top 10: pavement start to finish, ideal for closing out a Colombian Caribbean motorcycle trip with zero technical demands.