Day 140
On the moring of the 26th of December I said my farewells to my good friends Eric, Alison, and an Italian guy called Alessandro with whom I had become friends whilst we were both staying at the hostel. Alessandro had just bought himself a new Suzuki GN125F and he was in the process of running it in before heading South on a journey similar to mine. I then set off to start the biggest adventure of my life so far, to ride to my bike all the way to town of Ushuaia in the Tierra Del Fuego province of Argentina.
As I left Santa Marta I fuelled the bike and then I headed South in the direction of Bogota. To be honest apart from the odometer on the bike turning to 8,000 miles, the ride South fron Santa Marta was pretty boring and uneventfull and there was nothing that I saw which meritted me stopping to take a photograph.
The main road South is called El Ruta Del Sol and is made up of intermittent stretches of newish dual carriageway and long sections of old road that have yet to be uograded to dual carriageway. Although in places there were long stretches of newly built dual carriageway road running parallel to the old road, they had not yet been opened so all of the traffic still had to use the old road which slowed things down a bit. I stopped to refuel the bike after I had done about 150 miles and after that I looked for somewhere to stop for a coffee but I didn’t find anything except other petrol stations which only sold petrol so I just kept riding South.
By late afternoon I had decided to stop for the night in the city of Bucaramanga and at about four o’clock in the afternoon I found a cheap hotel in the middle of the city with a secure car park for about 7 USD for the night. The hotel was basic but clean however the surrounding area was filled with streets packed with refuse bags and shady looking people who appeared to be doing nothing but hanging about and looking at me as a potential source of income.
I went out for a walk about the city and although there was a park directly across the road from the hotel it did not help much and to be honest I did not like Bucaramanga very much because it seemed to be very dirty and very run down. I managed to find a place to have somemthing to eat in the busy street market area and as I headed back to my hotel it was getting dark and it started to rain.
Day 141
It had rained heavilly during the night and it was overcast when I left my hotel and headed out of the city. The city of Bucaramanga sits on a mountain top and I had to descend back downhill to get out of the city and on to the road to the South. The traffic on the way out of the city was the usual morning rush hour chaos or as I like to now refer to it as “The Dodgems”. I eventually found my way back down to the road that I needed to take and then it was up the side of another mountain to the West of the city. I stopped halfway up this mountain to take a photo of Bucaramanga which dominated the cloud covered skyline in the distance to the East.
Once over this mountain and as I rode down the other side it started to rain so I stopped to put on my rain gear and then set off again only to find that the road which I needed to take was closed due to a landslide. All of the traffic was being diverted North and I had to go about 20 miles back in the direction that I had came from the previous day before eventually rejoining the road to the South on route 43.
During the journey South I stopped to refuell and as the rain had stopped and the sun was staring to appear I got out of my rain gear and headed off in the direction of the city of Ibagué. Once again a tree that had fallen on to the road because of the heavy overnight rain had to be chopped up and bulldozed out of the way but at least I only had to wait for about 20 minutes on this ocassion.
The sun was shining and it was quite warm. I was enjoying the ride and I decided to make use of the near empty dual carriageways to make some progress so I pushed on through the city of Ibagué and headed for the city of Neiva which was about 150 miles away. When I was about 50 miles from Neiva I stopped to take a photo of a huge waterfall that I could see from the side of the road.
About ten minutes further down the road I encountered a massive tailback of stationary traffic and I presumed that the road had been blocked by another landslide. I got to the front of the queue only to find that the locals had blocked the road protesting about the price of electricity and the police were just standing around watching the spectacle. I heard another biker ask one of the cops about another road and he told him that there was one that bypassed the vilage but it was a few miles back in the other direction.
It was now approaching four o’clock in the afternoon and as I did not want to ride when it was dark I had to make a decision, try the other road or wait and see if and when the road would open. A group of local bikers then set off to take the other road so I looked at the map and found it. It was only about a 10 mile detour so I decided to follow them. Bad Idea.
I follwed the bikers on to the other road which immediately turned in to a pothole strewen and rock filled dirt track. Two bikers left the rest behind as they scooted along and I kept up with these guys. It took forever to negotiage the road which passed through numerous small villages, over the river on an old rickety metal bridge with loose and distorted surface plates, through two unlit 50 meter long water filled tunnels, crossing lots of small streams with steep upward and downward muddy slopes on either side, and through countless water and rock filled mud holes. The road was so bad that I had to stand up on the footpegs of the bike the whole way.
Eventually the three of us reached the river where a ferry sat waiting for some trade. It had taken us just over an hour to ride just 10 miles. We got on to the ferry, paid the 10,000 peso fare, (just over 2 USD) and crossed the swollen river to the other side where after another mile or so of the same shitty potholed dirt roads we joined the main road. As we got to the main road we saw lots of bikes heading South, they had obviously just opened the road and my horrendous detour had all been for nothing except for a good one hour workout on the bike and some photos of us crossing the Magdelena river on a ferry.
I arrived at my hotel in Neiva at about five thirty in the evening just as it was getting dark, the hotel was nice enough at about 18 USD for the night and it had a secure car park for the bike. I ventured out after dark and had a walk about the main square where I ate something from a grill on the street. The city was nice enough but nothing to write home about however my day just got a little worse when I discovered that I had lost a 50,000 peso (12 USD) note whilst walking about. I then returned to my hotel fed and watered but bereft of any money with which to buy a coffee. However, at least the hotel had a covered outdoor area where I was able to have a cigar in relative comfort behind a locked gate before retiring for the night.