The Old Town in Cartagena reminded me of a smaller version of Venice. Old churches, old buildings, long narrow one lane roads surrounded by tall old buildings that happened to open up into small plazas, great for hanging out and for people watching. Amazingly the structure of the walls of the forts seemed to be entirely intact, giving the whole place an old time feel. I haven´t seen many places that integrate the old and the new so well and I understand why Cartagena is the main draw for tourists. Aside from a couple of sketchy areas, the old town was a safe and pleasant place to visit. The new town reminded me of Panama City with numerous skyscrapers, new stores and restaurants, and plenty of construction for building more.
I hobbled around for a few days and iced my ankles to little effect. My ankles swoll up and my left foot especially looked worse than I had ever seen it. I didn´t want to look closely at it but I had to. I looked at my foot and thought of all the homeless people and other derelicts I had seen because sometimes they had feet that looked like mine did. Nasty, dirty, infected feet. Yuck.
I went to the hospital, talked to a doctor, and got some medicine. It is now about a week after I started taking the antibiotics and my feet are much better. I deal with some localized swelling that probably would have gone away by now but this roadtrip waits for no one and I´ve had to ride and walk around which irritates my ankle. No big deal.
In Cartagena, we hung out with some of the folks that were on the boat with us. It was a good group of people and it was fun to hang out with them for another couple of days before the inevitible happened and the group dissolved and people went their separate ways.
Last Sunday morning, we struck out for Medellin. We encountered the Acapulco Syndrome with the local people and we got answers between five and twenty hours to get to Medellin. It felt great to be back on the road again, although it was uneventful riding for the most part through what appeared to be cow country.
By chance we saw a couple of adventure motorcyclists on a Beemer headed the opposite way. We all stopped and exchanged information about the roads ahead. They were en route to Cartagena to take a boat to Panama and we told them what we knew. In turn, they told us about a nice hotel about 5 hours north of Medellin which would be a good stopping point since we would not have enough daylight to make it all the way there.
We spent the night in Caucasia at that hotel and headed to Medellin the next morning. This leg was a lot more fun and the riding got better and better. We started up a mountain north of Medellin and kept going up and up and up. The views were fantastic and this was the other part of the trip that I had envisioned of riding in South America: steep, curvy roads through towns and villages perched high in the mountains…fantastic views of the valleys below. Also, the vibrant green we saw in the countryside combined with steep hills on which animals grazed reminded me of the landscapes I had seen in Scotland and Ireland. It was incredible.
We arrived in Medellin in pouring rain. My gear held up well and I was pretty dry. All in all it took us ten to eleven hours to ride from Cartagena to Medellin over two days. We encountered the first of many friendly paisos (person from Medellin) when I asked a fellow motorcyclist how to get to an apartment we were planning to stay at. He told us to follow him and he took us straight to where we needed to go. He even offered his cell phone so that I could call the American who rented us a couple of rooms in his apartment for a few days.
This was my second time in Medellin and my only disappointment was that we were going to miss the weekend. Instead of enjoying a weekend in the Poblodo section of town, we had a couple of slow and rainy nights, Monday through Wednesday. Medellin and Cali are well known for the beauty of its women and we saw plenty of incredibly beautiful women that confirmed this.
Thursday morning we woke up early to ride to Bogota. We were told anywhere from five to twelve hours this time so we decided to head out as soon as the sun came up to maximize our riding time and give us enough cushion for mistakes or mechanical problems.
We started out a little bit late but still got on the road by 7 am. There are two highways to Bogota and one is supposed to be faster than the other. Unfortunately, with my limited Spanish it was easy to misunderstand directions and we got lost. We waded through stuck early morning traffic and rode up steep hills that appeared to have no end. We ended up on an open mountain road with great views of the city. This was one hour later and I was frustrated as hell. We were about ready to turn back when I asked a passer by how to get to the airport. He seemed to know what he was talking about (that´s a challenge; trying to determine if the person you ask directions from knows what they are talking about) so we went for it, and relief soon came as we found ourselves back on track.
The riding got better and better the farther east we went. Nice pavement, curvy roads, not too much traffic. Then, on a long downhill section with incredible views of the valley below we noticed less and less traffic. And we started noticing more and more military checkpoints. Between Cartagena and Medellin it was normal to see a checkpoint every five to ten or even twenty kilometers. Here it was almost every 500 meters to a kilometer between checkpoints. We started seeing soldiers patrolling the highway on foot and greater and greater numbers at the checkpoints. When we saw some small tanks and APC´s at some of the checkpoints I knew that we were traveling through a fairly hot area. No big deal, we just wouldn´t stop unless it was at a checkpoint and many were located at most restaurants and stores where travellers would stop.
There was little car traffic but we started seeing more and more trucks. Many people might decide to cancel driving plans because of possible fighting but truck drivers still need to make money and haul cargo.
On one curve I didn´t appreciate the way these guys drive sometimes. I couldn´t see around the curve because of the mountainside but had to wait till the middle of the curve to see an oncoming truck in his lane. I saw extra movement underneath the truck and noticed that there was another truck overtaking him in my lane! I headed to the outside of my lane towards the small shoulder and slammed on my brakes. It was going to be close! The bike slid but I stayed upright. Luckily the truck driver reacted quickly, hit his brakes and moved right towards the other truck. If he had not done this I would have splattered against the front grill of his truck. As it was, I made it to the right shoulder of the road in time and missed him by maybe half a foot. I felt the adrenaline rush and my heart pounding and took a couple of seconds to collect myself before starting out again. Besides my one crash several years back that was the closest I had ever come to that final wreck.
At the bottom of the mountain the military presence lessened and we were stopped at a police checkpoint. Here there was no pretense. The cops were just interested in the bikes and our journey and asked us tons of questions. The Colombian cops and soldiers were always polite and friendly. It was nice knowing that they were on the roads and I would rather talk to them anyday than to narcotrafficos, FARC, or kidnappers. These cops confirmed that we did, in fact, go through an area with a lot of conflict. No surprise.
The road continued to be a lot of fun, lots of curves, and that day I really felt at one with the bike. I felt like I had so much more control than before and Roar and I were both speeding down the road, leaning hard into the curves. Colombians love their bikes. There are tons of motorcyclists on the road and this has been the first country since we left the U.S. where larger bikes are a lot more common. We weren´t the biggest guys on the block anymore. But Roar and I were outriding these guys on a regular basis.
The increased traffic only gave us more challenges as we negotiated the mountain roads and passed slow moving and not so slow moving trucks and cars. On the left, on the right, whatever made sense. I admit that I took some risks I shouldn´t have taken but hey that comes with a bit of confidence and overconfidence and I felt solid in my riding skills. It was a long, very fun day of riding, about as much fun for me as our rides in Baja were, which is saying a lot. We made it to a hotel in Bogota at 6 pm, eleven hours on the road. It was great and I ended up riding a little bit more that night…..
