Gypsy Biker

That was this morning….!! After a long, hot, and later, very wet ride, I am now in Costa Rica…!!

Took Panama by the scruff of the neck today, gave it a good 480 km shake, and then left it in much the same state as I had found it…!! Not all that interesting…!!

Except for a little incident that happened just outside Panama City last night…!!

This morning’s newspapers were filled with what  by South African standards, would go down as a minor incident involving gangsters who were hard of hearing…!!

Tsk, tsk...!! A very bad dose of lead poisoning....!! But I see you can get a new scooter for just $1 475.00... That's not a bad deal...!!

Crossed the border after a long wait for insurance, and after about 50 km, ran into a rain storm that had me curbing my enthusiasm to chew up more miles, and instead sent me searching for a hotel to take shelter in…

A hotel with the name : El Gran Impala, would you believe…!! Fate or just co-incidence…??

More on my ride today at some future date….!!

GB

Rio Claro, Costa Rica

I have arrived in Panama, technically, the first country on my North American Ride…

Security is not as strict here, but the baggage handlers might just be the slowest in the world...!!

At the cargo section of the airport, a $15 taxi ride away, I discovered that it was a Public Holiday, and the chances of getting anything done, was next to zero….!!

"Get me outta this stuff....!! I'm sweating bullets...!!" The Big Fella seemed to be in reasonable condition, and his usual forthright mood...!!

After a run-around to find an ATM, I was able to pay for the air freight, and then told that Customs was probably closed today…. But if I could get the all important “released” stamp on the Bill of Lading, they would let me have the bike today….!!

And it did look closed... The place was deserted, but there WAS a lady on "duty" watching a Spanish soap opera on a small TV set...

A big smile and a patient manner, got the dis-interested woman to assist me, but getting the stamp took a long time… Apparently there is no country by the name of “South Africa” on the Panamanian Customs computer system….

By 1.00pm, I had the documents all stamped, and trudged back to the warehouse a few hundred metres away, through the searing heat of the afternoon…

The warehouse staff stared in disbelief as I waved the documents under their noses…. If they could speak English, I am sure they would have said something like’

“How in the name of all the Virgins did you manage to get Customs to do anything on a Public Holiday…??”

Then it was getting down to re-packing and re-assembling the parts that had been removed for the flight...

I rode out of the airport VERY slowly, willing an empty bike to get me to the nearest service station, which luckily was only a few kilometres away… Another lucky break….!!

I had hoped to ride a few hundred kilometres this afternoon, but Lady Luck bestowed more than enough of her kindness on me already today, and went off to make somebody else happy….

Leaving me with a wallet full of Colombian Pesos that I could not change in US Dollars until tomorrow….

Heading into Panama City, a place that I had been very keen to avoid, and with good reason...!!

I quickly discovered that things are not cheap here in Panama… I had only $43.00 left in my wallet after paying for the air freight of the bike, and the cheapest place I could find to stay at, cost $35.00 a night without breakfast…

I used the money I had left to buy four litres of water and a small hotdog, believing that I was in more need of water than food…!! Some might argue that this is not necessarily true, having told me that I am losing too much weight…!!

My plan is to ride through Panama, Costa Rica and into Nicaragua; then cross southern Honduras and ride through San Salvador in a single day, before entering Guatemala… From there I plan to visit the Mayan Ruins in Tikal, and then ride the seldom visited area between Tikal and Belize…

This route will give me the Central American “full house”, visiting all seven countries that make up the region… From Belize City, I will ride to Carmen del Playa to visit my good friend from Ushuaia, Roberto Ramirez, and one other that will be flying in to visit from the islands nearby…!!

My planned route through Central America and up to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico...

The most consistent advice about Central America that I have received, was to get through it as quickly as possible… There is always an element of risk in this region, which has been frought with political unrest and civil strife for many years…

Getting through it quickly, was exactly what I planned to do…!! I hope to cover the 3 200 km to Playa del Carmen in under two weeks…

Today is May Day, but I have been told that it was moved to yesterday and that everything will be open on May the 1st….!!! Time will tell, otherwise I will be stuck here another day… I am not willing to take a chance that I will be able to change my Colombian money, over $200.00 worth, further into Panama…

If all goes well, I will make for the border of Costa Rica, about 500 km away…

Let the Final Chapter begin…

©GBWT 2012

I have now finally completed all the posts I wanted to write, which detail my rides through South America….

