Colombia

I decided to stay in the first little town across the border, a place called Ipiales. I soon found a little hotel not far from the centre, and after unpacking and showering, I asked the desk clerk if he knew where I could get the obligatory insurance for the bike that is needed in Colombia. After a brief discussion with his friend he said that I would need to take a taxi and that I could get it today. The taxi driver duly took me to a row of shops all with “seguros” signs out side and told me to wait in the car. He selected one and when he came back quoted me a price that was way too high, I asked if that was for 1 year and he said yes, so I jumped out and followed him back in to the shop and asked if they could do three months? After they established I was a foreigner they said yes and quoted me $50. I had read on the horizons site that $50 was reasonable so I paid my money and on five minutes had my insurance document which coincidentally was with QBE the same company I was insured with in Australia. It was then a short ride back to the Hotel to get something to eat.


A billboard outside the local police station welcome to Colombia!!

The next day I wandered round town and found a good map of Colombia and explored what was a very uninteresting town, then made plans for the ride to Cali the next day. It’s been a reoccurring theme of this trip that every time I have a good amount of mileage to do the road ends up being either very bad or very twisty, The road from Ipiales to Cali is both!! It took me 8.5 hours to ride it non-stop. In a lot of places the road has been destroyed by landslides, which have brought down half the hillside. I know the rains around Christmas had caused a lot of damage, and I think this was some of it. The temperature and humidity slowly increased as I dropped the 1800m into Cali. The mountains slowly got further apart and the vegetation returned to the lush tropical kind and in places the sweet smell of sugar cane. Cali is finished! By that I mean the roads have kerbs and the central reservations are green and planted out, all this means that there are no great areas full of dust that coat everything. I had also deliberately chosen a Sunday to come into this large city, which makes dealing with the traffic so much easier.



Some of the mountains surrounding Cali

Both cities of Cali and Medellin are huge, everyone seems to be in a rush to get anywhere, mind you that seems to apply to the Colombian country as a whole! But in these large places it’s hard just to be able to stop and smell the roses so to speak. I’ve just been looking back through the photo’s to try to remind myself what they were like, so that’s what sort of lasting impression they have left on me. Both again are in the mountains at a reasonable altitude and as such both are reasonably cool climates. Both seem to have abandoned there city centre’s to the poor and downtrodden while the richer classes have moved out to the outer suburbs where the large shopping malls are full of designer clothes and numerous shops selling shoes and handbags. I don’t think I’ll be in a rush to return to either.


One of the Churches in Cali


Some amazingly tall palms in front of the Palace


Hand in the City???


Some of the works of Fernanado Botero in Botero Square

My last day in Medellin was spent trying to get the drive shaft housing seal done. Routa 40 in Medellin said they could do the job in half an hour and to bring the bike along the next day. I got there at 09.00 only to be told that they didn’t actually have the seal (they are on order) but they were very good in trying to contact Girag, the company that flies the cargo out of both Medellin and Bogota. The information I was given was yes they could fly it out of Medellin, but it would have to be crated and they only have one flight a week. Bogota on the other hand has a flight every day, we’ll see about having to have the crate when I get there.

So I decided to go as far north as I can to Cartegena rather than going straight to Bogota, a round trip of 1700km to see the Caribbean Sea. I had all the intentions of doing the 650km up in two days, but I got to the half way point by 12.30 so just kept going. What a mistake! They first 250km had been twisty mountain roads with the usual potholes. The next 400km flattened out but the potholes didn’t disappear and the temperature and humidity climbed dramatically the further I got to the coast. As I crossed one of the millions of sleeping policeman they have here I heard a load bang and then a thud. The quick release bolt that holds the topbox on had pulled through the plate on the bottom and the topbox, fuel can, and dry bag had all come off and hit the road. I was still dragging the topbox by the bungee straps that had tied the dry bag on. I was lucky that I wasn’t going very fast so I retrieved the bag and used some tie down straps to tie the topbox back on.


The resulting damage to the topbox

I finally made it to Cartegena just as the sun went down and was left driving round the town in the dark trying to find a hotel. I gave up and let the GPS take me to the nearest one. Luckily it’s in the old part of town and is quite nice. When I asked about parking for the bike they said yes no problem put it in the foyer with the other four!!


That's secure parking

The old part of Cartegena is an absolute delight, well worth the ride up here. Very old colonial buildings surrounded by what was once a fortified town wall. It’s narrow streets afford some protection from the sun allowing you to wander around and discover the small squares and restaurants in relative comfort. I’ll spend a few days here and see if I can get the topbox fixed tomorrow before I head back down to Bogota and the next hurdle of getting the bike to Panama.


