Pasto

Day 119, Oct 29, 2013, 395km

Made it to Pasto from Cali today through some beautiful mountains along the way. It was to bad that the weather was off and on rain the whole time.

 

Tomorrow heading to Ecuador.

 

Cristo Rey, Cali

Day 118, Oct 28, 2013, 51km

Had a productive day in Cali, did meet Mike at Motolombia and was able to get a new/used Alaska leather sheep skin from him for my saddle. My old one finally died on the road after getting soaked to many times I guess, it started to come apart, and only after some 40 years of use you would think it could have lasted longer.

Then to Asturias where I asked for differential oil, thinking I will change this myself, they offered to change this for me on the spot for 25 pesos, how could I resist.

Then had my right highway peg fixed for 40 pesos because I can not find them anywhere.

Did see some of the sites including this nice sculpture.

 

Also road up to Cristo Rey and then followed some nice mountain roads.

 

Hostel Casa Blanca, Cali

Day 117, Oct 27, 2013, 184km

Very nice ride over some mountain ranges going to Cali today, beautiful road and scenery. If it wasn't for all the trucks that you constantly have to get around it would have been perfect.

Lower picture shows new super Hwy being built through the mountains, using very large viaducts and tunnels to smooth this out, a real undertaking and I'm amazed at how well the Colombian roads are maintained. Also check out the Pine trees on the hill, there growing towards each other on the upper slopes.

Checked in at the Casa Blanca Hostel, that is well known by most ADV riders for only 17 pesos or $10 US you can’t go wrong.

Will stay an extra day and check out Cali before heading towards Pasto.

 

Cajamarca

Day 116, Oct 26, 2013, 250km

Decided to head towards Cali today and in the process I got lost trying to find the road out of Bogota. My GPS has again no detailed map of this area because for some reason when I downloaded the free maps I guess I did not get it.

Found my way completely off on the wrong side of town as to where I was suppose to go.

After a little while of riding around I did see some bikers chatting along the roadside and thought lets ask them.

Luckily they where a friendly bunch and after all the usual questions they said they would take me to the highway where I had to be on.

They lead me all the way across town where I said goodbye to them with many thanks. Again this go's to show how friendly people are and especially bikers can be, viva Colombia.

Made it to Cajamarca where I'm staying at Hotel Nevado for 30 pesos.

 

The road out of Bogota.

Bogota 2

Day 115, Oct 25, 2013, 4km

After changing to Hotel Madeleine I called Marcos  to see what he was doing, and of course he was having lunch with his girlfriend and was doing some bike repairs later that afternoon.

He would see if he could come down later. I guess things did take longer because I did not hear back from him and I hope to see him down the road somewhere.

Did take in a rest day to catch up on my accounting situation and at day 100 I was still averaging $60 per day, so not bad and will see if I can bring it down in the next 50 days.

 One more shot from 2 days ago.

Bogota

Day 114, Oct 24, 2013, 237km

Made it to Bogota and staying at the Angry Croc Hostel for 23 pesos and have the bike in secure parking for 7 pesos. The ride was very uneventful, just beautiful scenery and some 10.000 ft passes. This made  for some relatively cool riding all the way to Bogota that lies at 8.000ft.

Will get together with Marcos and his girlfriend later and see what he's up to.

Talked with Marcos and I will change to another hotel that is closer and stay another day in Bogota before heading to Cali.

 

Some more shots from yesterday.

 

San Jose de Pare

Day 113, Oct 23, 2013, 239km

Got up with a splitting headache this morning. The room I had was at the front and right above the street.  All night long the trucks would come and go plus stand there running with the fumes coming right into the room.

This place is a Hotel/Gas Station/Diner all in one and is the only place for miles around.

After 2 aspiring and breakfast things started to look up, man is it beautiful out here, very cold but absolutely spectacular.

Most of the people wear clothing like you would see in the Andes (hats and woollen blankets). The landscape reminds me of that when going up north, a bit barren but yet very peaceful and pretty in it's on way. The roads are great and coming down the Mountain was a feast for sore eyes, wow what a view.