Click on the following links to see what I’ve been up to…or down to in certain cases…!!

“Leaving Lima and the Ride to Huaraz…”

The “Pasto Ruri Glacier…”

“Houston…!! It’s us again…!! My Birthday Ride…!!”

“Huanchaco and Chan Chan…”

“To Mancora… Then there were Five…!!

“Into Ecuador…”

“Finally we get to Montanita…”

“The Long Ride to Quito…”

“Quito is Quite Nice…!!”

“Calling Colombia…!!”

“The Ride to Cali… Sometimes the Road is King…!!”

“Last Ride in South America – Cali to Bogota…”

Bogota HQ...!! It was from the comfort of Adrian's apartment that I was able to complete the bulk of my updates...!! Thanks again, Brother...!!

With Adrian and Diana away for the weekend to visit family, John and Lina took Tom and Fabio for a trip out into the countryside around Bogota and I was left to my own devices to do some “work”…!!

On Sunday night we were all re-united again and enjoyed a home-cooked meal which Fabio and Tom had prepared in Lina’s kitchen…

Fabio and Tom prepare dinner for us... It was such a good feeling to see my friends so enjoying what they were doing....

Our final evening together was made special by being together in the company of such wonderful people…

Thank you once again, Adrian, Diana, John and Lina, and Fabio and Tom too…. You have all become another special memory on my journey…

©GBWT 2012

Bogota, Colombia, is my final stop in South America… On Monday morning, at dawn’s crack, I will fly to Panama to begin the final leg of my journey around the world… I will have spent exactly 100 days in South America, visited 9 countries and ridden 22 150 km on this continent…

Livardo of Lyncargo, accompanied me to the airport, and did all the necessary paperwork... His English is on par with my Spanish, so we had a few interesting conversations as you can imagine...!!

Parked outside the cargo terminal... Our ride in South America was at an end...

Today, I spent the entire day getting the Big Fella through Custom’s clearence and Police Inspection, in preparation for his flight to Panama City…

It took barely two hours of actual “work”, and nine hours of waiting…!! The latter is not something I do very well, but it does not pay to annoy the petty officials, who have the ultimate say in exactly when you will have your bike shipped or cleared…!!

A few years ago, I would have been ranting and raving to get things moving in the time that I wanted them done…!! Today, I proved to myself that not only have I become a more patient individual, and learned to take things in my stride, but I have also come to accept that I cannot manage or control every situation I find myself in…

I spent many hours turning this fact over in my mind, and came to realise that I am mentally stronger than I used to be… Sure, I still mutter to myself and others about the delays etc, but they no longer affect me in the way they used to…

I am both older and a teeny bit wiser…!! Nine hours in a three year journey is no great shake, after all…!!

This does not mean that I now see myself as a “laid back” individual…!! The need to do things as quickly and efficiently as possible will always be a part of who I am, but I no longer get too excited when things do not flow in the direction that I want them to…!!

I was at the freight agents we had chosen, by 9.00am… To ensure that I got there without any fuss, Adrian guided me through the traffic, riding his sccoter, while I follwed behind on the Big Fella… Lyncargo S.A.S., is located just a few kilometres from the cargo terminal of Bogota’s International Airport, and has just moved to brand new premises, where most of the office space is yet to be occupied…

I spent many hours sitting on the bike, listening to music and mulling over the last few months in South America...

The company has shipped bikes all over the world and the general manager, Veronica Oviedo, had handled Fabio and Tomasso’s paperwork the previous day, and had everything ready for my shipment when I arrived… It took barely half an hour and two cups of coffee, before her assistant, Livardo and I where ready to take the bike to the airport…

That’s when the waiting began… If you are flying a bike from Colombia, be prepared to spend one full day getting it all sorted…!! Although the new cargo section of the airport is both modern and efficient, it is extremely busy, with trucks arriving to offload goods for shipment every few minutes…

I would have liked to add Venezuela to my list of flags, but time was fast becoming my enemy....!! There is however enough space left on the pannier for the next ten countries I will still visit, which will take my total to 101...!!

