10th December 2012 - 7th January 2013 (Entry 14)

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Road miles to date 22,190

With a few days to spare on Colombia's northern coast we packed up our gear and headed east to Santa Marta. Three hours of riding around the city looking for a room to stay revealed that we should have headed the advice to give the place a miss. Overheated and dishevelled we jacked in the search entirely and rode ten minutes up the coast to the small fishing village of Taganga.

With no shortage of backpacking visitors, Taganga was thriving with small palapa restaurants and bars overlooking a working beach that was chockablock with fishing and diving vessels. The search for a room continued and just as we were about to cave into the enthusiastic sale of a mothball scented, cat infested room by two policeman and one hotel owner our friend Andrew from the boat trip showed up with seconds to spare. Directing us over and under the craters of some fairly desperate backroads, we arrived at the fortress that was his hostel, sitting high up on the edge of the village.

If ever someone sat down to plan out the ultimate hostel, this was it. With piping hot water, a games room, a DVD library, a swimming pool, a Playstation centre, a hammock veranda overlooking the sea, a twenty-four hour kitchen and a huge blue and yellow parrot, all at the same price as the mothball-cat room, we had struck gold. The place was a fortress though and the army of tattooed, not-to-be-messed-with staff suggested it could possibly (not wanting to jump to any rash assumptions) have been a front for an alternative Colombian business venture.

After three nights in relative luxury, the hardcore partying ways of our backpacking fellow guests left us feeling our age and we waved goodbye to them, heading further east along the coast to Palomino - a more remote village that we had been advised against visiting by two different sets of people. Realising this to be the way of most of Latin America (a serious look followed by "I wouldn't go there, it's very dangerous", only to be told when you get there that the place you just came from is actually the dangerous place and it is surprising that nothing happened to you there), we arrived in Palomino and ran into Lee, a Canadian on an F650 who was heading to Bogota to get his Colombian permanent residency. He directed us down to the beach to a beautiful, secluded eco-resort (basically a place where everything is constructed of wood and costs twice what you would pay if 'eco' wasn't in the title). Sadly all their eco (wood) cabins were taken for the night but they had space to pitch a tent. So for the first time in three months we crowbarred the tent out of our pannier and took quite a while deciding on a palm tree free spot that was out of the vicinity of any potentially falling coconuts.

We spent two days in tranquil solitary, camping beside a fairly stormy Caribbean sea, cooking fresh fish and homemade coconut rice by candle light (darkness sets in at 6pm in this area of the world - a downside for us who associate hot days with the sun staying up until 10pm) on the site's outdoor kitchen grill, using the burning husks of the coconuts Byron had spent all day hacking into. Although the town could be described as slightly sketchy, the beach was quite a walk from it and remained largely untouched by the tourist trade.

After two nights living back amongst nature, we packed up early for a long ride back to Cartagena where Isabel's parents were heading after their stay in Bogota. Although we had been warned about Colombian drivers, incidentally by Colombians, we assumed they wouldn't be much different to those we had already come across in Latin America. Despite the generosity, incredible friendliness, dislike of confrontation and laid back attitude of the nation, when they get on the road a whole new breed emerges. It soon became clear that Colombian drivers do not like to be stuck behind their fellow drivers on the road and will risk everything to get ahead. This ambition involves overtaking on blind corners, overtaking already overtaking vehicles, undertaking vehicles attempting to overtake, pushing oncoming traffic aside to continue a risky overtake and generally treating the road, whatever the condition, like a race track. All these said techniques do not stop at the huge number of forty-ton trucks that menace the roads, bringing on many a near heart attack. The one bonus of riding these reckless conditions is that the country is extremely motorcycle friendly and all the toll stations have a narrow lane to their right where bikes can pass through free of charge.

