Day 100 - Finish in Cartegena

After our epic travel, we have finally arrived in Cartagena, Colombia. This amazing town of about a million people is on the north coast of Colombia, so technically fronting the Atlantic Ocean or Carribean Sea, so the weather is warm and humid at about 32 degrees, which is apparently "cool" compared to the 41 degrees that last years' team experienced. Our ride-in was straight forward on the good roads of Colombia, but we took a little detour via the port coming into the city to avoid the more hectic traffic. It was still busy and required some careful navigation and car-avoidance. We were also conserving fuel, so as to have as little as possible in the bike tanks, for the shipping back to Australia.

Cartagena was founded by the Spanish in 1533, via Pedro de Heredia as it sat between two important rivers, the Magdalena and Sinu. Indigenous people lived here from 4000 BC and the most comprehensive records and artifacts from that period have been found here, when compared to other parts of South America for the same period. Cartagena rapidly became the principal port out of which the Spanish shipped their stolen goods, particularly gold but it was also the main incoming port for slaves from Africa, who were used by the Spanish in mining (such as for silver at Potosi) and other areas across South America. As a result it was highly fortified and withstood sustained attacks by the Dutch, French and British at different times, all without success. It gained its independence from the Spanish in 1819 and had its 491'th anniversary party last night on 1 June.

Cartagena is a walled city, and also includes a substantial fort, both recognised by UNESCO as key historic sites. In addition, there are many other Spanish buildings remaining such as churches and a cathedral. The old town is beautifully classic, with narrow streets and wonderful shops and buildings. We are staying for two nights at a Wyndam Hotel slightly out of town, but will move closer to a Hyatt Hotel for three more nights to rest and relax. 

On the second day, I took my bike to a Lavandaria to get it meticulously cleaned, so that it can be accepted back into Australia after it is shipped out of Cartagena after Tuesday. This cleaning was good but not acceptional so I have a little more to do. We also re-packed everything to reduce our load. Some of it will go in to the small panniers on the bike, and some will be given away to JC and Willy. This lot includes 100 litres of bike clothes, boots and my helmet, all of which have suffered considerably over the last 24,000 kilometres. Sheryle also wanted to get some pants altered as we have both lost weight, and we found a cute "souk" or alley way, with lots of local artisans including a seamstress who did an amazing job on her trousers with no pinning or measurement, just sighting them on Sheryle. 

On Tuesday I will take my bike to the Port and go through all the paperwork for it to be exported, while Sheryle took a walking tour. That will be the actual final end of the trip for me, emotionally.  On one hand I will be glad its over, but on the other, I could continue riding and exploring all over South America for many more months (or though that is unlikely to ever happen as we are heading to other places with a little luck).

After our five day break here, Sheryle and I will fly north to Panama City, then to Costa Rica then to the Cayman Islands for some diving. After that we will go to NYC to see Sian and John plus Alex and Hannah too, and that should be quite a couple of weeks. We will be back in Australia on 1 July 2024.

Day 99 - Medellin to Monteria

Penultimate Day!  On a beautiful day, many were counting down to the final arrival in Cartagena. Our ride out of Medellin was busy but controllable, and everyone headed for the mountain roads again, basically to go up, then down again to the small coastal town of Monteria over 420 km. We expected the day to get very hot and sticky but it was reasonably ok compared to expectations.

This part of Colombia is magnificently green, given the high tropical rainfall, and the ride was also over recently renovated roads for the first two-thirds of the trip, so we had a great time zipping around the twisty corners. Later the road was to deteriorate a little with many bumps caused by geological movements. 

It was over 220km to the lunch spot and I was glad to reach it for a small break, but just before we did, we came across a motorcycle accident which is always sobering. The rider was carrying a male pillion and they had run head on, into a car that was in the wrong lane and trying to overtake a truck. The rider was a young local man, with two broken arms, but apparently no life threatening injuries and JC talked to him to give him confidence that he was not going to die. The pillion had slid well down the hill and had no major injuries but appeared to have been knocked out for a few minutes but come around. The bike was completely totalled and the front of the car badly damaged giving some idea of the seriousness of the impact. As we stood there, the Bomberos (fire fighters) ambulance arrived and they took over. 

We all slowed down a little! Then stopped for lunch followed by a more leisurely drive into Monteria and another GHL hotel with a pool and a Japanese restaurant called Miso. The restaurant was not flash, but we did have an enjoyable dinner with some sushi and soup. 

Day 98 Doradal to Medellin

Medellin (pronounced Med-ay-yin) is the second largest city in Colombia and we arrived here after a mostly wet ride from Doradal on 29 May, 2024. Medellin is the second largest city in Colombia and is super modern. However, it is best known for the Medellin Cartel run by Pablo Escabar. In the 1990's there were five drug cartels in Colombia and two remain - closely pursued by the Colombian Army. This is all over the local news but did not affect us.  

