While riding, I often think about what to talk about in this blog which is really my journal because generally there is lots of time to think. Today was just too much to digest and come up with the vast topics that flow while I am in a specific scene or incident. However, today one moment defined my day.
Last night was rushed. We really only had time to get to our room, shower and then go down the street to find a street corner restaurant ( I went with Katrin, Martin and Bert) to eat something and then get back the hotel and go to bed — get some rest for the next day. This morning started early and we were on the road by about 7:30am. We had lots of ground to cover in order to get to Medallion by nightfall. I am really blind to what I’m in for, but I just go with it and see where this journey takes me. Yesterday was easy riding in a sense in that there were tons of people and small motorbikes to avoid, but the roads were half paved and hilly rather than mountainous. Today, I was not sure what I expected, but we were told that we would start basically at sea level and go up through the foot of the Andes and then lose altitude and end up at 5,000 ft. All good.
So the first few hours were just glorious. I was so enjoying the scenery and and more so, the chaotic surroundings all around 
me. These are really poor people on the whole but they do stuff everyday and have towns and cattle and horses and eat stuff. I guess a minimalist life — like most of South America. So it was fun watching out my helmet visor. Riding was not overly challenging — yet.
Around 10am, everything changed drastically and fast. We started to get into climbing on crappy uneven roads filled with cars, very large transport trucks, shipping container trucks, motorcycles galore. Space got crowded and intimidating. I had watched too numerous to count videos on Youtube about riding through Columbia, but nothing would educate me on what I was about to get into — full on fear at times and a test for every single skill I had ever learned on a bike, both in Utah off-roading and on the bi-ways of the United States. Those videos looked crazy — this real life ride was to be even crazier.
Ok, the idea here is that the traffic is non-stop off and on for seven riding hours through the mountains which represents probably a full day of real driving had we sat in the traffic line and waited — I’m thinking a full-on 24 hours and no way much less. In order to get past that, we weave in and out of traffic and I would say, we travel on the oncoming lane about half the time. You may say, this guy is embellishing this, I am not. We actually ride on the oncoming lane half the time. If you see a truck or car or bus or whatever coming, you deak in between the cars or truck next to you and stay tight to the right. When you see an opening, repeat. It’s borderline insanity. Seven hours of this is exhausting and frightening at times. For example, my group of riders are super strong and they have no issue weaving and dodging but I watch and still, I’m not sure what they are thinking. But they move fast. Our bikes are fast and can outrun any motorcycle on the road and most locals don’t do this as much as we did. We were in a rush to get to our end point by dusk.
I was put into this situation fast and its either sink or swim. I played. My skills if I focus 100% can do it, but it takes full on concentration or the result is uninspiring. I lost focus for a second into a corner a couple of times going at a decent clip and it was sharper than I thought so I put on my brakes hard and geared down fast and thank you anti-lock brakes. That happened twice. I cant count the amount of vehicles I passed using the opposite lane, but my guess is in the thousands. Uneven roads are my horror and right now, its either learn fast, or go home. Those uneven roads, paths, spaces, parking are everywhere.
Good news is that I have not dropped the bike since the first ride. My riding is definitely back to normal, confidence is generally high and its only a matter of that level of knowledge that I can draw upon. If I’m being 100% truthful, I almost dropped at one point going on a steep uphill traffic situation and I had to stop in a pot-hole and getting out in traffic was a horror, but I did it without a casualty. Had I dropped, nobody I know is around me so I will have to get the locals to help pick up and get me on my way but lets not go there. I have a real bad feeling that today is just the beginning of passing my knowledge. Moving on…
The Thai guys left the group to do their own thing. They ride fast and well and I’m sure Bangkok is ridiculous riding, but the mountains amp it up 5 notches. Anyone can stop to take pictures, but you have to catch up, or everyone has a GPS and you can make it to the final destination yourself. I am too scared right now to leave anyone so I am in the pocket with the group. Hope I can break away and take pictures in the future without fear of not making it to our final destination in time.
Anyway, when I do get to taste the scenery when I am not hyper-focusing on my crazy drive, its just gorgeous. Imagine epic mountain spreads covered in thick trees and greenery for 100 miles. Animals everywhere, sometime beautiful colors pop in the fields and sometime streams follow us. Outstanding and too bad I have no pictures. That is on one side of the impression. The other side is the countless towns and villages we pass which are seriously harder living standards. Buildings are all brick or at least started off with brick and likely have lost half the bricks over the years. Houses are wood and broken. But these people live life and if you mush it all around, its an incredible spectacle to view. Picture on left is a random pond made from 
the natural waterfalls. Kids playing in it all day. On the right is the clubhouse for the pond, I think. I’m kidding, either that or its a random building next to the pond, don’t know.
Coming into Medallion, the roads were fantastic and flat and perfect. The city I’m told is about 3 million people. When coming in, you are faced with a large mountain scene with dense housing scattered along as far as the eye can see. The houses remind me of Rio de Janeiro favelas — or shanty town. They are all small, brown, broken and attached. Seems like that is an issue. When continuing the drive into the city, I guess it kind of looks like small apartment building abound and all very generic looking in a brown brick way. Its not a pretty city I would say. But I’m now in my room catching up on things so I let the group go for a tour and dinner. I need to catch up on things because tomorrow it starts again and no clue at this time were we are going?
Now to the highlight of the day! A few times in those 7 hours of manic riding, you take calculated risks or your going to go nowhere. More often than I can count, I have overtaken traffic of lets say 10 trucks and cars by speeding up and passing on the left oncoming traffic lane into a blind corner to the right. That means that I can not see whats coming around the oncoming corner but I feel like I can overtake a truck or bus going slow and holding up traffic of vehicles behind them — and it is not at the corner yet, generally knowing I can deak back into my lane before the corner so I can see oncoming traffic coming around that corner. Remember, we are either going uphill or downhill on a steep grade. Well in this one case, I decided to do a blind corner attack and for some reason, I misjudged the space left at the corner available for me to duck back in safely — and a large Columbian kind of Greyhound bus was oncoming within 3 feet of me by the time I saw it. I guess someone helped me — I put my brakes on hard and tucked my bike pretty drastically to the right in between two trucks a real small space. Somehow, someway, I was fine. Shook it off and kept going because that was at probably 2pm. I still had three and half hours to go of this and no point getting bogged down. Phil, just be a bit more cautious next time probably makes sense. The crazy part is these Germans keep going. I did catch up with them and we all moved along, but the real fast pace continues.