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Published: October 29th 2015
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Panamá City to Colombia
In the morning we rode towards the ship via the San Blas hills. The road was steep, windy, full of pot holes and not always sealed; I think everyone enjoyed this ride, I thought it was better than the dragon's tail.
Once we got to the wharf we rode down it and unpacked our gear for the boat. We then jumped onto a small boat to the ship leaving our bikes behind to be hoisted aboard later.
The Stahlratte (steel rat) is a 40 metre steel ship built in 1903 and initially used as a Norwegian fishing boat. It now sails under the German flag and has been modified to include cabins, galley etc.
Our first night however was not spent on board but rather on a tropical island called Porvenir, where we were fortunate enough to have a room about 10 metres from the beautiful turquoise waters of the Carribean sea looking out to the palm tree covered islands; paradise. Trev and I (and several of the guys) enjoyed a swim for nearly two hours in the warm water and were positively wrinkled when we got out. I ate pulpo (squid) for
dinner and had a walk along the seemingly private beach.
We had an early night and got one hell of a fright around midnight when an electrical storm hit the island, the lightning seemingly directly overhead. Rain came along with the thunder which rolled and cracked the sky open with lightning so bright it was like day. Unfortunately the rain didn't decrease the temperature and it was a very hot night.
Around 8.30am a small boat collected us all and took us back to the Stahlratt where our bikes had been loaded and secured to the deck. The Kuna people visited our boat to sell squid, crayfish and shellfish to our boat for our dinner. We lounged around in the hammocks until around 4.30 where we took a one minute boat ride to the nearest island and had a bbq / beach party on the beach. The other passengers on board the ship were 6 x Australians (they were actually really nice for Australians ?), Germans x 6 and Swiss x 2.
The next day was spent anchored near an island and Trev and I spent the day doing very little, we were keen to get back
to Terra Firma and riding again but we still had another day of sailing to do. We enjoyed crayfish and squid for dinner which was superb!
Next morning at 5.30am we set sail for Colombia using sails and the motor. We sailed the next 24 hours to reach Cartegena where I woke around 4.30am to watch us come into port. The lights of the city were pretty and the city looked huge. We stayed on the boat till close to midday while paperwork was taken care of, we then disembarked and took the small boat to shore to get a taxi to our hotel. I can't tell you how good it was to be back in a hotel!
We walked around Centro Cartegena which was a beautiful old city with fantastic old buildings, it reminded me of Rome with its narrow, cobbled streets and flowers hanging from colourfully painted balconies above.
Deane, Jeff, String, Trev and I all went for dinner and drinks at a place which was showing the highlights of the quarter finals of the RWC which was awesome as I've seen nothing else of it here and have been relying on wifi to get
results.
We had a very early night as we had a very early morning the following day. We woke around 5am in order to go back to the ship to load our bikes onto a barge. The guys held their bikes for the 15 minute ride to shore where we rode down a slippery ramp off the barge to shore. Trev was impressed with the amount of people pointing a camera our way as we rode off the barge, however we failed to provide entertainment.
We rode a few blocks to the customs office (which was shut), and had breakfast and coffee while we waited for the gates to open. Once they did, the floodgates opened and a surge of motorbikes entered through the gates. We parked up and I waited in an air conditioned building while the officials processed the guys' bikes. This took a couple of hours but was relatively painless.
This done we headed back to the hotel. Deane then messaged that he was going to lunch with his friend Filipe (from Colombia) and would we all like to join. Filipe took us by taxi to a great lunch spot where I was again
indulged in the seafood, great spot too!
The following morning at 7 we rode out of Cartegena with Filipe offering to guide us if we would just help him out by carrying a couple of bags for him into Equador - JUST KIDDING MUM! But he did kindly guide us to our next stop. Getting out of the city proved messy but we got onto the main highway eventually and without incident. The riding was fast and with plenty of trucks ahead of us. We soon got the hang of their indication signals telling us when to overtake them (and when not to). After stopping for lunch we saw an iguana crossing the road ahead of us, just amazing. Soon we started climbing into the mountains which were heavily shrouded in mist and the temperature simultaneously (but mercifully) dropped to around 17 degrees from the 34 it had been all day. The roads looked greasy though so we had to slow considerably. We arrived at Yarumal around 5.30 and said our goodbyes to Filipe. We then looked for a hotel and Gerardo (as always) found a nice one. Had a quick wander about the city and a bite to
eat before we fell into bed exhausted
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