Security is tighter than a duck’s rectum, and before entering any official area, you are frisked by security guards, your cell phone and camera put into a locker, and you are then followed by multiple CCTV cameras as you walk through the cargo area…

I ended my ride in South America with a tricky little entry into the cargo warehouse...!!

While Livardo went to clear customs, I had to wait outside on the vast concrete apron… By noon, customs had cleared the bike to fly to Panama… The final hurdle was the Police Inspection…

But first I had to ride the bike up a narrow wooden gangway that took me up from the concrete loading area and into the cargo warehouse…

I had my heart in my mouth as I roared up the ramp, nearly colliding with a pallet of bananas that was being moved about on a pallet trolley…

I rode the bike into the warehouse, refusing to push it as instructed… When the customs and security official saw the weight of the bike after I had ridden it onto the scale, they understood my refusal… The bike and most of the gear on it, together weighed in at a hefty 340 kg…!!

And that is without a drop of fuel inthe tank…!! While I have been steadily losing weight over the past few weeks, the Big Fella seems to have picked up a few kilos along the line, this despite me having sent a 4 kg parcel home from Lima…!!

I was not about to give myself a hernia pushing the heavy bike a few hundred metres around a warehouse, and rode up to the fenced off area where the police inspection takes place, under the scrutiny of dozens of cameras…!!

Fabio and Tommaso were flying to Miami, and their inspection had been very thorough… With Colombia being the world’s top producer of Cocaine, and smuggling the drug out of the country rife, it is understandable why security here is so tight…

I was told that because I was going to Panama, my bike would not be subjected to such a stringent inspection, which proved to be correct…

Problem was, that I had to wait another eight hours before the police finally inspected the bike…!!

Safely parked inside the customs warehouse... This photo got me into a lot of trouble, and my camera was taken away from me until after the police inspection...!!

Baby Bananas bound for Amsterdam...!!

I spent those eight hours wandering in and out of the cargo area, chatting to the fruit exporters, and even helping move pallets around…

They showed me the various fruits that were being exported, some of which I had never seen before… There were large orange Granadillas, Baby Bananas, strangely shaped tomatoes, and Tangerines…

A large tray of the various fruits were on hand to share with the cargo handlers, to help smooth their respective pallets through the clearing process… Because I had become a “fixture” on the scene, the farmers also shared their fruit with me…

Occasionaly, drivers would approach me with their paperwork, and babble away in Spanish, until I explained that I did not work there, and directed them to to person they needed to see…!!

I became quite freindly with many of the forklift drivers and cargo handlers, who all did their best to speed up the inspection, but without much success…

Some I recognised, others not...!! The little green things are a species of Guava....

I spent the hours either dozing on the front steps, or thinking about my ride through South America, going through the various highlights of my trip, and coming to terms with the fact that I had now completed my rides on five continents and the last one was just over the horizon…!!

I looked at the various stickers that I had collected from the last two continents I had ridden on, and wished that I had been able to spend more time riding in South America… It felt as though I had some “unfinished business” here…

I certainly would have liked to see more of Brazil, and most definitely more of Colombia…!!

I watched the shifts change as the night staff began their duties at 6.00pm… This facilty operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week…!!

We had earlier in the day been told that the inspection would take place at 4.00 pm, then that was postponed to 6.00 pm, and finally, at 7.30 pm, my name was called and the inspection began…

I had to remove every pannier and bag from the bike to have it x-rayed, and then had to unpack my duffel bag, because the spare shock-absorbers had attracted the interest of the lady operating the scanner… Once they were satisfied that all was well, I put all the bags back onto the bike, and the plastic wrapping began…

It was well after dark before I was called forward for the inspection process... I had waited nine hours for the honour...!!

The cargo handler used an entire roll of cling-film plastic to wrap the bike up in… I have no idea how they are going to move it around the warehouse, when it comes time to load it into the plane…!!

While taking the windshield off, I dropped the special nut that holds it to the bike frame… I heard it rattle around somewhere under the headlight console, but try as I might, I could not locate it…

I can only hope that it does not fall out while in transit, otherwise I am going to have a problem attaching the windshield to the bike, when I get to Panama…!!

