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.