Small town, nice people

Nov 23

We are up relatively early in hopes of getting out of Santa Marta before the morning rush, I am not sure if we accomplished beating the rush but we did make it out of town quite easily. We are both going to have some bad driving habits when we return, it is common practice here for bikes to pretty much do what they want, where they want, and if the first two conditions are favorable, when they want.  Things like splitting lanes of cars at a light is a given, splitting the lanes while the cars are moving takes some guts, as does passing; on the right, on double lines, on curves, you get the picture. It does not even phase us anymore when we see a car or bus coming at us in our lane, we just move over as far as we can and let them past.

Our goal was to travel towards Medellin today which is about 800km’s from Santa Marta, at home this distance would be easily covered, here it is going to be a long day, probably close to 9 hours of travel time, and we would still only be about 2/3 the way. The route is fairly basic, follow route 25 from Barranquilla and just keep going South. One other very different thing about being on a bike is that there are no tolls to pay on the highways. So far every road we have been on has toll booths every so often and they are motorcycle friendly because there is a bypass lane that allows us to not only travel cheaper but quicker.

The day was long and the road was slow, we made it about as far as expected and by 4pm we were looking for a hotel in Shagun, not a very big town but it was supposed to have a couple of hotels. We found one out on the highway that allowed us to add another first to our trip list. The first night we spend in a "romance hotel".

Some travellers do not like these but we have never had a bad experience at one, the rooms are clean, generally on the cheap side, and often the room comes with a garage to park in for “privacy”. We would not want the neighbors to know who is participating in extracurricular activities. We got cleaned up and found a nice lady on the corner selling BBQ meat on a skewer with small Arepas (small corn flour bread). Each skewer was $1000COP (approx. 0.50CDN) so very affordable and tasty as well.

 

Some kids in the neighborhood. 

Nov 24

Another travel day as we make our way to Medellin, the road is very scenic as we climb up and up until we ride into the clouds. This also means that it is a high humidity area, ok it was raining cats and dogs all the rest of the day into Medellin. We would have liked to take more pictures but the rain made it totally impossible to see anything, it was not until we started descending that we finally were able to see what we had missed in the last few hours, the most magnificent valley and surrounding mountain peaks we have ever seen. The valley is very deep and we are once again reminded that although our Rockies are spectacular, we just don’t have roads like this through them.

Clean Socks = Happy Feet

Nov21-22

Last night when we were on the terrace I had noticed that there was an area on the roof for laundry, this is quite common as it allows for clothes-lines, lots of sun, and a breeze if there is one to help dry the clothes.  As it has been very warm and we have been sweating a lot in our riding gear I asked the lady of the house if I could use the laundry facilities, she agreed so while our clothes were washing we had an impromptu workout on the terrace.

 

There was lots of space but little shade. Once the clothes were on the line we headed out to see the beach in the daylight and dip our toes in the water. The water was clean but the beach was quite dirty, a little disappointing but the tides float all kinds of stuff onto shore. We enjoyed the water all the same then walked around town seeing the sights. We noticed more backpackers here and while walking we seen a couple of Hostels, so that explains the backpackers. We found some great vendors and enjoyed fresh Coco Frio (cold coconut juice right out of the shell), then we decided to take a short break and sit in the central park and just relax. We made a game out of trying to out-sit a couple of old guys across from us. There is quite a mix of people here due to the Carribean, Spanish, and European influences. The old guys eventually won, I guess they have had more training, and we moved on.

 

New Discoveries Today:

1. The dogs here are smarter than us because they can understand Spanish and we can’t.
2. Due to changing our route and skipping  Venezuela, it is all South from here.

 

Hello Costa Colombia

Nov. 20

As we say goodbye to Bmanga we are once again reminded of how important the GPS has become,  again the road construction created all kinds of chaos and just finding the way out of town becomes the illusive needle in the haystack. No sooner do we leave the middle class capital of Colombia then we drive through the first shanty town of the trip. It was actually part of Bmanga’s northern limits, and once again we are reminded that life here can be very similar and then so remotely different that we can not even fathom what their life must be like. Living in a plywood shack on the side of a steep hill with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.

