The Colombia Ecuador speed run
The ship arrived in Cartagena on August 1st. We cleared customs on the 2nd, and Geert and I spent around a half hour driving through the crazy Cartagena traffic to our hotel. There, I had to say goodbye to my new friend — Tibet and Alex arrive in Peru on the 15th, which gave me less than two weeks to cover over 3600km of South America. I’ll miss Geert, but I have a feeling I’ll see the crazy Dutch guy again. I headed South.
Colombia is a beautiful country. It felt stupid to spend only six days there after spending an entire month in Panama, but I spent those six days well and likely saw more of the country than most tourists do in a month. Beautiful vistas abound, and ramshackle concrete pueblos are mixed in with old colonial towns. Most of the country is in the mountains, which meant I ended up doing around a thousand kilometers of twisties — finally, my bike was in her element!
Tuesday, August 2
On my first day of driving, I noticed something disturbing. On a particularly congested section of two-lane highway, traffic was crawling along and an ambulance came up behind me, lights flashing. I immediately moved over to let it pass, but no one else did. I then spent the next fifteen minutes watching in amazement as the ambulance tried to work its way through the traffic, and not a single person moved over to let it pass (there was more than enough room). Eventually, I had enough of watching this spectacle, lanesplit past all the congestion (poor stuck ambulance included), and sped off in disgust. I felt immensely guilty for passing the ambulance, but I wasn’t the one holding it up.
Before I’d started on this trip, I had no idea about the extent of the cultural differences between the various Latin American countries. In Mexico, on a two-lane highway, if anyone wants to make a pass, they simply move to the center and vehicles on both sides of the road immediately move onto the shoulder to let them pass safely. It’s one of the most civilized, empathetic driving customs I’ve ever seen. Such a huge difference!
Wednesday, August 3
My first destination was Medellin. It’s supposedly an awesome city, but I barely saw any of it — my objective was to buy the mandatory “go to jail and lose your vehicle if you don’t have it” insurance which I’d forgotten to buy in Cartagena. What I did observe in Medellin, however, is the most insane driving I’ve ever seen in my life.
Some of my earliest motorcycling was in Bangkok, and that’s always stood out in my mind as being a very challenging environment. The driving in Medellin is similar, except much faster, motorcycles are allowed on the freeways, and everyone seems to be angry at each other and high on cocaine. Imagine a hundred thousand angry hornets went out and bought 125cc motorcycles. Medellin.
Thursday, August 4
Insurance procured, I crossed the mountains inland, to see some of the country off the Panamerican. Once you get off the main roads in Colombia, the pavement quality deteriorates rapidly, but it’s nothing I’m not used to by this point. As I lunched at the town of Doradal, I was approached by a MT-09 rider, Cesar, and his wife (whose name I forgot). He invited me to stay at his place for the night, but I politely declined on account of my schedule.
“You like to ride slow, or fast?”
“Well, a little fast.”
“Good! Follow me!”
We merged onto a freeway, hit our first corner at 150kph, and hammered down the straights at 170. Aside from some thumbs-ups from guys in military transport trucks, no one seemed to notice. Later, on a slower road, Cesar got pulled over by the cops (I never found out why, but I politely waited for him a kilometer down the road). A few kilometers later, he fell over while pulling out of a gas station and he and his wife tumbled into a ditch. It was then that I realized that Colombians don’t have any special sense of where the cops are or any exceptional vehicle-handling skills, their only edge is a simple defecit of concern for whether they live or die. I helped Cesar and his wife pick up their bike, again politely declined their repeated offer to stay at their place, and let them ride on ahead.
As the sun started setting, I headed off the highway towards a little mountain town. After driving around the town for a while and failing to find anything marked “hotel”, I resorted to asking some neighbourhood kids. A couple of girls, probably six to eight years old, nodded excitedly and ran down the road, motioning me to follow. They eventually led me to an unmarked restaurant, whose owner, when I inquired, led me upstairs to their “hotel room” which they happily let me have for $7. Awesome!
Friday, August 5
I headed for the Tatacoa desert. On the way, I was stopped by a pair of cops who wanted to see my paperwork and ask me questions about the bike. How many ccs? How fast does it go? How much does it cost — a seemingly very common question in Colombia. Near the end of the interaction, the older cop asked me something which my limited Spanish could not yet comprehend. He then made an hourglass motion with his hands, which I interpreted as “do you like the bitches with the tits and ass?” I gave him a thumbs up, they laughed — “es importante!” — and sent me on my way. Keep up the good work, officers.
Approaching the desert from the North, the road is unpaved, ungraded dirt. It was beautiful, surreal, hot, dry, and hard to imagine that I’d been riding through tropical jungle just a couple of days ago.
