Day 138
I was glad that it was eventually time to leave Cartagena and although it was Saurday morning I set off early in order to avoid any traffic only to find that there was some sort of cycle race taking place and the road out of the city was full of cyclists who were wandering all over the road.
Once I had negotiated my way out of the city without mowing down any of the cyclists that were making sudden and unannounced U turns in front of me, I headed for the city of Baranquilla which was about fifty miles further up the coast to the North. The road from Cartagena to Baranquilla was not particularly interesting apart from having to ride over a large but newish suspension bridge that spanned a wide river as I left Cartagena.
An hour or so later I rode through the city of Baranquilla and to be honest although it was a bit cleaner than Cartagena there did not appear to be much that I saw which grabbed my attention and when I encountered the main market area it was just the same traffic and pedestrian chaos as I had encountered in Cartagena.
As I left the city in the direction of Santa Marta the roads got much quieter and at one point the road again ran along the coast for a bit. Here I saw lots of guys fishing and some of them were standing at the side of the road holding massive fish which they were trying to entice passing motorist to stop and buy from them. I stopped for a photo or two.
One of the fishermen came up to me and asked me if I wanted to buy a fish from him but obviously I was unable to do so. However I did give him a few thousand Pesos and asked him to take a photo of me standing beside the bike which he did. As can be seen in the photo, looking scruffy has its advantages as looking like this and riding an unwashed bike prevents any criminal types from thinking that I may have lots of valuables that are worth robbing me for.
Since I started my trip in Central and South America I have been unable to buy a pair of leather bike trousers anywhere and it is way too hot to wear the waterproof riding suit trousers that I bought in Panama when I first arrived here. So I had to buy a pair of heavy duty cargo pants to use as my daily riding trousers but these do not have any knee protection built in to them. However whilst in Bogota I was able to buy a pair of strap on knee protectors for about 20 USD. Now I don’t know how much good that they will do if I do have a spill but I am sure that wearing them will be better than having nothing on my knees.
A short distance from where I had gotten the fisherman to take my photograph I entered the coastal town of Cienaga and the traffic there was insane for such a small town. When I eventually got through the huge traffic queue and reached the outskirts of the town I saw that where the main road splits to go in the direction of either Bogota or Santa Marta the traffic in the direction of Bogota was at a standstill, presumably because of a road accident or some other unforeseen road closure such as a landslide.
Once on the now empty road to Santa Marta the road hugged the coastline with lush tree covered hills above me to the other side and in parts the road was elevated which gave me the occasional good view out over the sea. I then spotted a small roadside restaurant where I stopped at for a break.
I got my usual plate of meat, bottle of water, and two coffees but it was rather expensive for here at 44,000 Pesos which is about 10 USD. Once fed and watered I set off again and I reached the town of Santa Marta at around noon where I managed to get down on to the road that runs along the sea front so that I could take a few pictures of the place.
I will be returning to Santa Marta when I head back South in a few days time so I didn’t spend a lot of time looking around the city. I then headed North out of Santa Marta in the direction of Riohacha where I had planned to stay for a few nights. As I got closer to Riohacha I noticed that the lush tree covered hills had receeded inland quite a bit and the area had become much more arid, presumably because the town of Riohacha is at the Southern end of the La Guajira desert region.
Everything was going fine until I reached Riohacha.
I stopped at the side of the road on the outskirts of the town to use my mobile phone to locate my hotel. It was then that I found out that my internet had stopped working. I had downloaded the map of the area so that I could use off-line navigation if necessary but as I couldn’t access my hotel booking on-line to get the name of the hotel I just had to guess as to where it was located within the town. My mistake for not marking my hotel’s location on the downloaded map beforehand! Twat!
Then as I was about to set off to locate my hotel I used the rear brake to make a slow U turn but nothing happened. A quick look at the bike revealed that the nut securing the rear brake pedal on to the frame of the bike had obviously come loose and had unwound itself leaving the rear brake pedal unattached to the bike and just hanging from the footrest!
Luckily I did not loose any of the other rear brake parts such as the pivot bolt or the return spring, so I stuffed the bits in to my tankbag and rode the short distance to where I thought my hotel was located without a rear brake. I rode around the town for a bit but it was now getting very warm so I pulled in to the side of the street and decided to pause, have a drink of water, and to do a bit of thinking about how to solve my internet issue.
I then removed the Colombian SIM card from my phone and I very carefully scraped the back of it with my knife to create a better contact surface, once it was back in in my phone the internet started working again. Once on-line it transpired that my hotel was located only a couple of hundred yards away from where I had thought it to be and shortly thereafter I was glad to arrive at the hotel unscathed.
Riding a fully loaded bike in busy traffic where cars and bikes were constantly cutting each other up and changing direction without notice whilst not having a working rear brake was not something that I enjoyed nor is it an experience that I wish to repeat!
My hotel was very nice at 60,000 Pesos a night, which is just over 13 USD, but more importantly it was very clean and it had a secure parking garage for the bike.
Like a lot of places that I have stayed in so far in Central and South America the hotel did not have any hot water, so after a cold shower I headed out to explore the town.
I then headed to the beach and I found that the pavement on the sea front was full of people selling the local tourist tat and the local council workers were busy erecting Christmas decorations.
There was a wooden walkway out to a pier to where a fishing boat was moored against it and the workmen had installed some more Christmas decorations all along the walkway out to the pier.
The sea here close to the shore has a brownish colour only turning blue much further out. I presumed that the strong under currents here cause a lot of sand to be churned up causing this discolouration of the water as even along the coast in fairly uninhabited areas it looked the same.
I had decided to stay a few nights in Riohacha so the following morning my first job was to re-attach my rear brake pedal to my bike. I managed to obtain a new securing nut at a small local bike shop so I set about making the repair.
Once my rear brake was functional again I headed out for a well earned coffee and cigar and whilst I was sitting in a cafe at the side of the road at the beach I saw another fine example of how the locals ride about in this part of the world. Four up on a scooter!
I spent the next couple of days doing the usual stuff like updating this blog with a post about my time in Cartagena, writing this post, and all of the other stuff that I usually manage to get done when I am not riding the bike each day.
One of the other things that I liked about the hotel was that it had a small outdoor terrace where I could sit and smoke a cigar in the evening but as the hotel did not sell coffee I had to make do with a local beer or two.
I liked my time in Riohacha but there was nothing much for me to do there and I was glad that I would soon be setting off to have a look at the La Guajira desert region before heading back down South and back to spend some time in Santa Marta.