Made it to another small town and Hotel just before Barbose on Hwy 45a, this is about 245km's before Bogota, that I hope to reach tomorrow.

 

Berlin

Day 112, Oct 22, 2013, 121km

Venezuela has been a real disappointment, the pothole roads, the garbage scenery, the cost of food and the heat. San Cristobal has outrageous hotel prices for some reason, and it did take almost an hour and a half to find something for 420Bs with no extra charge for using a credit card. That's still $70 for something less then half decent. The only thing Venezuela has going for it is the cost of gas, and that does not make up for the rest.

The Border crossing at Cucuta did take 3.5hrs but mostly due to the Aduana guy being on a 2hr lunch break. Getting out of Venezuela was easy, on the left side under the big archway is Migracion it is at the first counter. There you will need to fill in a piece of paper and buy a exit stamp for 110Bs from an officer that sells them and he is usually hanging around in that area.

Then ride your bike through the archway, and go all the way till you get to the roundabout, go left on it so that you can get to the back entrance of this same building, there you will find Aduana hand in your temp permit and get your passport stamp cancelled.

Then cross the bridge and your in Colombia, go to first building on the right where you will find Migration and then go to Aduana that is next to it, it is the building behind the truck scales.

Did find out later that the only way that things would be cheaper in Venezuela would be to change US dollars on the black market where you can get something like 50Bs to $1, and in that case it would make it super cheap to stay there, but hey that's maybe good for next time.

San Cristobal.

Made my way into the mountains on Hwy 55/66. On my way up it started raining and the temps went to below 10c, my altimeter was showing just under 11500ft and man was I happy that there was a Hotel, it was somewhere between Pamplona and Bucaramanga, (Berlin).
The high barren landscape.

 

Santa Marta

Day 108, Oct 18, 2013, 230km

Said goodbye to my good friend Marcos this morning because he is heading towards Bogota to meet his girlfriend. Maybe I will see him again if I head back to Bogota or later on down the road somewhere.

 

Today I made it to Santa Marta and then will head further to Venezuela tomorrow.

There is a really nice market area here and the fruit smoothies are awesome.







One of the signs in Cartagena

 

Cartagena

Day 107, Oct 17, 2013

Cartagena is one great place to visit and has lots of things to see and do, so we head out to the very old fort San Felipe de Barajas.

 And then to Cartagena's old port entrance.

 

And back to scroll through the old town's small cobblestone streets and visit it's many beautiful town's squares with shops everywhere. Marcos and myself enjoy  a great cup of coffee while we sit there in the towns square.

By late afternoon I finally have some time and space to be able to write some more and sort through the pictures, and then Murphy's law kills the Internet.

 

More later.

 

Columbia Debarkation

Day 106, Oct 16, 2013

I did get-up around 5:30am and start untying the bike for the next part of this adventure. Both our bikes need to be lowered into a small dingy one by one and then brought to shore where we will have to lift them over the railing or so we are told.

 

When we finally did get the bikes to the shore the Captain decided to put the dingy up against some rocks instead and we are told to push the bike over the front edge of the boat onto the rocks. With all four of us some pushing and pulling we manage but only by gods grace does this work without any incident. This whole process is such a make shift operation and I can't believe that we pulled it off and then to think that this has been going on for years, just unbelievable.

 

Once on land and after saying all our goodbyes we head off to Aduana and wait for the boats agent to show because he has all our paperwork including passport. We waiting an hour before he shows up and has already handled Immigration so now it's only the Import of the bike process, luckily this only takes another 45min, and at least something that was thought out. For his services we pay him $35and then we headed into town to find a Hostel or something.

 

After some searching we find good lodging at the Iguana's House, where it's only $15 for a private room. We then head out to the Insurance company to get our SOAT for Columbia, and it's for 1 month at a cost of $22 US. Also find out that if you hit someone (person) your okay but if you hit anything else your not covered, so we figure if you do hit a car just walk up to the rider and then punch him in the face your safe, just kidding.

 

Absolutely stoked to be back on land and eager to head out once again.

Will respond back later with more to come, the Internet is not always working.

 
Caribbean Sea