Google told me that it was 395kms and 8.5 hours from Guatape to Bogota but neglected to tell me about the high mountain pass I had to cross. I had taken into account that I was driving between Colombia’s two biggest cities and there would be a lot of traffic. Especially trucks and buses. And there was. A lot. I decided to break the journey in half and stay a night in the town of Honda. How could I not do this when I own a Honda? The Andes Mountain range splits into 3 fingers in Colombia with Medellin on the central finger and Bogota on the eastern one and Honda down in the valley between them on the Magdalena River, which I’ve mentioned before is Colombia’s biggest river.

The first day the road was reasonable but very busy and very slow. I was so glad that I was on a bike. The road twist and turns in what seems a never ending uphill trek. There were a few dual carriageways which were nice but a lot of single sections where you were just stuck behind a long tail of vehicles behind a slow moving truck. Like 15kph slow. And the roadworks. They are working hard to make the roads better. All over Colombia. This is where the bike is great. Wherever there are roadworks you just ride to the front of the line and push in with all the other bikes. Sometimes passing on the outside of the line of up to 50 vehicles or on the inside if there was too much oncoming traffic. When they allowed traffic through you were way ahead. Until the next stop.

Because of the winding road most of it is double yellow lines which seem to mean nothing over here. It’s all a bit crazy with everyone try to pass everyone else. The buses are by far the worst offenders. They were passing on blind corners that I was too scared to pass on with the bike. It was sort of fun and exhilarating weaving your way in and out of vehicles until you got to the front and had a free long section of clear road. For a short while. The one thing you had to watch out for on the clear sections was the traffic coming the other way as they saw your open road as a passing opportunity. Especially a couple of the buses who expected you to move over to the edge of the road so they could squeeze through.

But I made it safely to the small town of Honda which has a population of about 25,000. I hadn’t booked anywhere which seemed a bit of a mistake. I tried a couple of places which were above my budget and then resorted to Booking.com and rather than book through them I just rode to the address. The first one looked like it was closed down. I then spotted a sign to the Hotel Colonial. I went in there and it was really nice. Small room with aircon and a nice safe place for my bike and it was only 20 bucks. The lady was lovely and gave me a few suggestions for a walk and somewhere to eat.

I wandered along the fast flowing river and crossed a nice walking bridge and ended up back in town and a grabbed a beer and a couple of street snacky things. Next morning I was out the door about 9:00am and on my way to Bogota. I had pre booked a place there because it’s pretty big and finding somewhere as I rode into town would be difficult and dangerous. It was a four and a half hour ride and turned out to be my scariest ride so far.

While the road over the highest part was a good road it was shrouded in mist and was very difficult to see and to ride in. I was unprepared and inexperienced. It was cold. My helmet was fogging up and the road was wet. The wind whipping up the valley was so strong and so gusty as I twisted my way up and over the summit. At times it was blowing me across the road into the other lane. Luckily the traffic was light and slow moving. I was in first gear. Even the buses were getting blown around. It peaked just under 3000 metres and I was so glad to drop back down the other side. But below the cloud line the views were fantastic. The Andes are so incredibly huge that I can’t explain them. Every valley or cliff or drop off or peak is ten times bigger than anything in Australia. I tried to photograph it, but it doesn’t show up in photos.

I was happy to arrive in Bogota at Casa Bianca by mid afternoon. Like a lot of the places I stay at, it was hard to find even though google took me to it. The house numbering system in Colombia is very different to ours and often the hotels look nothing like their photos on the website. Like dating apps, I guess. I’d booked in for 3 nights at $22AUD a night with a shared bathroom and a kitchen. It was on three levels and on my level there were only 3 rooms to share a bathroom and kitchen which was fine. And safe parking out the front. I ended up booking two extra nights because it was nice and I needed the extra time. The extra nights were only $20 a night.

My first task was to catch up with my spanish teacher. I use an app called italki which allows you to hire a spanish teacher online from anywhere in the world. I started this down in Antarctica and had about a dozen lessons with him and several other colombian teachers. He is a bit younger than me and we get on well and he lives in Bogota. He swung by and picked me up and we went to the Botanical Gardens and wandered around chatting. Because we were over sixty it was free entry. Bonus. His English is probably better than my spanish but we mainly spoke spanish. It was a nice afternoon but put my brain into spanish overload.