Apart from that, I can only hope that come Monday morning, I will be reunited with my bike, and find that it has been handled with the care my long suffering companion deserves…!!

Livardo very kindly offered to give me a lift on the back of his scooter, all the way to Adrian’s home…

It was the first time that he had ridden about using a GPS, and at every traffic light he would turn around to stare at the screen which I held tightly in my left hand, while hanging on for dear life with my right…!!

Many of the roads in Bogota are filled with potholes and cracks, and Livardo jinked around them, and in and out traffic, seemingly unaware that I was being thrown from side to side behind him…!!

My final ride in South America actually turned out to be on the back of a sccoter, wearing a helmet that did not quite fit me...!!

He was very impressed by the device and seemed to enjoy the benefits of taking the most direct route to our destination…!! He mentioned later that he would have taken a much longer route to get to the address we needed…

By the time I got to Adrian’s house, it was after 9.00 pm… It had been a very long day, but at least the bike was on it’s way to Panama, and my North American ride could begin in a few days time…

Just as I was enetering the premises of Adrian’s apartment building, I saw Fabio and Tomasso approaching…

Adrian’s sister who lives just around the corner had very kindly offered to host them while we were in Bogota…

“Did you just get back now…??” they asked…

I explained to them just how frustrating a day I had been through, and we immediately decided that a cold beer was in order…!!

We found a small bar just around the corner and chatted about our respective days… They had had a wonderful time touring Bogota and it’s surround with Diana, Adrian’s wife, and had seen all the sights of the city…

Thay had also made plans to visit a town outside the city with Adrian’s sister and fiance the following day, and although I would have liked to accompany them, I wanted to try and bring my website up to date before I arrived in Panama, and decided to spend the weekend doing just that…!!

We agreed to meet for breakfast the next day before they left on their trip, and I made my way to a hot shower and a warm bed… Adrian and Diana had already left to visit her family for the weekend, leaving their apartment in my tender care…

Before falling asleep, I thought about the route through Central America that I had planned, and considered the various warnings I had received over the past few weeks, from people who had either visited there, or ridden through the corridor that joins North and South America…

I also thought about the final leg of my South American tour that was now behind me…

3rd and Final Leg of my South America is complete... This one, a mere 6 250 km, making 22 250 km in total...!!

It had been a great ride, and possibly the most testing of all the continents I had ridden on so far…

©GBWT 2012

Although I stayed up late to work on a few of my old posts, by midnight I was still stumbling around the room, trying not to wake Fabio and Tom, who were sound asleep…

I realised that I would have to allocate more time than I had planned, to make some headway, and resolved to spend the next day banging away at the keys again…!!

Fabio checks my tyre pressures again, and confirms that the pressures are a little shy of where they should be...!!

My friends went out to tour the city, while I stayed behind to do some “work”…!! By late afternoon when they had returned, I had made some progress and was in the mood to ride again… We had dinner at the restaurant in the hotel and spent the rest of the evening discussing our last ride in South America, and replying to emails…

Tom and Fabio bought their tickets to Miami, while I made arrangements to meet up with Adrian the following evening… He had very kindly offered to put Tom and Fabio up at his sister’s apartment a few blocks away from his… Up until then we had been trying to find a hotel close by where they could stay…

Tom and Fabio get ready to swing into action... It would be their last ride in South America too... We all wanted it to be a good one...!!

We would have liked to see Medellin, but time was running out for all of us... My friends had to be in New York in less than two weeks, and I had to get to Cancun in about the same time frame...!!

After breakfast this morning, we made our way quickly out of Cali and onto the motorway that took us first east towards Palmira and then due north to Buga and Tulua… But first we had to search for fuel for the Big Fella, and I came with an inch of running out, and having no spare fuel with me…!!

We refueled and then pumped my tyres to the correct pressures… From that moment I began a really “sweet” ride, which would quickly wipe away the memories of the terrible ride I had made to Cali…!!

The Big Fella felt lighter, quicker and from somewhere, seemed to have found a new lease on life…!! In fact, when I changed up from the lower gears, I was popping the front wheel clear off the ground right through to third gear…!!