In many towns both the police and army are visible but not overwhelming. The police ride bright green Honda motorcycles and wear blue clothing but the army wear green camouflage outfits and are very well armed with pump-action shotguns and other weapons, if you see them. 

Todays ride was very atmospheric with lots of rain and a grand array of clouds around the peaks. This remained until we dropped down the steep streets to our GH Hotel which is very nice and modern. We had expected hot weather, and despite being warm was actually quite comfortable. I hope this remains.

We arrived before lunch with the aim of walking up to the ultra flash shopping centre where a Notary Firm would sign off our many papers to export our motorcycles out of Colombia and back to Australia in due course. The process was excruciating. A private customs agent had sent all of the papers (in Spanish) to JC by email, with our names and passport details completed and he had to print off the ten (yes 10) different forms for each of us. My role was to check that my passport number, name, VIN number, Engine number and registration were correct on all forms, then go through a long process of stamping and checking them with various managers. I do not have a high level of confidence that we have everything just correct for four bikes and the truck to get exported, but we will see after JC sends the paperwork to Catagena by courier. There were forms for the agent, forms for customs, forms for the anti-drug guys, forms for the shipper etc. Jeff's bike was given to a guy called Kevin who is riding it overland as we speak, with the aim of shipping it off to Australia with the others. There are many moving parts!

Tomorrow we have a long day on good roads as we head north. I am praying for good weather. 

PS the photo below is of the two dogs at our hotel, called "White" and "Black" who would steal food from your plate at breakfast, if you allowed it!

Day 97 To Doradal via Pablo Escobars Hacienda Napoles

Day 97 seems to have come around fast, and we had been warned that the road could be terrible with huge potholes and landslides. As it happened we had some of these but it was not too bad. Ned had chosen not to ride his bike this day, so Willy was a little unhappy that he had to load the Suzuki onto the back of the truck. As it turned out, Ned may have found it a challenge in some places, but someone in the team would surely have helped. 

The road out of Villa de Leyva was heavy with cobblestones for a few hundred metres, but soon turned into a very enjoyable winding mountain trail on narrow tarmac with few vehicles. We had to watch each corner and for trucks, dogs and children in the streets of the small villages but it was fine overall. There were a very few potholes, but some were large and JC bounced heavily through one and stopped to see if his bike was ok. 

At one point we stopped for a landslide of black mud, where a front-end loader was attempting to get a semi-trailer unbogged, which did not look likely for some time. His action was to clear a narrow road uphill from the truck, leaving a greasy mess of black muck for us to ride through very carefully. One young lady on a motorcycle near to JC, went flat on the road, but we were lucky to make it through unscathed. Later there was a series of deep brown mud holes to negotiate, but I plowed on pleased that it was going ok despite the road's repuation.

Near to the mountain hotel, we stopped outside the gates to Hacienda Napoles, now a water park complete with over 160 hippopotamus. This was the home of famous drug lord, Pablo Escobar who was shot by the Comombian army and CIA in 1993. His story is one of extraordinary crime, where he made billions each month from selling cocaine into the USA. 

Our accommodation this night was in a hotel up a 300m gravel road, with each house on stilts overlooking a rubber plantation and river. We swam in the pool as the weather had become very hot, and also walked down to the river to visit the water holes there. 

Overnight there was a huge electrical storm with heavy rain, and it was still raining lightly in the morning. Despite me having a cold at the moment, we are travelling well, and looking forward to making more progress towards Cartagena.

Day 96 Bagota to Casa Terra at Villa De Leyva

In some ways, this seemed to be a very strange day, as it was only a 169 km, which were well done by lunch time with only one short stop for fuel and a coffee.

Villa de Leyva is a small town of 25,000 people, on the way from Bagota to Cartagena. In fact to travel from one city to the other could be achieved on a motorcycle comfortably in two days, but we are taking four, to visit some interesting places. Kevin of course is delivering Jeff's bike from Equador after Jeff went back to Tokyo, and Kevin is already in Colombia. Villa de Leyva was initiated by Spanish explorer Diaz in 1504 and the main square looks like it has not changed one little bit over the last 500 years, other than a coat of paint and a few glass windows! 

In fact the main square is quite simple and fully paved with irregular cobble stones, which made for some intersting riding into town, but otherwise along excellent roads, with few potholes. We have been warned that it may be very challenging tomorrow over a double distance and include some very poor surfaces. We will see. 

We had a big lunch together, where I had a very fine piece of pork belly, but it really was too much for me, so I will need to watch out. The others looked very tired today, as the travel and distances are generally getting to them. Sheryle and I seem to be doing better than average overall in the health and fitness stakes. We then went for a fair walk around the town, and visited two churches and the main square. I drew some extra money from the Bancolombia ATM.