Pulling up at a roadside cafe not too far from Cartagena, a burly, well dressed guy began talking at us very quickly, asking where we were from and where we were going. Hot and tired we struggled to understand him and began inconspicuously edging our way to the counter. Oblivious of our intentions to escape, he followed us and commandeered our order, shooing us away when we asked how much the meal would be. It took a while to work out that he was in fact buying us the meal and appeared to be the man about this town. We soon learnt that being an incredibly hospitable country, Colombians simply don't comprehend a polite English, 'thanks but we couldn't possibly'. So we accepted the free meal, made friends with our benefactor Wilson, his son and his nephew who it turned out were all on quite a bender and their empty beer bottles, having filled their own table, began migrating onto the next table during the meal. When we finally finished and got up to carry on our ride, Wilson handed us a tray of mini pastries that had been delivered to him along with a couple of other trays while we were eating and were blatantly part of the catering for a party they were going on to. Unable to make our 'thanks but we couldn't possibly' understood, we accepted them sure in the knowledge that the party host was not going to be happy with Wilson, but also sure that he wasn't the sort that people start arguments with either.

Back in Cartagena we met up with Bryce, our friend who we had first met in Texas back in August and who had taken us to stay with his friends Jeff and Sonia in New Mexico (see blog entry 8). He had been deciding whether to do the trip south when we first met him riding around the States on his Harley and in October he set off on his modified Honda XR650. We had kept in touch and knew he was heading our way but we were never sure if our paths would cross. It turns out that our head start had nothing on Bryce and he had just arrived on the boat from Panama, also suffering a terrible journey, and was staying a couple of doors down from us in Cartagena. We didn't waste time catching up and repaying him for the Denny's he treated us to in the States. Following a quick photo shoot with the bikes (after which we discovered a huge orange spider sitting on our front bag that turned out to be worryingly close to Bryce in the photo) and a ceremoniously placed moustache sticker on our front fender, courtesy of his riding partner Justin whose trip had abruptly ended after being knocked over by a truck in El Salvador (see Bryce's blog here http://brycebissinger.blogspot.com/?m=0, he has had one eventful journey so far too!), we said our goodbyes as Bryce was about to overtake us and make his way to Medellin.

The next day we met Isabel's parents, Rosemary and Owen in Cartagena, exactly seven months to the day that we had left London for Anchorage. We were treated to many British treats and also much needed supplies that they had kindly added to their luggage, already bulging with gifts for the extended Colombian family. We spent a great few days exploring the old city, actually seeing the sights that we had skimmed over the week before including the city walls and the enormous old fort, before heading up the coast to an isolated, luxurious spa hotel on the beach, recommended by Henry and Vanessa. We had our first taste of ceviche and coco-lemonade and generally got quite comfortable living the high life there before we went on ahead, and made our way to Medellin for Christmas.

We broke up the ride to Medellin by stopping in Caucasia for a night, a fairly nondescript industrial town. The day had been a long one and the roads, although all paved, were heavily distorted by a combination of big trucks and hot weather that had created waves and crumpled ripples in the tarmac which proved pretty difficult to navigate when mixed in with the same suicidal Colombian driving we had experienced along the northern coast. The scenery was spectacular though, taking us through huge rolling green mountains, alongside wide expanses of perfectly cultivated hills mixed in with jagged mountain edges above wild, brown rivers. It seemed to be car wash Saturday along an extensive part of road and what we at first thought were lots of burst pipes turned out to be intentionally split pipes spraying water up into arches at intervals along the road for miles. Under several of them, teams of young kids were scrubbing trucks, cars and lorries, doing a good job of getting right into the engines and on top of windscreens. We spent the night in the smallest excuse for a double bed and were woken up at 3am by the night watchman knocking on our door. It turned out he wanted to tell us it was raining and that the front bag on the bike was getting wet. Thanks.

