We now have seven riders on this tour. That’s Jeff on top. I’ll get to that in a second.
I had a pretty restless night sleep last night — Wonder why? Today was the first day of riding and journey begins for the next 70 days and 17,000 km’s. I also had on my mind the dropping incident of my bike the other night. I just don’t want to make a habit of that and bring this group down — who clearly are much more experienced and better riders. Sad thing is that I am not a bad motorcycle rider given my 10.000 miles logged on my past two tours and never dropped a bike on a road — ever. I have dropped at zero speed backing of stuff like that, but that is rare. I really wanted to perform today.
Good news fast forward — I am now in Montaria and my 9 hour ride was flawless. We started riding at 8:30am for the last time at the Radisson and got to the hotel here at around 5:30pm. And let me say, it was incredible. I loved every second of it.
It took about an hour or maybe 90 minutes to get out of Cartagena with its crazy driving styles, traffic and sheer size of the city. Also, the countless outdoor markets selling fruits and vegetables. No pictures because I am riding and that really sucks because its interesting to see the very basic life of that city packed with people, half beaten and scrappy tiny motorbikes, mopeds, 30 year old busses crowded with people, small cars and trucks all in erratic motion. Fun weaving in and out of lanes with our group of seven massive BMW motorcycles though-out our entire route. We were like rock stars — not in a cool way, but in the attention we got everywhere. Nobody in Northern Columbia has these large mother fucker BMW’s.
The temperature has been an issue. All day it logged about 92 degrees and the humidity has to be close to 90 percent. We all wear full on motorcycle suits that weigh about 20 pounds, boots, gloves and helmets. Everyone is drenched all day. Thats ok, its part of the game. Soon in a month, it will be cold.
Once we left the city limits, the scenery changed dramatically. Now we entered into the very poor, but expansive Columbia rural life. I guess best describing what I saw was very dense greenery which is producing fruit mostly on this leg. That said, there are tons of skinny cows, stray dogs, horses and real poor surroundings. I don’t know — Its hard to explain. Picture incredible amounts of people selling home made food along the side of the street and that is their idea of a restaurant. Fruit and food stands everywhere for hours and hours on end. Pineapples cost 500 pesos — 20 cents. Everything here is so cheap. Complete dinners of a couple of bucks. That said, I have 5 more days of intense riding until we get to Quito, Ecuador where we have a day off which will be needed.
My pictures are just quick shots now. I really have had no time to invest in photography which is bad and I hope that changes shortly. That means I can’t post process my shots and spend time on any picture taking since we are always on the move. We get 10 minute breaks every 90 minutes or two hours, but thats after some real hard work and used to down a water. Lunch for me today was crackers and a single egg. I was so emotionally exhausted, I could not eat.
I did learn a few things today. One of them was that on our list of items to bring on this trip was bandanas. I thought as a Canadian, that is because of the cold weather like when you go skiing, or some kind of neck warmer for cold days. Wrong. But I did buy a few because they were inexpensive and on the list. I just tucked them aside. Looks like these pieces of cloth are important. I noticed a lot of our riders were wearing them today and putting them over their noses — strange right? Pho European Bad-Ass maybe? That was until we got doused with plumbs of smoke from dirty busses, trucks, buildings and whatnot in some of the small crowded and half bombed towns we passed along the way. It was nasty — now I get it, smart. Tonight I dug into my bag of tricks and pulled out a bandana for tomorrow. Lesson learned.
The group has been very tight in terms of travel. Since we are a small team, I think everyone is on best behavior for now. Hope it continues. The leaders (one driver of support van and one on motorcycle) leave us to be as independent as we wish. That means, we don’t have to ride together as long as we end up before nightfall at the hotel.
Speaking of hotel, tonight we are trying at 2-STAR Hotel La Casa in Montaria. Will, the Thai pilot came up to me earlier and said, “you know Phil, were staying at a 2 STAR hotel tonight”. I said, yes. He looked devastated. Not sure which program he read? Were on a trip where you have to wash your clothes in the sink of your bathroom — what did he think that meant? Anyway, its fine. A bed, a few channels of Columbian crap TV. Its all good. The shower had one temperature and that is cool-warm, which means whatever the temperature of the pipes outside is the temp of the shower.
Back to Jeff. This morning Jeff thoughtfully wrote us all a note explaining his predicament and his options. Clearly this was weighing heavy on Jeff. His motorcycle is now sitting in Medallion, Columbia, two days away — and we learned that he entire electrical system for his new 2018 bike is fried. I am real sorry and sad for this guy. He was put in a position which could have happened to anyone — His bike was shipped and like the regulations state, the battery terminals must be disconnected during shipment and reconnected once the bike is cleared. Jeff did a hair-brain move and connected the red cable to the negative and the black cable to the positive — bye bye BMW motorcycle. Probably thousands of dollars and a long time to repair.
Anyway, Jeff went in the service van today and was in a state of disbelief, sadness and he was looking for some sympathy and I
gave tons and meant it. This guy came all the way here and is now watching all the other participants ride their bikes in super amazing surrounding like he was supposed to do. Jeff is flying to Medallion tomorrow from wherever we are tonight and then will work to ship his bike back to Texas. Game is over and I really started to like Jeff.
[Update on Jeff next day]. Jeff flew to Cartagena instead and is trying to buy another motorcycle in Austin while shipping his broken bike back. Theory is that he will air-ship it to Quito, Ecuador in a few days. Not likely going to work, but I give Jeff props for taking such a funny photo on top now that he is back and doing the waiting game.
I’m now the only American/Canadian representative. Let the boot beer flow and the German language surround me. Its fine, I get locked out of conversation often, but they are not being pricks, they are merely taking in their mother tongue. They often speak English to keep me invested and they are generally very nice people.
Tomorrow is Medallion.