The old towns fortified wall


Some of the narrow Categena streets


Some beautiful door furniture here

Ecuador

The landscape changed very quickly once I entered Ecuador the desert and scrub was soon replaced with the lush tropical vegetation and thousands of Banana trees lining the road. The driving habits also seem to have changed, but for the worse. It seems that like in India the bikes don’t seem to matter for much on the road, and the cars (and trucks) will just continue to overtake and force you to the side of the road. I had deliberately crossed the border on a Sunday, firstly to see if the border traffic was any better and secondly because I was entering the largest city in the country, Guayaquil, and I knew that the traffic there would be lighter.


Bananas everywhere


Some of the residents of the Simon Bolivar Park

Guayaquil was quite a surprise, most of the place is nothing to write home about but the river frontage has been developed into a park with all sorts of areas for the families and beautiful parks filled with tropical flowers. This is also a starting point for many visitors going to the Galapagos Islands. I did also manage to set the video camera to 240 frames per second to record a hummingbird feeding at some of the flowers. If I ever get caught up on the videos you’ll see it!! Both nights here it rained very hard and the result was that the humidity went through the roof in the morning sun.


Free Internet in the park in this old carriage


Beautiful tropical gardens


Some of the Bromiliads on show

The next stop was Quito the capital of Ecuador and surprisingly the second largest city. It’s also the second highest capital city and again it’s spread out over the hillsides of the volcanoes that surround it. I stayed at an eighteenth century house that had been converted to a hotel and was right in the historic centre of the city. Churches and plazas abound with some stunning colonial architecture there is also people trying to sell you everything on earth you don’t need, clean your shoes or give you a tour.


The road up to the Basilica


The Angel that overlooks the city


A quick medical checkup anyone??

The other big attraction for me was that the equator is just outside the city to the north. Rather than ride the bike through the traffic and have to carry the helmet around I caught the buses, it wasn’t hard and only cost about a dollar in total. There are two places to ‘see’ the equatorial line; the first is the official site the Mitad del Mundo, the second is the Inti Nan museum. The difference being that the official one was set up many years ago using celestial measurements and is in fact in the wrong place by about 150m! But it’s the best place for the photo opportunities. The second and smaller place is more fun to visit and was determined by military GPS later on, and so is therefore more accurate. A couple of days later I finally rode across the equator for the first time on land, another thing ticked off the list.


Mitad Del Mundo


The line that's in the wrong place


Inti Nan Museum


The right line


Head shrink takes on a whole new meaning!

I was going to stay in a small town just this side of the border, but as it was a Friday and by all accounts the visitors from Colombia come across for some duty free shopping on the weekends, I decided to continue and stay on the Colombian side in a place called Ipiales, one small border town is very much like another.

Lima and Northern Peru

Popular opinion said stop in Paracas rather than Pisco. This was a wise decision as Pisco is still trying to recover from the devastation caused by an earthquake back in 2007 when around 80% of the town was destroyed. So Paracas was the next dusty little seaside town. While checking into the Hotel I met a very nice young American couple the Purpera’s, who were also spending a couple of days there. David suggested we settle in then find something to drink. We did that all right, a bottle of dark Bacardi Rum from Cuba a large bottle of Coke and as much ice as the Hotel could muster. We then moved a table into the shade and proceeded to finish the bottle!! I’ll be catching up with them hopefully in Cleveland Ohio.


Not the Bacardi Rum but another favourite here Inca Kola!!


The sea front at Paracas


Feeding time for the Pelicans

Next stop was Lima and as with any capital city I wasn’t looking forward to getting into the middle to find a Hotel. Turns out that coming in from the south isn’t that bad, leaving through the northern suburbs on the other hand is a nightmare and so would arriving from that direction be. A visit one day to the local pre Incan ruins was very interesting, considering they only excavated them in the 1980’s and up to that point the locals had been using the mounds covering them for motocross and other recreational pastimes. The following day I caught a cab into the old part of the city and wandered around the main plaza’s and the church of St Francis which has catacombs underneath that reputedly hold the bones of some 25,000 people. Unfortunately photo’s were not allowed, but some of the bones have been arranged into very macabre patterns.


The Pre Incan temple in Lima. There must me millions of bricks!!


