Today I drove, as far as prudence would have it, deep into
the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. This range is short, but very high, and is a
continuation of the magmatic arc. I expected to find a lot of volcanic rocks
(and they may be very abundant at higher elevations), but instead found a
foundation of deeply weathered intrusive rocks (DG, or decomposed granite in
the parlance of geotechnical engineers). I am pretty sure that this are
Mesozoic intrusions, not unlike the ones of the Sierra Nevada of California.
The call to fame of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is
that, starting at sea level, within a few kilometers of the coast rises to
5,775 m (18,950 ft), in the form of the Nevados Cristobal Colón and Simón
Bolivar. I did not get to see them because of the cloud cover, but here is a
phot from the internet to show you how pretty they are.
There are very few mountains that rise so abruptly from sea
level. Let me see, we have Mauna Loa in Hawaii (4,169 m), Mount Kinabalu in
Borneo (4,095 m), Mount Fuji in Japan (3,766 m), Pico del Teide in Tenerife
(3,718), Mount Etna in Sicily (3,350 m), and the San Gabriel Mountains in
California (3,068 m), so you can see that the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
proudly occupies the first place among this distinguished mountainhood.
Incidentally, with Santa Marta I complete my personal acquaintance with huge
coastal mountains!
Once I got down I started on my way to Bogotá. I have two
and a half days to get there, so I should be able to do it without any
heartburn. Of course I still have to face the slow mountain roads, and probably
between 10 and 20 toll stations. The toll one pays at each station is not too
high (2 to 4 US dollars), but the darn things pop up every 30 to 50 km. I
should have kept count of the total number of stations I passed. In total I am
pretty sure it is going to be close to 40 stations.
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