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December 25, 2017
Day 44 [Tue 12/26/2017] - Turbo to San Jeronimo, Colombia
Day 44 [Tue 12/26/2017] - Turbo to San Jeronimo, Colombia
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully at the Hostel Lafinca in San Jeronimo, Colombia.
Starting Odometer: 11,483
Ending Odometer: 11,688
Distance Traveled Today: 205 miles
Distance Traveled This Trip: 7,805 miles [11,688 - 4,603]
My ride for tomorrow looks something like this.
Gas:
0 Turbo, Colombia
170 Santa Fe de Antioquia, Antioquia, Colombia
293 Irra, Colombia
Forecast:
Looks like a high in the 80's/90's. Chance of rain along the way at about 10%-30%.
In the morning, we wake up, check out of the hostel, and then head out to the military base in Turbo where the Aduana office is located. It's called DIAN (Dirreccion de Impuesios y Aduanas Nacionales). We stop, and they record our passport numbers, then allow us to proceed onto the base. At the base, we stop at the DIAN building. He shows us where to park the bikes. Some guy comes out and says he'll check and see if they can do the paperwork on our bikes, it seems. Then, he disappears like snow in the Spring time. Eventually, I figure he's never coming back. But eventually, he does come back and then we follow him into a nice cold office, and he processes each of our bikes in, one at a time. He sort of glances at the VIN numbers on the bikes. And then he issues us our paperwork for the bike. Probably it's a Temporary Import Permit for the bikes. I dunno. I didn't even glance at it. We're supposed to have insurance on the bikes, but no one does, and he doesn't even ask about it.
They serve us coffee as he processes the paperwork for each of the bikes.
Eventually, he gives us the paperwork for the bikes and we leave. Now, we head out of town. On the way out of town, we stop and gas up. Now, we roll out of town and, as soon as we get out of Turbo, the countryside is just beautiful. Eventually, we start climbing into the mountains which are stunning. No one ever told me about Colombia. I found it myself. And now, we're winding through the mountain roads. We stop for a late lunch in the afternoon in Mutata.
Later, at about 4:00 in the afternoon, we come to some town, and there is some discussion of stopping here for the night. But, we've gone pretty much nowhere today. We haven't gone 100 miles. So, we decide to keep riding to Medellin and some hostel that Jenny knows about.
Now, we are riding crazy fast through the mountains. Trying to get there before dark.
It rains on us some as we go through the mountains, but not a lot.
We pass through the town of Santa Fe de Antioquia, Antioquia, Colombia, which is beautiful, and I'm hoping this is where we will stay for the night, but it's not. Instead, we keep going. That town was so nice. I wish that we would have stopped.
Eventually, we come into some town, which I thought was Medellin, but now I think that we were in San Jeronimo. So now, we are supposed to go up this steep dirt road on motorcycles to go to some hostel at the top of it that she read about on some app called iOverlander. A 30 minute ride up an 8 km dirt road. I'm very close to saying no, but she says the hotel at the bottom of the hill is $160 a night, and at the hostel, is $30 a night. So, I ride up the deathtrap road, somehow without crashing.
At the top, we find our hostel, and settle in for the night.
Posted by Rob Kiser on December 25, 2017 at 6:36 PM
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