We had a bit of rain, ok a heavy rain for a very short time. Then it was fairly smooth sailing, in a South American definition of the term. The total distance from Bmanga to Santa Marta is approximately 550km’s, but it took 9hrs. We did our best to keep a steady pace but as things would have it we ran into numerous road construction crews, small towns with topes (speed bumps) that cause everyone to slow to a crawl, and just general chaos. This is why it is hard to answer the common questions of “How far do you travel in a day?” Or “How long do you travel each day?” There is no short definitive answer for either of these questions. It truly depends on the route and what is encountered. Today’s route was a secondary highway so some congestion was expected but we had forgotten just how sideways things can go and we realized that it would be dark before we got to Santa Marta.

We would have to stop enjoying the tree canopy over the road and start making better time. This began the adaptation in driving, which was allowed to us by the smaller bikes. As the saying goes, When in Rome! Adopting the SA driving habits turned out to be quite fun, passing on either side, splitting the lanes, cutting to the front of road construction line ups and/or just ignoring the flagman and weaving through the construction. Thankfully the Colombian police have no interest in us, that would have added at least a couple more hours stopping at all the checkpoints to play charades. Even with all these time saving measures we pulled into Santa Marta in the dark, breaking rule #2 Never Ride in the Dark, we once again rely on the GPS to find our way to where we think there should be hotels, down by the beach. We did fairly well, only once going the wrong way on a one way . But in the end we found a nice hotel just off the Malecon with secure parking in the restaurant, after it closes, air conditioning, and of course free Tinto (strong black coffee).  We had a chance to walk the Malecon after a quick supper at the hotel restaurant, some kind of fish with shrimp and a sauce similar to Alfredo but not quite the same. I introduced our waiter to Google translate on his iphone and he was very happy. He gets customers from all over the world and now he can communicate with them. 

After the walk we had to push the bikes into the restaurant for the night, this turned out to be my first tip over. Against my better judgement I listened to the hotel owner when he said to push the bike down the sidewalk from the next building. They had a sloped driveway into their parkade which would avoid pushing the bike over the 8inch high curb. All sounded good until I tried it. The saddlebag caught the edge of a sign and the bike pulled away from me and in slow motion it just took a nap, right there on the sidewalk, in front of about 6 people. The bike was quickly uprighted then wheeled the rest of the way dodging guide wires and light posts, one down one to go. The second one I did my way, take a run straight at the curb, bouncy bouncy and we are in the restaurant, I think I managed to gain back a little respect with the guys watching.

Before bed we sat on the rooftop terrace and enjoyed the music from street and the breeze off the Caribean Sea. To borrow a quote from and unkown source...”There is always a happy ending, if you are not happy it is not the end.” Sitting on the terrace swing, we are definitely happy we made it to Santa Marta, the day must be over.

Bmanga for short.

Nov. 18 cont'd
Once into Bmanga we seen what the write-ups were talking about, lots of modern buildings, young people everywhere, nice cars and lots of traffic. We stopped at a gas station to get our bearing in hope of finding an area of town where the hotels would be. We took a guess, then another, then ended up just accidentally finding a hotel next door to a 3 storey shopping mall.  Then we seen the whole street was lined with hotels, it was like a buffet, we chose the $50,oooCOP one with underground secure parking for the bikes. Then it was a routine evening, eating at the street vendors and people watching.