We got an early start the next morning, helped along by the well intentioned but very unwelcome night wake-up call. We made a straight run for Medellin through more really spectacular scenery, along winding, narrow mountain roads that gave an incredible view of the city sitting in its huge valley below, before abruptly hitting a perfect, two lane highway that took us right into the centre. Although we use good old fashioned maps to navigate most of our travels, we've taken to using Google maps in cities after several failed attempts to find our way out of a few in Central America. Lately though we have discovered the app to be pretty inaccurate when it comes to finding hostels, marking them by name on the map in totally wrong areas. Case in point, we reached the end of this journey to find we had been led to a tower block of flats and a few streets of houses dotted around. However, consistent with our experience of Colombians so far, a group of guys spotted us looking puzzled at the map and immediately came over to help. When they heard what we were looking for, one jumped in his car and guided us to it. They'd be bad odds that a lost Colombian would receive the same kind of help in London.

We parked up in the garage of the hostel and explored a bit of Medellin. That night we hardly slept in our chip-board walled room, set up in the corner of the garage where we heard every car alarm on the street go off as if it was in the garage with us. When at 3am we couldn't stand the terrible, cheesy music that had woken us up an hour earlier, Byron went out in his boxers to find a couple sat in their car right outside the garage door chatting away and messing with the volume control of their stereo. A quick glance of a half naked, half asleep, angry, bald, bearded, gringo was enough for them to splutter a quick 'lo siento' before high tailing it away to annoy some other poor sleeping soul. Added to the earlier discovery of pubic hair in the shower, on the floor and on the sheets of our bed, the next morning we vowed to move.

At some point during the previous couple of days a bolt had come loose on the sump under the bike, somewhere along the poor road heading south and the bike was now leaving puddles of oil everywhere we parked it. Byron had been planning to spend a couple of days servicing the bike in this city anyway and that morning we stopped off to buy some oil and other parts at a nearby superstore. When Byron went into the shop about seven guys who had been washing cars in the car park descended on the bike, totally enchanted by it and showing no inhibitions about touching it and leaning on it until Isabel had to intervene and explain that it was in danger of falling over. At which point they inundated her with questions, many of which she had no idea how to answer and eventually resorted to pointing to all the stickers on the boxes of where we'd been. This reaction to the bike has not been too unusual on the trip, however in this country of bike enthusiasts it has escalated and we have seen more and more cameras being held up at car windows as we ride past on the roads and have spent a lot of time talking to people who stop us on the street.

Eventually we made our excuses and headed further into the city. It turned out Bryce was still in town so we went to find a place to stay near him then met him for lunch at his hostel, the Shamrock. As we were on our way to spend Christmas with family, Isabel dragged the boys to a nearby mall in an attempt to buy a few Christmas gifts. Very impressed at how modern and wealthy a city Medellin was on the walk to the mall, the positive viewpoint soon disappeared when we discovered that all the shops were consequently pretty expensive too. With very little staying power the boys were soon making mischief in an ice cream parlour while Isabel did all the hard work. Exhausted after the exertion of shopping (we hadn't set foot in a shopping centre since July!), we got back to the hostel we'd found earlier to be told that actually there had never been a room available for us by a guy who found such a mishap very amusing, failing to gauge how unamusing we found it. Eventually he sorted us out with beds in a dorm and we went off for dinner in a delicious Colombian eatery, Crepes and Waffles where Bryce, being American, ordered two massive dishes and polished them off while Byron looked on wishing he had thought of doing the same.

The next day the Scottish owner of the Shamrock hostel, Al, took us and Bryce on a stunning ride out east from Medellin to Guatape. Just beyond the town an enormous free standing, natural rock - Penon de Guatape - stands over two-hundred meters high above ground (two thirds of it sit below ground) and overlooks a huge man-made reservoir, developed in the 1960s by the government for a hydro-electric dam. The rock is a bizarre sight which can be seen for miles before you actually reach it. We climbed the seven-hundred steps to the top, severely testing our lung power, and were rewarded with an incredible view of the reservoir and it's islands below.

