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Published: December 27th 2013
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2013-12-20 07.52.33
Andean lake or something I left my biker pals as they were going to Medellin and that's going north and I'm going south.
I hit every small road I could find, used the old Cali highway instead of the new one, a very nice road without cars nor trucks basically only me and a nice sweeping Colombian road.
The major roads in Colombia are quite good and if if they're toll roads, bikes go for free, there's a small passage where you can get by the toll booth, saved some money there.
I was recommended by one of the Danes to go up to lake Calima, a nice little detour and it would've been nicer if the ever friendly Colombians knew their own country a bit better, the sligth detour turned in a quite long one fighting with lorries going to the Colombia Pacific port of Buenaventura, I got there bass ackwards but it was a nice road all the same once i was of the major high way.
The only town, Darien, was a bit of a dump but it was time to stop so I did it instead of keeping on going as I tend to do, just one more town or 50
km more....
Good for me that I did because the mist from the mountains turned into rain and soon it was pissing down.
I did what any sensible person would have done, a walkabout after the rain and I had a shave in a place where the owner must have been at least 75 years old.
Anyway I got a good , cut throat razor, shave for 2 bucks 50 cent, 10 mins later I had done Darien so I got myself a small bottle of excellent Colombian rum,Caldas, which I promptly opened and tasted to my hearts delight.
Next day I was of to the white city, Popayan, on the way south, towards Ecuador.
Of cours the traffic was madness but I found a hostel smack in the middle of the center.
No luxury but my own toilet and hot water, hot water you say what a sissy, he's in the tropics isn't he?
Well i ceratinly am, but at 2000 m or so you don't shower with cold water, well I don't!
It must have been cripples day as the pavements were full och cripples or people pushing them around in wheel chairs, one very entrepreneurial chap even
had a PA system so then he really could be heard.
Also the were a lot of bands out on the streets, all playing more or less the same tune, some better and some not.
There was a Dutch biker couple in the same place so I had nice company for dinner.
The next morning I got up early to beat the traffic down to Ipiales which is next to Ecuador.
Well the rain rose earlier than I did so it turned into a long and very wet day.
Many truck drivers got up at the same the rain as well so I had a hard job to pass them all.
What a pity It was pissing down, a mad road, minimum 3 curves minute and I drove for 9 hours. The landscape is breath taking, very steep hills and very narrow valleys and it never stops.
I saw the mountains from the air when I flew in and said yummy to my good self, this is going to be fun.
The European Alps are chicken feed compared to this.
Up the mountain into the clouds and the down into the valley and then the same thing over and over
again, great driving but very tiring, you can't loose concentration for second or you're goner.
One guy today became a goner as mini bus crashed into his car and smashed him to smithereens.
If the normal(?) Colombians drive like idiots it's nothing compared to the mini bus drivers, they step on it and overtake anywhere anytime on coming traffic or not.
The stopped traffic in both direction for about 2 hours so I just sat there answering questians from each and everyone about from whence I came and how many cc the bike was and how fast it could go and how heavy it was.
One chap treated me to some vey nice fresh mango and a chat and dental floss to get the fibres out from between my teeth, he even hugged me when he left.
Rather worse for wear and a bit wet, my riding boots leak, I arrived in Ipiaes another run of the mill Colombian town that lacks tourist attractions.
It's quite cold up here as, according to the hotel lady, we're well above Bogota and that's at 2600 m, actually it's 3600 m
I've turned on the tv to dry my socks on it.
Border
crossings suck, big time.
You can't get in if you don't have an insurance which is good, but when you can't get an insurance because they've run out of forms it sucks.
I went into Tulcan, first town in Ecuador and no one knew anything and besides which it was sunday and everthing was closed so I would have to wait until monday and that sucked big time.
I went back to the border and spoke to the mentally challenged insurance girl, somebody should have strangled her on day one, what a cnut.
Then I asked the taxi drivers down at the border and they knew nothing but for an old geezer, my age who said he knew where an insurance guy lived and we should go up to his house and knock on the door, in the end I got into Ecuador, took 5 hours though.
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