To get to Bogota, we had to come down from one range of mountains where Cali is situated, cross the wide valley that runs north all the way to the Caribbean, and then climb another range of mountains up to Bogota…

We stayed on Route 40 all the way to Armenia and then turned east and wound our way down into the broad, flat valley that the road cut directly across…

We wanted to get at least 300 km behind us before we stopped for lunch, and that was still 120 km away at this point... Our lunches had become a leisurely, hour-long affair...!!

We paced each other all the way, and I was able to get some great video footage of both Fabio and Tom, as we ducked between the cars and trucks on the highway, hardly ever slowing down, and almost always finding gaps to shoot through… It was invigorating riding….!!

Riding fast and in close concert, there is little room for error...!! Here we prepare to take another gap in the traffic....

We made very good time, stopping for coffee just as the climb up La Linea began…

We had got into the habit of stopping between 10 am and 11 am for a cup of strong coffee, and today, our last day on the road together, was no different....!!

I left our coffee stop first, pumped and ready to tackle the torturous road that led up to 3 000 m… I am not sure how we became separated, but for the next hour and a half, I rode on alone, never sighting Fabio and Tom, as I concentrated on ducking around long lines of trucks and avoiding others that wound their way down towards the valley behind me…

I kept the video rolling for most of the way, and watching it later, I had to grimace on occasion at the few close shave I had, darting between trucks and riding up the inside of them while they turned into hairpin bends… Once we had the bit between our teeth, there was just no holding us back…!!

Hairpin bends were commonplace, and avoiding trucks on them meant flirting with fate....!!

A new highway is built straight across the mountains, and will cross the deep valleys, making it a lot easier and safer for the trucks to negotiate this stretch of road....

I stopped at the edge of a small town, to wait for Fabio and Tom, but after 20 minutes, they still had not showed up… The long line of trucks that I had passed began catching up and I decided that I did not want to have to overtake them all again, so pushed on to wait up on the plateau ahead…

Many vital bridges are still being guarded by the military, and small groups of soldiers are stationed every few kilometres along the road...

I stopped again half an hour later, bought a soda and waited for my friends… They duly arrived, and we decided to stop in the next town to have lunch…

It's mostly about meat and potatoes out on the road... Quick and simple dishes that truckers seem to prefer...!!

Then it was back onto a wide new highway and an easy ride into Bogota… I knew that I would have to fly the bike with next to zero fuel in the tank, and did not want to stop and refuel again, so even though we were riding fast again, I tried to conserve fuel as best I could…

This turned out to be a waste of time, because nobody asked how much fuel I had on board when I checked the bike in at the airport the next day…!!

The final push to Bogota was made on a dual carriageway, where we "tanked it"...!!

Confirmation that we were on the right road...!!

And when going around a mountain proved too tedious, we were able to go straight through it....!!

Happy to be in full control again...!! And still wearing dark glasses in a tunnel....!! Tsk, tsk...!!

Roadworks inside the tunnel meant that we could not get too throttle-happy...!! The tunnel was a long one, and we eventually got past the traffic by riding around the cones...

The temperature dropped as we began the final climb up to Bogota, just as Adrian said it would… Although there was cloud about, there would be no raining on our parade today…!!

Last climb up to the capital was made under leaden skies...

People who deface road signs, should be sent to the place on this sign...!!

To make our entry into the city as smooth as possible, Adrian had advised us to leave the highway after the final toll gate and take the road to Funza, and from there head to the co-ordinates of his home, which he had given me a few days before…

The short ride from the highway to Funza was through rolling farmland, that reminded me of places back home… It felt as though I had been through there before…

We stopped in Funza to recharge my mobile phone and when I tried to call Adrian to let him know we were close, I discovered that I had his Peru number saved on my phone, and not his Colombian one…!!

We decided there was nothing for it, other to ride to his home and then hope he called me…!!

The end of my South American road....!! Bogota, Colombia....

We made our way through some hectic traffic, and got into the street where Adrian’s apartment was located, but could not find the right building…!! I had to find an internet cafe nearby to check my email to find his local number…

Eventually Adrian arrived on his scooter to show us to his building which was literally only 100 metres away from where we were waiting…!!