After an early Christmas lunch of pizza in town we followed Al back towards Medellin and waved goodbye to the guys as we went to meet Isabel's parents and her newly extended family and friends at a farmhouse in the hills near Llanogrande. We had originally been planning Christmas somewhere further south on the continent but after the delays in Central America, our rough schedule was completely messed up and we ended up staying up in Cartagena a bit longer to spend Christmas with family. Henry was sadly stuck in London due to work and some intense studies but Vanessa and her family were spending it with their friends, Paola and Juan David in Medellin and had invited us all to join them. Al had warned us of the Colombian family Christmas get together earlier that day but until it began, we were totally ignorant of what to expect.

A night of dancing, rum, champagne, masks, party horns, wine, cat calls, declarations of love, holding lit fireworks and throwing them just before they exploded, beer, secret Santa, salsa, whisky and eating six hours later than planned ensued. We spent the next day in recovery, with a hair of the dog eating leftover paella for Christmas breakfast followed by an amazing BBQ of Colombian steak for Christmas lunch out in the sunshine surrounded by mountains. It was awesome and unlike any Christmas celebration we have known.

The next day Vanessa's father and brother took us around Medellin, taking us through a previously very dangerous district that has since been reconciled, partly by impressive investments such as the cable car we took up into a really beautiful national park. We later went to meet the rest of the family and friends in the botanical gardens of Medellin before going to their restaurant in town for drinks and then embarking on an adventure to see the impressive Christmas lights of the city. Although Paola had requested that Juan David book a Chiva bus - a very wide, colourful, windowless, party bus - in a slightly intoxicated state he had gone ahead and booked a school minibus. Not to be deterred we all piled in, bottles of the national liquor, aguardiente in hand, and proceeded to make a good attempt at repeating the night of Christmas eve, this time with flashing shot glasses, spray foam, cat calls of Chimbre Fiesta and Rhumba Fiesta echoing off the windows and at one point Owen following Juan David onto the roof...just to check he was ok of course.

We ended the night in the cafe where we were introduced to more delicious Colombian culinary delights. To top off a great day, the drive back to the farm sent us by a section of motorway where local kids, some as young as twelve, had commandeered the road and were using it to ride up and down on their motorbikes, pulling stunts and wheelies to the encouragement of a big crowd of onlookers. Needless to say Byron jumped out of the car, closely followed by Juan David to join the gaggle of enthusiastic, probably not sober either, onlookers.

After another day of recovery out in the sunshine of the Colombian mountains with the family, Vanessa's sister Valentina tried to help improve our Spanish after she, Ruben and Vanessa had spent a fair bit of Christmas translating for us all. The next morning we were sad to wave goodbye to everyone as they made their way back to Bogota and we headed back into Medellin to service the bike. We can't thank Paola, Juan David, Orlanda and Carlos enough for their fantastic hospitality and the use of our very own guesthouse, as well as Vanessa's friends Tefa, Jose and Andrea's family who treated us to a delicious BBQ at their house, not to mention all of Vanessa's family who we can't wait to come back and see again in August for Henry and Vanessa's official wedding ceremony. The entire Christmas period was really good fun and gave us a priceless insight into Colombian family life.

It was also sad to say goodbye to Rosemary and Owen who had been great company for the past couple of weeks but were now heading back to the UK. As well as bringing us supplies out from home, they were even happy (possibly!) to take a few bits back for us which was a great help since the last parcel we sent home from the US still hasn't arrived. All in all we headed back into Medellin with the holiday blues, despite the South American part of our adventure only just beginning.

Back in Medellin we stayed with Al at the Shamrock and Byron took the bike to the Motoshop nearby where Rico had the rest of the parts we'd ordered ready for him to start work. He let Byron get to work outside his shop and two days later, the job was finished and he sent us on our way with a gift of some KTM warm headgear for when we reach Peru. We ended our stay in Medellin at Jose's restaurant, Mundo Verde where we met Jose, Vanessa's friend Tefa's boyfriend, who treated us to a delicious meal. Needless to say the generosity of all the friends we have met here so far speaks for itself.

