I’m back in Colombia where it all started back in early June 2024. Although I am in Cucuta and not in Cartagena where I bought the bike as I don’t need to go back there. My first stop was the mechanic to drop my bike off so that the plastics could be swapped out for the new ones. A five minute job. Or so I thought. I mentioned to him that the bracket that holds the plastics was slightly bent. He said he would straighten it. I left everything there and then walked the half an hour to the Ibis Hotel where I had stayed six weeks ago when I returned from Australia and picked up the bike. I planned to stay there the night and leave next day. That didn’t happen. Or the day after that. My thoughts about straightening the bracket involved a big hammer and a block of wood. The mechanic sent it somewhere else to be disassembled and straightened professionally. Probably the right thing.

The Ibis is nice and I got a great deal. Because I signed up to their Loyalty program I got a discount and then because the nice immigration official at the border had given me a 90 day visa it meant it did not have to pay the 20% gst and so I ended up getting the room for $48AUD a night, which is a bargain for the standard of the hotel. And despite being 11:00am I was able to check in. Seventh floor. Great view. Openable window. Water fountain on each floor. And a desk looking out the window. Once I was checked in I walked back to see if the bike was ready. It was still gone. He said it should be back tomorrow. So I just gathered a few necessities in my little backpack and went back to my hotel.

I had also asked him to check the brakes for me and replace the pads if they needed it. Turns out they needed replacing. The back ones were the originals that had done nearly 50,000kms and the front ones were only replaced once by Honda at Iguazu Falls at 15,000kms (I think prematurely). I wanted good brakes for Colombia because of the Andes and also the traffic. And my heavy braking Colombian driving style.

I ended up staying for 4 days in the end. But I got in lots of walking and sudokus and even some blog writing. Late one afternoon I was walking back from the mechanics to the hotel and passed the local football stadium where they were playing a match. The stadium was full and it had spilled out onto the streets and local bars and shops. They won and people were going nuts. Dancing and tooting horns and all very happy. They obviously take there football seriously here. Just like the rest of South America.

I ate at a few interesting places like the place in the middle photo and then on my last day I discovered the nicest empanada that I have eaten for the whole year. It was a beef stroganoff one. And it was delicious. I want one now.

And I saw some more trees that were doing it tough but surviving.

Finally when the bike was ready I checked out of the hotel and did my last walk to the mechanic. It still took a while to finish it up and pay. The whole thing including the brakes and straightening the bracket was under $200AUD. They insisted that I stay for lunch. Chicken and chips. It was nice to sit with then for a meal before I left but it also meant I left at 2:45pm and had a 4 hour ride to Malaga (which they recommended).

They assured me the roads were good. And they were. Except I had one hour of sun, one hour of fog, one hour of rain, and then one hour of dark. I went to the Panorama hotel which was okay and good value at $22AUD. And the bike was in the underground carpark. I wandered around town, had a feed and photographed the church and went home and slept like a log.

I was heading for Bogota because I had left a few things there when I had started my trip. But it was a 568kms, 12 hour, trip and so I ended up breaking it into 3 smaller rides as I didn’t want to arrive in Bogota with the evening traffic. The roads in Colombia are great. Well, these ones were. Big rivers, bridges, roadside memorials, mountains and valleys.

My second night was in Duitama, and for some reason I chose to stay outside the city centre in a place called Pueblito Boyacense. It was a bit weird. Sort of like a mini artificial colonial village. Dinkyville. Lots of bright coloured houses. You had to pay to get in but because I was staying in a hotel inside it was free entry. The place I stayed was called Casa Hotel Los Geranios and was really a B&B spread between two colourful little houses. It was clean and the owners very friendly and was a good price. As I had arrived early I walked outside and back into town and realised I hadn’t missed anything. I spotted a small saloon outside the main gate and I returned there for a beer and then at a nice meat skewer thing from the lady next door. The Saloon was being renovated but they were happy for me to sit amidst the reno and drink my beer and eat my kebab.

When I went back into Dinkyville I discovered it was a lot bigger than I had initially thought and was all lit up for Xmas. I spent at least 20 mins wandering around. There were bars and restaurants and lots of small shops selling local food and handcrafts. And more hotels. It’s apparently very popular. Especially in holiday season and over Xmas.