Next day I worked out the bus system and got my card and headed out to the international airport. I was in a good mood and on my way to get my free yellow fever injection which I will need to have to go into the Amazon areas. In Australia it costs about $160. After finding the right place and then queuing up in the wrong line I finally got into the office. The whole thing only took about sixty seconds. She asked for my passport and then said sorry you are too old. She showed me a form in English from the World Health Organisation (WHO) that said people over 60 have twice the chance of life threatening side effects. And that I couldn’t get it. End of discussion. Next.

I was pretty gutted. Having the certificate to show at the borders of some countries in South America is compulsory. No certificate no entry. I’m sure I had the vaccine forty years ago when I went to Africa. And it needed a follow up or a booster or something. You had to have your certificate to show at different borders back then as well. They say now it lasts a lifetime and you only need to get it once. I did keep my original certificate, and I know it was with my used passport collection in Broome but I couldn’t find it while I was there and I wasn’t worried as I could just get another one once I got there. Well that was wrong. I’m still stressing about it and looking at alternatives and potentially dodgy options. I don’t think the potato will work this time. I went home and spent the afternoon sulking and looking for ways around it and drinking beer.

Next day I thought I should thinking about my problem and be a tourist and took the cable car up to Monserrate. At 3150 metres  it was a spectacular view over the city. It was worth the one hour of queueing and $13 to get up there and look out over an entire city which is larger than Melbourne and Sydney. Combined. 11.5 million people. I took photos and gazed out into the distance for a while, had a look through the church, saw the black virgin of Monserrate, and actively avoided all the tourist stalls all over the place.

The mountain where the church is, has always been of spiritual importance. The pre colombian indigenous Muisca people had a thorough understanding of astronomy, and called it Quijcha Caca (Grandmothers foot).  At the summer solstice, the sun rises directly behind the mountain, and they had various temples to the solar god Sué, which the spanish conquistadors promptly removed and replaced with catholic buildings 400 years ago. It became a religious pilgrimage to climb to the top and so a church was erected there. You can still do the pilgrim thing and walk up, but at that altitude I was happy to pay the money, do the conga line and be a sardine for five minutes. Later that arvo I walked around town, had a beer and then caught the bus home. It was raining and I was glad I wasn’t on my bike.

The next day I went in search of a tank bag for my bike. I have a fairly big tank and so I needed a smallish bag. A tank bag basically sits between your legs and are a good place to stash small items that you might need like sunscreen and glasses and tyre gauge. I eventually found a shop with a lovely lady who spoke a little English and was excited about my trip. She had a suitable bag and got her young mechanic to fit it for me. It goes on with straps because it covers the fuel tank and has to be removed easily to get accesses to the fuel cap. He did it quickly but not quite as neatly as I would have liked but I can tidy it up later. Its an FP brand and was about $90. Hopefully that’s about the last thing I need to buy for the bike.

I had one last thing to do on my last day. I wanted to buy a couple of small items from a shop like Kathmandu or Anaconda. Unfortunately they do have those stores here. I found a North Face store which I thought may have something, about 3kms away and so I walked to it. On the way I passed a Davivienda Bank ATM which have the best exchange rate and lowest commission and so I thought I’d get out some money. I put my card in and pressed the English version but for some reason it wouldn’t work. I tried to get my card out but it was jammed in there. Of course it was Saturday afternoon and the bank was closed. The screen was telling me to scan a QR code and call a number. I called over a nearby security guard and a few people had gathered around waiting to use the ATM. I didn’t want to walk away and leave my favourite credit card alone in a machine in Bogota.

Eventually the machine reset itself and we tried to get my card out again but with no luck. I then tried my withdrawal transaction again but in spanish and it worked. It gave me the money.  We all then anxiously waited to see if it would then let me have my card back. And to everybody’s relief it did. I then continued on my journey and as I turned the corner, I found myself standing out the front of a huge Decathlon Store. My luck was definitely back. That night I went for my second visit to a BBQ restaurant and had my big feed of goodies for less than $10 and started googling about my trip the next day to the Tatacoa Desert.