We walked through the shopping complex, it was similar to China, storage locker sized stores packed with everything from shoes to toasters and spices. The sales people try their hardest to lure you into their cubicle, but we are not looking for anything as we can’t carry more than we already have. One energetic young lady stopped me and started chattering like we were old friends, I told her I did not understand and she called over a couple of her girlfriends, then one left and came back with a fella, Oscar, that spoke English. Game on. They played 20 questions using  Oscar as a translator, they were typical girls giggling and taking very fast all at the same time. We said our goodbyes and the girls gave both of us a customary peck on the cheek and a cheery “Chow”. We carried on looking at the stores then headed down to street level again to people watch a bit more then headed back to the room, the heat today was energy draining and we both felt a bit worn down.

Nov. 19

We woke early to the sound of construction in the hotel, the crew was talking and laughing and jackhammering or something similar. After talking with Jorgen yesterday we realized that we did not have any Colombian Motorcycle insurance, which is mandatory in Colombia and referred to as SOAT. The insurance is not expensive but as it turns out a bit lengthy to get, unless you are at the border, mostly because the non-border offices are not used to dealing with foreigners. Once we found the insurance office the nice lady said it would take one day to write the policy. Okay, we were planning on leaving Bmanga today.  She also said she could not get an answer on which company to underwrite the insurance with but she was hopeful to have an answer in a few hours. We were communicating using Google translator and we agreed that I should come back instead of waiting. Brenda and I took a quick ride out to Giron, a neighboring town that we heard had an amazing cobblestone district with great architecture. Giron was only about 15 minutes away so it was a quick ride, once in the cobblestone district we parked the bikes and were overwhelmed with old ladies asking for money, which turned us off of so we spent a total of 5 minutes off the bikes then left. 

 We did manage to see most of the town on the way out, weaving this way and that on the one way streets, the cobblestone added a nice rattle to everything on the bike. Back at the insurance office the lady was very helpful and eventually we got our insurance at 4pm, hmm I guess it is back to the hotel and we will head out in the morning. All things happen for a reason and we enjoyed a nice evening in the busy neighborhood of our hotel. We found a different park area that was circled by condos and commercial buildings. Families played with their kids renting remote control cars that the little ones can sit in while the parents walk behind with the remote. Others were playing Frisbee or exercising. Then as dusk settled in the park came to life with all kinds of Christmas lights.

|Unique hedge with Christmas lights.

Traffic scene, very typical to have bikes and cars sharing space.

Tricky Spanish names

Nov.17

Today’s plan was a quick trip downtown to the Gold Museum and then head to Zipaquira. We were doing fine navigating until the route was closed for a rather large bike race. This caused us to zig and zag our way downtown until we were diagonally just one block from the museum. This turned into a bunch of circling on one way streets and yes more blocked streets for the race. Finally we just found a parkade and walked to the museum. As it was Sunday it turned out to be free entry into the museum, and it was an awesome display and history lesson rolled into one very expensive display.

 

 

 

 

Once we had reached “info overload” we left the museum and Bogota. We headed North to Zipaquira, not a very long trip but we wanted to see the Catedral del Sal (Cathedral of Salt). Zipa is only about 50km from Bogata so we took our time and got used to the bikes on the highway, it had been a while since we last rode them and with the travel luggage it made a very slight difference in how the bikes handled. We checked into a nice hotel and quickly got into our routine of checking emails, charging the electronics, spraying the boots (geesh only a few days and they already reek), then hitting the town for a snoop and some photos. We found a great “Centro” park lined with lounges and restaurants, there were actually two central parks to explore this time. We planted ourselves at a roast chicken restaurant and while we ate supper we watched the locals mingling and going about their routines. Then a parade came by. It was really a whole bunch of soccer fans having a bit of a pep rally and it must have helped because the national team won their game that night. We made an early night of it doing some writing and planning for the next day.

 

 

The next morning we packed up and headed to the Salt Cathedral. We proceeded into the tunnels to see the numerous crosses that the miners had constructed by carving into the walls of the mine.