We said goodbye to Al the next morning, after he dotted all the places we should see on our map of Colombia and Ecuador then made our way to Santa Rosa del Cabol where we'd heard word of some good hot springs. We rode the route all the way to the Termales in the rain and not wanting to turn around, ended up splashing out on an inclusive stay at the Termales hotel which turned out to be a lot like an Alpine chalet. We hit the springs sharpish and spent a couple of hours thawing the high altitude cold out of our bones. The springs were spectacular and instead of coming up out of the ground and smelling strongly of sulphur, these ones were cascading down huge cliffs of the mountain, we assumed thus losing their smell on the way down. We ate our inclusive dinner in the hotel restaurant that was set up for new year's eve the next night and was packed full of Colombian families. The next morning we jumped back in the springs after the inclusive breakfast, hung on for the inclusive lunch (did we tell you we are currently travellers?) then made our way to the beautiful village of Salento.

This area of Colombia was absolutely stunning and instead of attempting to describe it, we hope our photos do it justice. We stayed at The Plantation House which is just on the outskirts of Salento and is owned by an Englishman who was unfortunately in England during our visit. The house sits right on the edge of a picture perfect landscape and a short walk down the mountain leads you to the plantation, owned by the same guy, who grows coffee, bananas, pineapples, oranges, bamboo and berries. We took a tour with Julio who talked us through the entire process of making coffee (quite an effort for a hot drink) ending with a freshly roasted and ground, farm grown brew.

We spent New Year's Eve up in the town square drinking beer and eating the local dish of Trucha - a specially prepared dish of trout served with huge slabs of flattened, fried plantain. The next day we took a ride out to the Valley of Cocora, an extension to Los Nevados National Park not far from Salento and an area not unfairly described as obscenely beautiful. Some of the largest wax palm trees, the national tree and symbol of Colombia, stand in this valley that we hope our photos will do more justice to than we can with words. The entire ride there was simply spectacular and our camera was put into overdrive. Later we heard that copper had been found under this area and that proposals were being made to extract it. We desperately hope these plans don't affect this area of magnificent beauty or the incredibly friendly people that live here as we would love to return one day.

The next day we made our way south to the border town of Ipiales. We had heard this stretch of land played host to some of the most impressive views in Colombia and after what we saw the previous day, Isabel kept the camera drawn ready. We weren't disappointed and once again the camera went into overdrive. The mountains and views changed with every corner; at one point they were smooth and rolling, covered in a lush green coating of grass, then they turned jagged and dry and the temperature rose, then the cliffs dramatically fell hundreds of feet all around us and the drop off from the road suddenly got a lot steeper.

This journey through the mountains also proved to be quite eventful by way of the antics of an enterprising local populous. Many women and kids stand on the corners of the dangerous, narrow mountain passes, signalling to passing vehicles if the road is clear of oncoming traffic ahead. A few will do the signalling while others stand further down with caps held out to catch the rewarding change flung from the windows of cars and trucks that find the help useful, though undoubtedly they would have risked driving full speed ahead with or without the assistance. Other locals would come rushing over to an especially cut up or potholed section of road at the sound of oncoming traffic, shovels in hand and caps outstretched for change. The picture they portray is that they have been helping to fill in the holes and improve the road, though the fact that most just sit waiting for traffic while the majority of potholes remain largely untouched would suggest nothing but an ingenious ruse.

Another unique but potentially lethal money maker was the abrupt rope stop. Clusters of women sit under simple wooden shelters along the road clutching the end of a rope, made colourful by the burst balloons tied along its length, which is secured to a tree stump or something similarly solid on the other side of the road. When they see a vehicle approaching they raise their end of the rope to create an immediate road block that the driver has to be pretty alert to notice. Once they have your attention by nearly sending you off the edge of the road, they ask for money. Luckily we didn't come across any rope menaces brave enough to keep their innovative weapon up long enough to stop us as most would let it drop at the last minute or were clearly adept at spotting a tight ass gringo and didn't even bother to raise it.