A very blue church


The Presidential Palace

The north of Peru is to my mind was very uninspiring, a lot of desert (more than I expected) that slowly follows the coast through Piura and Tumbes to the border with Ecuador. One thing that did make me smile was while I was in Piura I went to find a barber for a haircut. After searching for an hour I found a street where there were numerous hairdressing salons but not a male barber in sight. I chose one and asked for a number 3 buzz cut. The job duly done and quite well I asked the price. At first I though she said 30 soles (about $10) but no it was 3 Soles, yep $1 for a haircut, now that’s value for money!!


Very impressive piece of art in the square in Tumbes


Tumbes outside the Hotel in the Plaza St Martin

One to keep an eye on!!

New Videos

Forgive me if I'm being senile, but I thought that I had already posted the second part of the Argentina leg. It turns out that I may not have, so if that's the case then you will have a double episode to watch. I finaly got around to doing the Chile one.  Now I'll have to start on Bolivia.

To celebrate my birthday the Wombat has had a clean from top to bottom and a top up of oil. The bad news is there is a mist of oil around the final dive housing seal. I'll keep an eye on it and see if I can find a dealership in Equador or if not then definately Colombia.

Reed Islands and Inca’s

I thought that I had missed the chance to see the islands of Lake Titikaka, but the enforced move proved to be a blessing in some ways. The smaller reed islands are easily reached from Puno, and a thee hour tour let me see some of the images from the school books of my childhood up close and personal. It’s mainly for the tourists today that the people of the Islands dress up and either invite you in to look at their homes or even to stay overnight, but the reality is that they have been living there for thousands of years and it’s still a sight to see.


The Reed Islands & Boats


The Tuk Tuk's are back!!

The next target was the city of Cusco and from there the ancient Incan city of Machu Pichu. The hotel I had booked online had been overbooked and when I arrived they apologised profusely and arranged for another hotel for the first night free of charge. The next morning I met a couple of American lads, Doug and Eric, that had also suffered the same fate. The harp that Doug was carrying is another story, but after returning to our original hotel we then all caught a cab up to the top of the Mountain at the back of Cusco to the Incan ruins of Tambomanchay then walked all the way back to the city centre taking in three more sets of ruins on the way. I expected a walk, but not 10km!!


Cusco is a beautiful old city

The next day I had booked to go to see Machu Pichu. The cab was ready at 05.15 to take me to the rail station, where because of landslides that had blocked the track they were busing passengers to Ollantaytambo (a two hour ride) where we would then pick up the train to Machu Pichu. This is the only way to get there as private vehicles are not allowed. The ancient ruins are then another 30-minute ride up a very steep, very twisty, dirt road.


It's a long twisty road to the top

It’s a spectacular sight when you get to the top and see the extent of what was a huge city that the Inca’s built in the fourteenth century. The block work is so incredibly accurate that you can't slide a piece of paper between them, and there were no modern tools available to achieve this. The ride back started at 17.00 with the train and by the time I got back to Cusco it was 22.00. All in all a very long day, but worth it.


Perched on the top of the mountains


It was quite a sizable city


Built on some of the steepest mountains I've been in


Somehow it just doesn't seem right with the Christmas tree!

The next day was a long one too with a tour of the Sacred Valley. Visiting the towns of Pisac, Urabamba, and again Ollantaytambo. But the end I was pretty much all Inca’d out.




The terracing at Ollantaytambo


The Spanish even used some of the Inca stone work to build there Churches on

One thing to say in the defence of the Hotel. I don’t think I have ever encountered better service anywhere. The Torre Dorada not only is a comfortable place to stay, the staff go over and above what is necessary to make sure you have everything you need including giving you a mobile phone to call for one of the three cars any time of day or night.

One final day catching up on the final bits and pieces in the town and then it was on to Nazca. The road fro Cuzco to Nazca is 650km and I think there is about 20km of straight road in the lot!! On any normal day any part of this road would be a bikers dream. Good tarmac and switchback bends all the way up the mountains and all the way down. But when you are trying to get the distance done it was very hard work. Plus at one point over the Altiplano because I was that high and the storm hit, the rain turned to hail and settled. I was then trying to ride though two inches of ice on the road!!


Ice was the last thing I expected

I arrived in Nazca and after getting something to eat I fell immediately asleep and didn't wake up until the following morning. When I did I have been aching all over from the previous days ride, hard work.

Instead of paying $150 for a half hour joy flight over the Nazca Lines, myself and another couple caught the local bus out to a viewing platform to get a taste. The lines are an enigma, and there is no logical explanation. You always keep coming back to the visitors from outer space!! They are located in the middle of a very large, hot, dusty desert plane, about 10km north of the town.


Either the Frog or Hands in a tree depending on how you look at it


The lines are so straight and go for quite a distance. Why??