They also carved huge pillars to act as supports, but mostly just some amazing crosses carved into or out of the  walls. There was an interpretive film at the end that explained how the whole salt mine process worked from the very beginning to modern day. They currently use a process similar to what we use in Northern Alberta to extract heavy oil. I guess SAGD has multiple applications. We wrapped up the underground tour by sitting on a bench overlooking the city and having lunch.

Then it was off again farther North to Chiquinquira, where we also found two Central Parks separated by one block of retail kaos. The parks were both a full city block each, which is fairly typical. We walked around and found a place for supper. This little restaurant did not use menus, it seemed that people just knew what to order. So we did our best and ended up with alot of food. Enough for supper and lunch the next day.  We did not really have anything special reason for stopping but are glad we did. They have the most amazing church we have seen since Oaxoaxa Mexico, and according to the sister of the guy who was in front of us at the Bible store, the main attraction to the town is the church.

Yes, I said Bible store. We went in there hoping they had a Colombia Flag sticker. Of course they could not figure out my Spanglish so the guy in front of me phoned his sister, who speaks English. His phone battery died so she just came down to the store, that is when we found out all about the town. The little donkey was waiting patiently to go back to work.

Nov 18

Bucaramanga was our next destination. Ranked as one of the most modern cities in Colombia with the largest middle class population and home to ten universities.  The road to Bmanga was interesting; we started the days ride at about 9am after more great Colombian coffee. We added a few things to our “first time this trip list”, today was the first tanker truck turned over, the first large truck with a wheel off stopped in the middle of the road for repairs, the first pack mules along the highway, one notable from yesterday was a lady milking a cow out in the pasture, the first foreign bike traveller, the first switch backs, and the first semi receiving a new transmission on the side of the mountain. I guess the truck was too big to tow so they just started fixing it right there on the road. They had the old tranny out and the new one ready to go in. We could not get any pictures as we were on the bikes at the time with no safe place to stop.

 

The foreign traveller was Jorgen from Norway; he was riding a Kawasaki KLR650, loaded to the hilt. He had the two side panniers for his clothes and such, and then he had a parasail rolled up into a large duffle, and another pelican case that held his remote control helicopter. He used this for photography and filming, he said it could go up about 1000ft and take aerial photos and video. Not a bad idea but at 30lbs I would not be able to pack it on the G650x. He also informed us of the nasty situation currently in Venezuela, he has a girlfriend in Caracas and she told him not to come into the country for the time being. Apparently there are a lot of kidnappings and muggings of any tourists as the hyperinflation in the country is making it near impossible for people to pay for basic necessities and as such they resort to whatever means needed to make money. This is the second or third warning we have had from travellers and later in the day we decided to skip Venezuela this time. We reminded ourselves that the object of any trip is to make it home, not end up as another statistic.

Jorgen informed us that the rest of the road to Bmanga was very twisty, and we informed him of the same on his way South. Shortly after leaving him to his lunch we found out what he was referring to, not just curves but switchbacks on a 700 vertical meter decent into the valley. And it just kept getting hotter and hotter.

 

Reaching new heights!!

Nov. 16

Spending the day in Bogota was a great decision, normally we try to avoid big cities, but we are still getting climatized to the culture and thought a day of adjustment would be good.  We decided to ride around town for a bit and then take in the Montserrate Monastary. The ride took us around the downtown area which reminded us of many other Latin America cities, narrow streets with lots of commerce taking place. While trying to find the Monastery entrance we came across the University area and a large park with a nice twisty access road. The road was divided and had good banked corners on the way down, which the skateboarders seemed to appreciate. We seen at least two dozen of them riding their long-boards down the twisty road and by the looks of the skid marks it is a popular and challenging past-time. The monastery is atop a mountain overlooking the valley that Bogota is located in. We figured this would be a great vantage point to see the city and the hike up would also give us a good workout. There is an amazing rock stairway the entire distance.  The slow grind up allowed for many vantage points of the valley along with spectacular views of the city that has grown up the neighboring hills.

 The sign shows the 2,000 meter elevation gain from the base to the top.