An impromptu, opportunistic venture caught our attention as we rode through one of the small villages along the mountain. A huge gathering ahead of us was buzzing with excitement so we slowed down to have a look what was going on. It transpired that a truck transporting fuel had turned over on the road, presumably some time earlier that day as it had given more people than the village seemed to house enough time to collect jerry cans and buckets and plunder the tank as it lay helpless on its side. A few lit cigarettes were also spotted dangerously close to the wagon so we took a couple of photos and sped away pretty quick before the jovial scene took a turn for the worse. For miles after we left the area we were still spotting motorbikes chugging back down the mountain, all with at least three people squeezed onboard, each carrying as many bottles and jerry cans as would fit on the bike and looking very pleased with themselves.

All in all the ride was outstanding but disappointingly the last hour and a half was spent in cloud cover and rain and we arrived in Ipiales shivering cold and wet through. By chance, we found the Gran Hotel, a real gem where the staff took pity on us and bought out extra blankets and hot coffee when they saw the state of us.

The next morning we planned to cross the border into Ecuador and ride to Quito where Al from the Shamrock had recommended a good hostel to stay. After a quick visit to Las Lajas Sanctuary, a cathedral just outside of Ipiales where legend has it that the Virgin Mary appeared to a local woman and brought her daughter back to life in the 1700s. Ever since it has been the site of pilgrimages and tales of miraculous healing. All manner of shrines have been set up at the site since the 1800s and in 1949 the current, immense gothic structure was finished using donations from local church goers.

After the detour, we headed to the border which we were full of hope for, having heard that South American border crossings were much less hassle than those in Central America, added to the fact that Bryce had crossed within thirty minutes a few days before. As we pulled up to the Colombian side and clocked the enormous queue ahead, we realised that our hopes may have been in vain. Walking to join the end of the queue, it became clear it was about three times longer than it had first appeared and was wrapped once around the entire building. Three hours later we had our Colombian exit stamps. One hour later we had our Ecuador entry stamps. Two hours later we had our bike entry paperwork (one hour of which was spent in a rapidly growing, stagnant queue while the office full of work shy officials shut up and went for lunch). Two hours later we had our road insurance papers. In a total of eight hours we had travelled less than five miles and our previously perceived hassles of three hour border crossings suddenly seemed like a breeze. It turned out half of Colombia was going on holiday to Ecuador and half of Ecuador was going home after the holidays, added to the fact that there were festivals being held in both countries that weekend. Basically we picked a wrong day to travel and the officials of both borders had apparently not cottoned on to the technique of calling in extra staff for such occasions.

Exhausted and disillusioned we checked into a hotel in the border town of Tulcan that night, writing off our plans to travel on to Quito. We treated ourselves to a meal out but when the fruit salad desert came topped with cheese we gave up on the world and went to bed. Cheese (not really as we know it in Europe) is a much loved ingredient in Latin America and it is put with almost everything.

As we have gradually travelled into the Andes over the past couple of weeks, the temperature has plummeted compared to the heady temperatures of northern Colombia and in most towns at night it gets quite cold. The bike has also struggled slightly with altitude and poor grade fuel. Time will tell if they play a more prominent part in the journey from here on but otherwise the bike has been running well this month and the temperature hasn't even touched on the cold of Alaska and Canada...yet!

Yesterday we crossed south of the Equator and reached Quito, the capital of Ecuador where we plan to stay for the next few days, exploring the city and plotting out a route towards Peru.

We wish you all a belated Merry Christmas and a happy, prosperous, adventurous 2013!



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Comments

[oli]

feliz navidad
qual glad all is well folks. awesome to hear your tales init 1