Colombia

Colombia has lived up to my expectations as a beautiful place filled with very friendly and helpful people.

(Stayed in this house. Randy, a local and a fellow motorcycle traveller invited me over for a couple days. A super friendly and helpful type of bloke)


Most of my time, so far, has been spent in Cali where I got some work done to my motorbike. It was great finding this slick Suzuki Store in the middle of Cali with all the lastest. Bit of a change to what I have become used to. The Vstrom (that´s the type of Bike I have..) is quite a popular bike over here (well, that´s if you have a bit of spare cash ofcourse, most bikes here are the normal 150cc jobs) so I was quite confident in getting the parts I needed, and a good service (and a good wash..).
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The workshop was one of the smartest I have ever come across and I would have quite happily have eaten my lunch off it, well maybe. So, finally, since Bolivia, I now have a complete front brake lever to use.. got a `new´ secondhand front wheel (though I don´t think it fixed the vibration problem completely..), and some TLC (the bike not me) so all is good in the life of the bike that belongs to Bruce.....

Well almost. The footpeg, which was welded up in Bolivia, decided to break off so it looks like I´ll be looking around for a new one here in Bogotá.

The trip from Calí to Bogotá was pretty interesting.. Part of the trip took me over a mountain pass. Nothing new there. But the amount of trucks on the curvy road - hundreds.. And then it started to rain, no, really pour down.. And then the mountain sides started to slip down onto the road.. Yeah, it was fun. But extremely slow.

Which made me not make it to Bogotá in one day.. So I stayed in a little town called La Mesa. Nice place with a genuine friendly feel to it. I quite liked it. I befriended a young policeman who was eager to practise his english, who also helped me find a hotel for the night. The next morning I met this guy.

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Had a good ol yarn about all sorts of things while he fed me coffee with a good tot of rum (yeah, that was my breakfast..). He used to be a proffesor at a university teaching law, atleast I think I got that right. He didn´t speak english but kindly spoke very slowly and clearly in spanish which helped a lot. Almost stayed longer but decided to move on to Bogotá.

Getting lost coming into a new city has become a bit of a hbit for me, as has finding dodgy areas. This time I managed to score a shot of scotch (hmm, that is twice in one day..) from a bunch of guys sheltering from the rain. Their directions weren´t too bad either. Dodgy, inadequate maps from the Lonely Planet Guide Book don´t really suffice a motorcyce journey..