 

Amazing rock work on the stairway.

 

Brenda was enjoying the workout.

 

Once at the top there is the monastery of course and the some cafeteria’s and one very fancy restaurant. Many attractions in Colombia are either free or very inexpensive. For example if you choose to take the tram up it costs only $8USD, if you choose to hike up as we did it is free and you can get a ride down as well. We chose to walk down as it was a gorgeous day and the tram looked very crowded.

 Above Exterior, Below Interior of Monastery

There were all kinds of people on the hike as well as at the top. Surprisingly many ladies chose to wear very high heals to walk the cobblestone surface, they looked good but their ankles must be destroyed.

We met a 72 year old fella that runs marathons up the stairway and he also elaborated on a race he did up 980 steps of one of the business towers in downtown. He was rattling on quite quickly in Spanish so it was hard to catch all of it, suffice to say he was in great shape for his age, any age really.

 

We descended down the stone stairway once we took a good look around at the grounds which were nicely decorated with Christmas lights.

 

The bikes were safe and sound where we left them, the nice people at the food booth who waved us in when we stopped at the parking lot entrance to read the signs, took good care of them as we ended up parking behind their booth on a small slab of concrete. I think their son liked the big bikes but he was shy and would peak around the corner of the booth then duck out of site. I managed to call him over to where Brenda and I were enjoying a cup of fresh cut fruit, from his parents booth, and he looked on with curiosity as I dug into my jacket pocket and pulled out a shiny Canadian quarter, I gave it to him and he said “25 cents” in English, I told him to keep it as a souvenir, he smiled and his Mom proceeded to give him the biggest hug and kiss on the head. I think she was proud of him for receiving a gift but as she spoke no English and I could not catch what she said in Spanish, I am just reading body language and drawing conclusions. Sometimes communication is like charades without knowing if you got the answer correct.

 

 

 

Once back at the hotel, we cleaned up and went for yet another walk around the neighborhood. We were looking for a restaurant and found a keeper. The waiter gave us a menu that looked like an adding machine tape, the food choices were not recognizable, so we just order what sounded good, as we read it. I had also order a beer, the waiter brought two. Then the food showed up, Brenda got a roated quarter chicken with fries and salad. We knew it would be chicken but we were not sure what else was coming as the dish was called “Pollo Canasta”. We thought maybe we would get to play some cards or something. Mine was considerably larger. What showed up was a large oval skillet filled with rice, ground beef? Homemade baked beans, spear of avocado, two pieced of pork fat that was deep fried, a fried banana/plantain, a mini hot dog, and a fried egg to top it off. All tolled with beers, about $12CDN.

 

And on the walk home we seen some beautiful flowers.

 

Colombia From Behind the Visor

Nov. 14 & 15

And we are off...our rockers mostly. We managed to have the bikes shipped to Bogota Colombia via Air Canada Cargo. It was a relatively painless process in Calgary. We contacted the AC Cargo office in Calgary and they explained the procedure and who had to be contacted. There was a bit of confusion around the cargo plane itself, initially they said that they needed a wide body plane to carry the cargo and it only came to Calgary as required, and would not come to Calgary at all after Sept 30th. By the time we were ready to ship they had moved to a new facility at the airport and the big plane came more often. Part of the process is to have the bikes checked by the TDG (Transportation of Dangerous Goods) department, the fella in Calgary is Erwin, and he is also a bike rider which sparked lively conversations whenever we talked and it was nice to meet in person when we dropped the bikes off at the airport. The main points with him was to have less than ¼ tank of fuel, disconnect the battery, no aerosol s and no fuel containers that have gas fumes or residue in them.

Once the bikes were dropped off it was a matter of tying up any loose ends at home, hosting a party so we could see our friends before we left, then it was off to the airport for us a couple of days later.

We met this nice fella at the airport.