We parked our bikes in the basement, and then trooped upstairs to meet Diana… I felt that I was re-uniting with old friends… We had last seen each other in Cuzco, Peru, and here we were, together in Bogota… We spent a few minutes just grinning at each other…!! It was wonderful to see Adrian and Diana again, and after a quick change of clothes, we walked around the corner to Adrian’s sister Lina’s apartment, where Tom and Fabio “checked in”…

The following day, they handed their bikes in for the flight to Miami, taking most of the day to get it all sorted out… That evening, we all went out to dinner at one of the 13 pubs that the Bogota Beer Company owns in the city…

Adrian is in charge of the production at the brewery, and has travelled to many European countries to lean his trade…

We had a great evening at the Bogota Beer Company....!! John, Lina, Diana, Adrian, Tom and Fabio.... Wonderful friends all, and more than charming hosts as well....!! Thank you all for making my last few days in South America so memorable...!!

The following day would be my turn at the airport, and judging from what Tom and Fabio had been through, I figured it was best to get an early start…!!

Diana arranged to take the Italian Connection on a city tour, which I was sad to miss, but had no choice but to be at the airport… It was Friday, and if I did not get the job done then, I would have to wait until Monday…!!

©GBWT 2012

We were up early, and wanted to get on the road as quickly as possible…

Our plans were somewhat thwarted by the deep slumber of our hosts…!! Fabio and I got the bikes out into the street, and we loaded all our gear and were ready to ride, but still the house and the rooms upstairs were silent… Eventually, Tom went upstairs to wake Dario, to tell him we were going…!!

We had the bikes outside and ready by 7.00am... Tom's bike had to exit via the front door of the house, which I found rather amusing...!! I had ridden through the front doors of hotels before, but never seen a bike actually taken through the front doors of a house, and parking in the living room...!!

He hurried downstairs, pulling on clothes as he sleepily greeted us and looked around to see if the house wasn’t on fire…!!

We rode out to a nearby filling station where we refueled, (giving Fabio a “told you I’d make it to Pasto” signal while the Big Fella gurgled happily as he drank deeply from the pump…!!)

Dario informed us that his parents were on their way and wanted to have a final cup of coffee with us before we took off… Although we wanted to be on our way, with what people said would be at least an 8 hour ride to Cali, we could hardly refuse…!! They had been such willing and friendly hosts, that we actually would have liked to get to know them better…

Breakfast with our hosts in Pasto.... Wonderful people who wanted us to stay longer... But the road to Cali was calling....!!

And so began one of the worst rides I have ever made on the Big Fella…!!

The road out of Pasto immediately began climbing up into the mountains surrounding the town… Having left later than we had hoped to, we started out riding quicker than usual, and that might have been the problem, but in hindsight, wasn’t really…

Those of you who ride bikes on a regular basis, will know that sometimes things just don’t “feel” right… Today was one of those for me…

After covering over 150 000 km on the Big Fella, I think it is safe to say that I intuitively know what my bike is doing under me… I know exactly where the power kicks in when I need it to; I feel every vibration and immediately analyse conditions when those vibrations change in any way…

I know for instance that after the few falls I have had, that the frame is slightly buckled, and the bike does not sit as upright as it did when it left the factory in Germany…!! I have to sit very slightly to the right to ride it in the vertical… My handlebars are also slightly twisted after hitting the wall in Ethiopia, but I have adapted my riding style to this…

Today it was just a combination of many things, all coming together at once, that quickly made me realise I was in for a difficult ride, and once my mind went in that direction, things fell apart rather quickly…

I am a firm believer that when riding a bike, (which is inherently more dangerous than riding a car), your mind needs to be in the right place, otherwise, you’re looking for trouble…!! There are just too many things that you need to be completely focused on, especially when you are trying to negotiate a difficult mountain pass at speeds that allow no room for error…!!

I found it trouble in spades on the road to Cali…

This dormant volcano stands brooding just outside Pasto....

Over 200 km of sheer "hell" lay ahead of me...!!

It began with us overshooting a few tight and dangerous curves, where I almost put the Big Fella down when I tried to correct a slide from the rear end… After that, things got worse… Fabio, a born racer, shot off into the distance, as usual, making riding look simpler than walking…

The Big Fella felt strangely sluggish under me, the acceleration a split second off where I needed it to be went I went through corners and straightened up…. I chose the wrong lines into bends, nearly losing control on entries as well as exits…

I found it hard to concentrate, and let Tom go past me, so I could try to pull myself together without the additional effort required to keep up with Fabio… They soon disappeared into the distance, around another series of twisting bends, that hugged the mountain on one side and plunged into deep crevasses on the other…

This was not a section of road that you wanted to make a mistake on…!! And I kept making them…!!