Next morning I had my free breakfast and headed for Bogota. It was only a four hour ride and as I was riding, I was dealing with an internal conflict about detouring a bit to look at a church in a salt mine or continuing on to Bogota before the afternoon rain. I chose the latter. And I am so glad I did. There was a 15km traffic jam heading into the city and I had to lane split the whole way. I finally arrived in the centre of the city at the Ibis Museo Centro about 1:00pm, just as it started to bucket down. I couldn’t check in until 3:00pm but I was able to put my bike in the underground carpark and got changed out of my riding gear and then had something to eat and popped across the road to see what the museum was about. Turns out it was free for people over 60. This was based on your passport and not your maturity and so I was fine. I had a great walk around and ended up staying until almost 4:00pm. Snapped a few odd pics of things that took my fancy.

My main objective for coming to Bogota was that when I was packing all my stuff in Cartagena when I first loaded my bike, I had too many things I didn’t need. I organised with my online Spanish teacher (who lives in Bogota) to look after them for me. I wrapped them up and freighted them across to him. I also sent a second smaller package later on. And now I was back to catch up with him again and to collect my goodies. We were only able to have a brief catchup when he dropped the stuff off to me at the hotel but it was great to see him. And I had no idea what was in the packages except for the big bags that I had used to fly all my gear down to Colombia (and will need to fly back with). I opened the small package but left the big one as it was so tightly wrapped and waterproof and much easier to transport on the bike.

I enjoyed my couple of days in Bogota. On Sundays they shut off some of the main streets in the city centre for bike riders and runners and walkers. And have market stalls. So I easily clocked up my 10,000 steps. I spent a while watching them building an overhear road/railway?

I also had a great breakfast at one place with a healthy juice and another great meal at an Italian restaurant one night.

My plan now was to head to a place called Donkey Sunrise which is an Adventure Bike Hub in a small town, where they look after people heading off on trips around South America. The have accommodation, meals, tours, a workshop, and they rent, buy and sell bikes. It’s run by a young Dutch guy and his Venezuelan wife. I had met him briefly a year ago in Ecuador. I hadn’t really done much about selling my bike, I was sort of in denial. I did reply to one guy on a WhatsApp group who wanted to buy a bike but he never got back to me but another guy did. I sent him the details, and he said he lived an hour from Donkey Sunrise and that he wanted to buy it. And then never responded again.

It was either one long day or two short days to Donkey Sunrise so I took the second option. I left the Ibis after my midday checkout and ended up needing to pull over and put my rain gear on. Fortunately a nice roadside restaurant appeared just at the right time. With the noise of the rain on the roof and my deafness and poor Spanish I couldn’t understand what he was saying so I said yes to everything he said and ended up with this huge meal. I did discover as I ate down through the meat layer that there was a couple of root vegies underneath. I couldn’t finish the whole thing, but I gave it a good go. The rain stopped just as I was ready to leave. Some days you are lucky.

I had decided I would stay in the city of Ibague for the night which was about halfway to my destination. I picked a place off Google maps and turns out I drove up a oneway street to get there (in the wrong direction). I think Google maps gets a bit confused in places like South America because it works stuff out from everyone’s mobile phone movement and because lots of motorbikes ride the wrong way up oneway streets google thinks it’s a two way street. I stayed at the Doral Inn Hotel. I realised that I had been in Ibague before when I had first started my trip but had stayed on the outskirts of the city because I was a novice rider. This time I was deep downtown and riding the wrong way up streets. And very confident about it.

I couldn’t check in until 6:00pm for some reason but it seemed a nice place and was less than $30AUD so I parked my bike in the underground carpark and oiled my chain all ready for the next morning. The room was okay. I did my usual walk, found food, photographed the church and bought a nice piece of chocolate cake as a treat. There are so many patisseries in Colombia. They were having a religious festival called the night of the little candles. So places had little candles lit everywhere and I forgot to take any photos but next morning I did another walk and found some wax remains. And also checked out the church around the corner in the daylight.

They had a lovely terrace at the hotel and breakfast was included so while I was up there I sent a text to the guy who had shown interest in my bike but never got back to me. He responded straight away and said he had lost my messages and number and asked me a couple of questions and then said he still wanted to buy the bike and he lived just off the route I was taking that day to Donkey Sunrise but it had to be now because he was leaving the country tomorrow. It all sounded pretty dodgy, but I decided to give it a go. He gave me his address and rode to his house in the city of Pereira.

I arrived and sent him a message. He came to the gate on a motorbike and was much younger than I had imagined. But he spoke great English. We talked about the bike a bit and then he took it for a 60 second ride and then said that he would buy it. I was going to make this my last post but there’s too much left to tell. Sorry.