WOMBATS TRAVELS: 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.