Saturday, August 6
My objective was to cross the mountains again to get back on the Panamerican. Unfortunately, I hit an obstacle — dirt, dirt, and more dirt. I like riding dirt on the RC390 because I love feeling like an idiot who accomplishes inadvisable things, but the bike simply doesn’t have the suspension for rough, potholed dirt roads. Every long stretch of dirt I’ve done on it has resulted in aches and bruises all over my body, and something breaking on my luggage setup — all shocks are transferred almost directly into myself and the bags. It feels like playing tennis with a badminton racket — you could be the best tennis player in the world, but you’re still an idiot and you’re still going to lose.
After 50km of “Route 26” (terrible potholed dirt track) I asked a local if the road ahead was easier or harder than what I’d just covered. “Mas difficile”, came the reply. He warned of sand — the only thing more challenging than potholed dirt on the RC390. Considering that it was only by the grace of the motorcycling gods that I’d managed to not drop my bike on the road so far, I swallowed my pride, turned back, and tried to find a different route.
I tried major road after major road, and one after another they all turned to dirt. Eventually, after committing over a hundred kilometers to route 20 to find it once again turn to dirt, I accepted my fate — it was going to be rough rocky potholed dirt across the mountains. Three hours later, I emerged, battered bruised and almost crying, luggage rack cracked in two places, tank bag strap torn, and bike remarkably un-dropped, back onto the Panamerican.
I spent the night at a hotel/restaurant/pottery emporium on the side of the road. It gave me food poisoning, from which I am still recovering. That’s what I get for forgetting my rule — only eat at places which cater to locals. If those places start handing out food poisoning, they’ll quickly go out of business. But Lena and Carbon’s roadside hotel/restaurant/pottery emporium can give people food poisoning all year long, and they’ll never run out of hungry and weary suckers traveling down the Panamerican.
Sunday, August 7
Feverish, head pounding, bruised and eating nothing but granola bars and ibuprofen, I headed for the Ecuadorian border. Navigating Colombian twisties while battling food poisoning is a serious challenge, and at one point I had to stop at the side of the road to pass out for 20 minutes. I bought some more ibuprofen and oral rehydration salts from a drogueria in the mountains, as well as a bandage to support my left wrist — both wrists had taken a huge amount of punishment in the dirt the previous day, but the right one obviously still had a throttle to work.
After 280km of twisties, I arrived at the border at 4PM. I was clear of Colombian immigration/customs and Ecuadorian immigration by 4:45, and spent the next two hours clearing Ecuadorian customs. It was the most chaotic border experience of my life, made much worse by the fact that I could barely stand. There was no queue, and the people didn’t bother forming one — instead, they all squished together and battled each other for access to one of the three windows. As soon as a customs official finished serving one person, they moved on to whomever has greased themselves to their locus of attention and yelled the loudest.
I got behind a family at one of the windows, thinking that they’d be done soon and then I could import my bike. What I did not realize was that the family had approximately twelve members, constantly oiling themselves in and out of the “queue”. Each member of the family was importing exactly one smart TV — evidently there was some sale in Colombia going on, Ecuador has some per-person exemption, some clever Ecuadorian did some math, and called the entire extended family together for a little arbitrage field trip. The customs official seemed unfazed, and individually processed each one, extremely slowly.
Eventually, with the help of some other guys who also wanted a temporary vehicle import permit, I managed to slip my paperwork through a side channel past the hordes of electronics importers, and I was in Ecuador shortly thereafter.
Monday, August 8
“What did you see in Ecuador, Didier?”
“The Pan-American highway.”
Needing to make up for all the time I lost dicking around on dirt roads and battling food poisoning, I drove through half of Ecuador yesterday, only stopping for gas. Still wary of local food after my experience at Lena and Carbon’s, I had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Baños. The owner was from Northern China and had lived in Ecuador for 11 years. Although my Mandarin is a little rusty and clumsy, it’s miles better than my Spanish and it felt good to be able to have a somewhat natural conversation. I asked her what she thought about Ecuadorian people.
“Their heart is warm, but their words don’t mean anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Many times, they come to my restaurant, and order some food. So I give it to them, but when it’s time to pay, ‘mañana, mañana!’. Then mañana comes, and they say ‘otra semana!’ The money is gone, it will never come.”
She intends to return to China in a few years. “I can’t grow old here.”
Tuesday, August 9
Aside from meeting a Northbound Dutch Overlander named Joost who will be taking the Stahlratte in a month, nothing of note happened today save for me crossing the rest of Ecuador.
I’m spending the night in a border town, and tomorrow I’ll cross into Peru! Only ~1400km left to Huanaco, and five entire days to do it!