A mistake on this road could see the "no claim bonus" on your medical aid insurance, quickly become a thing of the past...!!

My mind started imagining all sorts of things…

The bike had become unbalanced somehow; the tyres were pumped too hard or had deflated and were too soft; the front shock was set too hard… The list went on and on, and it eventually felt as though I was on someone else’s bike…!!

Hanging behind Tom, as we make our way over another big viaduct, that joins one range of mountains to the next...

Try as I might, I could not find the confidence that I usually rode with, and after the umpteenth time of running too wide out of a sharp corner, I gave up trying to dominate this mountain road with its dangerous curves and steep drop-offs, and decided that today, I would let the road be “king”…

I sensed that if I pushed too hard, with my mind out of “whack”, I was more than likely to end my journey here in the mountains of southern Colombia…

Fabio and Tom were waiting for me near the top of a steep pass, and when I came up to them, they signaled to ask if I was OK… I shook my head and indicated that I was not…

They hung back behind me for a while, and I tried again to get my head and the bike dialed in to the ride, but I guess I tried too hard, because not too long afterward, I nearly came off again, this time seeing a patch of gravel on a sharp corner, too late to avoid it, and felt the front end skip away to my left, the Big Fella almost throwing me out of the saddle as we struggled to correct the slide…

I shook my head after nearly colliding with the barrier on the far side of the road, and indicated for my friends to pass me… Today was just not my day…

Up onto the plateau that indicated we had completed the first section of the climb to Popayan... The scenery was spectacular, but I had other things on my mind... Like staying alive...!!

I rode the next section at maybe 75% of the speed I would usually have, trying to find my confidence and balance again, but it was no use… I made just as many errors of judgement as before…

Not satisfied that it had bested me, the road to Popayan continued to bully me, all the way to Rosas, where we stopped for lunch…

I got off the Big Fella and stared at him for a long time, exasperated at the terrible ride we had just made…

“What the heck’s wrong with us today, my friend…!! We’re riding like it was our first time together…!!”

For once, I received no reply from my usually garrulous companion… This in itself confirmed that we were not on the same page…!!

Fabio and Tom were also at a loss for words at the poor performance I was putting in… Usually I was up there with Fabio, giving it gas and riding as well as my abilities would allow me, and sometimes a little more than that…!!

“Yesterday you ride so well in the mountains…!! What isa wrong today…??” asked Fabio…

“I was reading Ted Simon’s book last night,” Tom said, “and he says this stretch from Pasto to Popayan, is the most dangerous road in Colombia…!!”

“Ah, well that makes me feel a lot better…!!” I replied sarcastically… I was not in the best of moods, which Tom would later describe to Patricia as “grumpy”…!!

We stopped to check out the stuff that was drying in the sun next to a small village... It seemed to be a yeast of some kind, judging by the sweet, but pungent smell...!!

The place where we had stopped was a renowned hotspot for the F.A.R.C. rebels, who although were a spent force, still maintained a few areas where the government was not particularly popular…!!

“Do not stop in Rosas…!!” we had been told, “It is dangerous…!!”

As usual, the only dangerous thing was the possibility of eating something that would later disagree with your stomach…!! We had a great meal, and chatted to the locals, before heading on towards Popayan…

The road surface had been quite bumpy in places up to then, large cracks that had been repaired, leaving ridges that stood proud of the rest of the surface, making for uneven grip…

In some places, the road was under repair, and we had to tip-toe through diversions where single, narrow strips of dirt or mud, joined the better parts of the road together…

These little obstructions did little to improve my lack of rhythm, and my muttering continued unabated…!!

"Don't look now Pedro, but there's a bloody big bike right behind us, and the rider is wearing a face like thunder...!! Let him pass us when the excavator is through with opening the road...!!"

Tom picks his away across a flooded section of the road...

After the terrible ride I had made to this point, things improved, and we were able to tear after Fabio and ride point again for long sections of the highway....