 

 The plan was for us to arrive within 24hrs of the bikes and all was going well, the cargo tracking on the bikes showed they made it to Bogota, and we were scheduled to fly the next morning. Things looked pretty good until our flight from Calgary was late departing causing us to miss the connection in Houston. So now we had to stay overnight in Houston and leave the next afternoon, arriving in Bogotá at 9:30pm, long after the cargo area is closed. All of this delay meant that the bikes got moved to a secure warehouse off of airport property and the process of getting them back was more complicated. We have crossed many borders and the process is always the same. Immigration for us, photocopies of our documents, then Aduana/DIAN for the bikes, more copies, then back to Aduana to drop off the copies , at a border crossing these offices are side by side or at least within close proximity making it easy to go back and forth from one office to the other. At the airport this would have also been similar if the bikes were still there. Now that the bikes were off premises the procedure added the element of taxi rides back and forth.

 

 So to give a quick summary, first go to Cargo City at the Bogota Airport  and hand the nice lady some picture ID in exchange for a visitor pass.

Then walk into the secured area and proceed to the Menzies office.

Show them the bill of lading from Air Canada Cargo, take the hand written note across the street to the Banco Colombia to pay the importation fee ($113,500COP) take the little blue receipt back to the Menzies office they process the paperwork then give back a multipage form that is to be presented to the DIAN office on the 3^rd floor of the Cargo City building.

 

Be sure to get the Motorcycle Importation Form from the DIAN office. It will be blank but you need it for the Inspector at the warehouse. Take all this paperwork to the warehouse and present to the inspector.

 She fills out the balance of the paperwork.

 

Now if you have to pay a storage fee as we did ($228,500COP) then you have to take another paper across the street to the blue door, up to the second floor and pay, they only take cash. Back across the street to the warehouse, show the receipt and the process is almost done. Just a bit more waiting and them the bikes are rolled out of the warehouse for my inspection that all is well. 

 

 

 

 

From there I have to re-connect the battery and take some obligatory photos with our audience and finally after 6hrs, ride off into the kaos that is Bogota traffic.

 

 

 

 

 The only other person to speak English, we were very lucky to have him there.

 

 

 

 

 

 The other little tidbit I did not mention is that there has to be less than ¼ tank of fuel for shipping, so the first stop is a gas station and if all is normal the attendant fills you up, pay with cash and go. Just like full service used to be at home. Gas is sold for $10,260COP or about $5USD per gallon here. Unfortunately this was not a normal gas stop for me, once the bike was filled the attendant became very excited about the fact  that gas was running down the side of the bike. Actually, everyone there was very excited to help me, or rather stop the gas spill, as I was frantically trying to strip the bike of its luggage so I could remove the seat to get at the source of the leak.

 

Once the seat was off it became obvious that the leak was from around the fuel pump retaining ring. You see, when I was preparing or should I say repairing the bikes I had removed the fuel pump from the gas tank and managed to pinch the gasket upon re-installation. As I had not filled the gas tank before leaving the leak became apparent at the gas station in Bogota. The gas station people seemed impressed when I pulled the miniature tire irons out of the luggage and managed to get about a ½ turn on the ring using one as a hammer and the other as a punch. Brenda was having fun taking pictures. . Lucky that we were only a couple of blocks from the hotel so the temporary fix at the gas station held until I could investigate properly. Thus finding the pinched gasket and completing a proper fix. YAY, no more leaks.

 

Now it was time for Brenda and I to find some food. It has been a long day and we have not eaten since breakfast.  A little corner store had fresh fruit, so we bought 4 bananas and a large mango, oh, and a bottle of water ($3100COP) or about  $1.10CAD. The conversion rate  today is $1923COP=$1USD so it takes some getting used to the conversion factor. We walk around the neighbor hood and take some pics, the people here are just like us, out with friends, getting groceries, putting up Christmas decorations. Same Same, but a little different.

 

Tomorrow we plan to tour around Bogota.