The place we are staying is like a small boutique hotel called Casa Terra and is very nice and stylish in the neuvo Spanish style, with lots of tiles and arches plus assorted fountains and olive trees!

Day 95 - Bogota Gold and El Chato Restaurant

Today we spent the day in Bogata with a plan to do our own thing, that went very well. 

Firstly it was a Sunday, so locals were out in force. We took a hotel-recommended cab driver, in an un-marked taxi to the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) that is run by the Reserve Bank of Colombia! They had started a small collection of gold items from the Inca and pre- Spanish period and this has grown to over 35,000 pieces. They are more than spectacular. The world was at the multi-level Museum so it was very busy but still spectacular. 

One special room with a closed door, was circular. The walls contained thousands of gold items arranged in patterns that were almost overwhelming. I think the best thing about the museum, is that the government has made a determined and deliberate attempt to collect as many ancient pieces as possible into one safe place for the future. The display is also very professional, with all items marked and described in both Spanish and English.

After that we had tried to get our driver to wait and take us to the Simon Bolivar Plaza, but in the end he turned up slightly late and took has to the funicular at Monserat, however the sunday crowds and queues were overwhelming, so we went straight to El Chato Restaurant, which is currently number 33 in the World, via taxi. It is number two in Latin America and the food and presentation was exceptional. We had an extraordinary meal. I had the tasting menu which was fourteen courses. Sheryle took a-la-carte. The big difference in South America is that they do a lot more things with plants, such as maize and corn and this makes for more interesting meals that are frankly better for us! Of course there is fish and meat, but the emphasis is on plants, making for more colour and wider flavours. We also were very impressed with the wines from South America. I had a reisling that was great, as were the reds we know from here as well such as the Malbecs.

We then took a regular taxi back to the hotel to sleep it off!

Day 94 - Salento to Bogata in the Rain

We cannot believe that it is day 94 on this trip, of 101 days (or actually a couple more for bike cleaning and shipping)!

There are three possible roads to the centre of the capital city of Colombia, Bogata. (Prounced Bog-ah-tah, not bag-oooh-ta as I am reminded by Sheryle!). We chose a different and very windy road, as this was the only one that had no landslips and truck accidents on it at the start. And it was fine and dry, so the first few hours riding was very special and very enjoyable through the mountains and over-hanging forest. Overall, the new highways and back roads of Colombia have been the finest in South America. This was later proved by some superb engineering of some mountain tunnels, including one very long one, of nearly three kilometres through an entire mountain. 

And then it rained and quite hard. The roads became very slick, so that passing slow trucks including many semi-trailers that took up both lanes of course, had to be done with consideration. We were very careful riding over the white and yellow road lines, as these are particularly slippery. To make matters more "interesting" there were lots of refugees, mostly from Venezuela, chasing the slow moving vehicles up the steep hills, and climbing onto the back trays, with their children and small carry bags. The people were covered in plastic sheets of all colours.

We came upon a very long line of cars and trucks, over five kilometres and of couse "lane split" to the front of the queue to find out what was going on. A huge tree had fallen across the road, along with a small landslide and JC was nowhere to be seen - he had managed to get through just before the tree fell! As the rain poured down, some local men set to cutting through the branches with machetes. It was a slow process, but eventually they had cut a small tunnel under the branches, enough for the motorcycles to get through which we did. The next part was driving through some very impressive physical tunnels, one of which I stopped in, to take photos and put a neck-sock on so that the rain would not pour down my neck. 

I had been riding with Ned, who was slower than me, so I went ahead to chase down Rahn, Paul and JC. As I was climbing a long slippery hill in a single lane, when a young man on a moto who was coming down the other two lanes crashed his motorcycle, thereafter sliding across the front of my bike right ahead of my front wheel. He slid a long way, more than 100 metres on the wet surface and managed to miss me, after my emergency stop. His bike would have gone over into the abyss, but was halted by a large concrete gutter. So I stopped, put on my hazard lights and went to get him back on his feet, and the bike upright. Others stopped to help too, which was rather good as it was pissing down, His helmet was grazed on all sides and he was a little dazed, but otherwise ok. His new moto had some significant damage.  I rode on slowly, a little shaken at how close we had all come to a serious accident.

I was actually enjoying the riding despite the rain, as the views and atmosphere was spectacular. Eventually we all met at the agreed roadside restaurant for lunch, and Ned joined us followed by Willy and Sheryle in the truck. However, we were keen to get going into Bagota and soon moved on, slowing for the 15 kilometres of long queues as we arrived into the ciy of over 8 million people. 

We stopped at the Biouxry Hotel, which is quite new and has a couple of good restaurants, where we enjoyed a couple of fine drinks and a good meal, which all seven of us attended.