I did have the good sense to realise that most of my problems lay within my head, and stopped myself from blaming the bike, instead, mumbling the odd word of encouragement, and reminding him that we had “conquered” much harder roads than this one in the past…

I cast my eyes heavenward, and said, “I know YOU’RE busy, I’ve checked YOUR schedule…. But please get me to Cali in one piece…!!”…

Somebody was listening, because shortly after we cleared Popayan, the road opened onto a dual carriageway, wide enough to allow little mistakes to be corrected, and we made very good time over the last 130 km to Cali…

We ran into the late afternoon traffic, and spent a long time trying to find the hotel that Tom had discovered in his guide-book…

Eventually, after pulling over to ask directions for the fourth or fifth time, a young couple on a scooter, offered to guide us there…

We wound our way through the busy streets of the city, stuck in traffic jams that had us sweating profusely… Drivers that pulled up[ alongside us, asked the usual questions while we waited for lights to change, taking the edge off our impatience...

We were lucky to find a very friendly young couple to guide us to our hotel... Imagine if everybody was so helpful...!! The world would be a wonderful place, huh...??

Our digs in Cali... Not bad for a trio of scruffy looking bikers...!!

We discovered that the Pensione Stein, was also the Swiss ambassador to Colombia’s residence, and rode up the steep driveway and into the parking lot, where the ambassador himself came out to greet and welcome us…!!

I took one look at the place and decided that it was going to be too expensive to stay at…!!

Tom and Fabio went inside check on the rates and do a little negotiating… I began checking on hotels nearby, using a combination of Gi-Gi’s advice and the suggestions of the security guard…

Tom managed to secure a room that suited our budgets and I began the offloading process, rivers of sweat pouring off me as I did so…

I was glad that the ride was at an end, and still unsure why it had gone so badly for us…

The “Hotel” is a beautiful mansion, perched on a steep hill in the northern part of the city…

It is one of the better places I have stayed in while in South America, and the three of us shared a room to spread the costs…

The interior of the public areas is all wood paneling and paintings of European scenes… As I trudged to our room with armfuls of luggage, I noted that this establishment must be run with a “tight fist”… Everything was spotless and in its place… Very Swiss…!!

Fabio and I begin the unpacking process... It had been a long, hot day, filled with "botherations"...!!

The hotel is very popular with young couples who have come to Colombia to adopt children… There were four individual couples with very young Colombian children in tow, staying there when we checked in… They used the Pension Stein as a base while they settled all the red tape that is obviously involved with adoption, and spent their down time bonding with their children…

While Tom headed for the pool, Fabio and I fiddled about with our bikes, and I discovered something which had me saying, “Ah…. So that’s what’s been ailing us….!!”

It's the bloody Ohlins again...!! Show me to the nearest river, please...!!

Your next stop is in a garbage bin, my friend...!! No more money wasted on repairing you...!! You're just aren't up to the task...!! In the words of Donald Trump: "You're fired...!!"

The hose connecting the oil reservoir to the pre-load adjustment had broken off at some point, and had perhaps been dripping oil onto the tyre, which, as you can imagine, made cornering on a twisting mountain road, a little tricky…!!

Fabio felt that the actual shock and handling was not affected, and although I do not have the expertise to argue with him, my mind was grasping for any good reason to explain the poor handling I had experienced all day…!!

We then tested the tyre pressures and discovered that both front and back tyres were well under the pressures I usually rode them at…!!

In part, these two things explained why I had struggled today, but I also had to give “credit” to the fact that my mind had not been on the ride either, and that combined to make it a day to forget…!!

In ending this post, I must say that the scenery we rode through today was magnificent, and we all agreed that Colombia was a bikers paradise… It had everything to test both rider and machine, both tough mountain passes as well as smooth trouble-free highways…

Although we had been told that the roads were usually clogged with traffic and that you could not ride at the speeds that we had become used to further south, we had disproved this…!! When we needed to, we could still ride very quickly, covering between 80 and 100 km in any given hour if we had to…

While Fabio and Tom went off to dine out at a local restaurant, I stayed behind to try to catch up on all the posts I still needed to write… It was going to be a long night…!!

©GBWT 2012