Peenie Wallie

I get up, and walk around the grounds. The hostel is is a hostel. And it's tolerable, I suppose. I mean, you understand that i don't normally stay in hostels. I have a lot of problems. Money's not one of them. I'm staying in hostels because everyone else is.

But the grounds are amazing. And I'm walking around the grounds, shooting the bouganvilla, the pool, the surrounding Andes mountains and ranches. Like a painting really. Very hard for me to come to terms with what I'm seeing. As in....how has this place (Colombia) been down here my whole life, and not once did anyone ever say "Oh my fucking God you HAVE to get down to Colombia." But I'm here to tell you that this place is spectacular. And riding through the Colombian Andes mountains on the Honda Africa Twin is a dream.

In the morning, there is much talk of breakfast, but I've told them ever single day that I don't eat breakfast. This is not some act. Or some ploy. Or tactic. Or protest. I'm not hungry. It's that simple.

At some point, I agree to drink a cup of coffee.

The woman is flying around the room like a moth, aggravating everyone in her field of view. She's a confrontational, vocal, vegetarian and loves to eat eggs, and castigate and emasculate anyone that doesn't think that eating chicken eggs is fine and killing chickens is murder. Like, as stupid as it sounds, that must be pretty close to what she believes.

I pray for her boyfriend, as he has to listen to her constantly nagging him in his helmet, as they both have microphones. That to me is the 7th level of hell. Like...taking a magnificent ride though Latin America and ruining it by having a woman flogging you like a rented mule the whole way. Hell. On. Earth.

Plus, every time I take a photo, she's losing her mind because I have a camera out and she's afraid for....I'm not clear what. I try to explain to them that a) I've ridden alone through Central America twice and b) If I wanted their opinion I'd beat it out of them, but to no avail. They just keep hounding me about the camera, and then asking for my photos at the end of the day. Like...you can't make shit like this up. This is honestly how it goes.

All day yesterday, they kept telling me what an idiot I was for spraying WD-40 on my brakes. But my brakes didn't rust. Neither did my chain. And, even though my brakes were soft all day yesterday, I didn't crash, even though we were racing through the Andes in the rain all day long.

Today, my brakes seem like they're about back to normal.

Sucks when you tell someone they're an idiot all day long, but your bike has a chain that's rusted beyond belief and brakes rusted also.

So today, I'm like...it was real, and it was fun, but it wasn't real fun. And now, I'll go ride my bike alone through South America and I promise you no one will take my cameras from me. It's not going to happen.

So I get up and roll out at about 10:00 a.m.

I roll out down the 5 mile dirt road in the morning into town. So sketchy. Can't believe I didn't drop the bike. And then, I have to listen to them telling me that my bike was designed for this dirt road. In fact, it was not. I have been riding motorcycles for 30 fucking years, and no, the Africa Twin was not, in fact, designed to ride off-road. Unless you consider that a Honda Shadow was designed to ride offroad. So, yeah...if you consider the Honda Shadow 750 to be a dirt bike, then you will love the Africa Twin as a dirt bike. It's heavy as fuck,and it's geared so that it will go 30 mph in first gear, but will not climb a hill to save it's own ass.

Also, for the record, I didn't drop my bike on the dirt road. So, there is that.

So, I'm getting off of this train at the next exit. Thanks.

I hate people telling me that I can't take photos, because it isn't safe. And then asking for a copy of all of my photos. I'm through with that. From now on, if you want my photos, you have to pay me. Or, at a bare minimum, shut your fucking mouth when I'm shooting like a pro and you're cowering like a mouse in a cage.

So i pack up all of my gear, pay my bill, and I head out. I think that I paid them 45,000 Colombian pesos.

At the bottom of the hill, I hit hard top again, and backtrack for a few kilometers, then I end up going through the longest tunnel I've been through in my life. It's a toll-tunnel, but motorcycles go through for free, of course. So, motos keep to the right, and now I'm riding through this heavily polluted tunnel. In the USA, it would be closed immediately due to the air quality.

Update: Here it is...the longest vehicular tunnel in South America. I figured as much.

But, I do notice a few vents along the way in the tunnel, so in theory, they might be pumping fresh air into the tunnel at various points. But it's too little too late. Diesel buses choke the air with their fumes. I'll have to look up what this tunnel was, as it's easily one of the longest tunnels on earth.

After exiting the tunnel, I roll for a little bit and then come into this massive town. I'm not clear what town it was, but it was a huge city. A lot of road construction on the road going into this city. The city was much larger than anything I was expecting to see, as my map didnt really indicate that I would be going through a city, I didn't think.

At every red light, it's just a complete circus. All of the bikes filter up to the front, and when the light turns green, it's every man for himself. The bikes all explode off of the line. Just madness. Mad Max in 2017.

After riding through this massive town for about 10 miles, I'm back into mountains. Beautiful green mountains and 18 wheelers pulling all sorts of loads through the jungled mountains. So, you pass on blind corners and hope you live, and keep going.

The roads in the mountains were pretty good. A few potholes here an there, but overall pretty driveable.

All of the people I see coming out of the mountains on bikes are wearing full rain gear, or trash bags. Apparently, they make a sort of temporary/disposable trash bag suit you can wear on a bike. That would probably be a good thing to have. But I swear I don't recall seeing it before.

It starts to rain lightly, and I'm like..."great". But I think it is the same as yesterday. Only we are driving through the clouds. I have no idea what our elevation is, but we're very high up...probably 12,000 ft above MSL, and it's much cooler up here. I don't have pants or a shirt because I lost these at some point along on the trip. Somewhere between Sapzurro, Capurgana, & Turbo, I lost all of my cold weather gear, my glove liners, my blue jeans. I dunno where all of this gear went. Either it was stolen, or maybe I just left it behind. Hard to know for sure.

Now, I start to come down out of the mountains, and the threat of rain lessens slightly, so I stop for lunch at the El Paisaje restaurant in Santa Barbara, Colombia. The cost was 20,000 pesos for a coke and a carne asado. (About $3.00 usd).

I leave my gear on the table, as I go to the bano. When I come back, the people at the table next to me castigate me for leaving all of my gear unattended. But I think that what people are missing is that i'm a better judge of character and situational awareness than they're giving me credit for. I left my gear unattended, it's true, but it was at a table at a restaurant where I'd already placed my order with the waitress. It would take a lot of gall to walk up to my table and take my laptop when the waitress had already taken my order.

I'm really sick of people telling me that I need to be more careful. If I wanted to play it safe, I'd be back in Colorado. No one forced me to ride down here. That's not what this trip is about. This trip is about getting out and seeing the world while I'm still able. And if someone takes my camera, then that's just part of the cost of the adventure. Let it go.

One of the reasons that I left the others this morning - and there are many - is that they speak Spanish better than me, and Jenny was very vocal that I shouldn't speak Spanish, even when I was spoken directly to in Spanish. I wasn't allowed to reply. So, I was like...yeah...that's not going to work.

So, this way, I get to work on my Spanish. She can focus on crushing her boyfriend's will to live.

When I finally come down out of the mountains, I'm at some massive river. We cross the river, and now the road immediately begins to follow the river south. This is a massive, muddy raging river. And we're following it south. At some point, I stop and change my Waze app so that North is no longer locked "Up". The reason is that, I have my GPS which shows me what direction I'm driving. And it's quicker for me to have the Waze set up to show me right or left, without me having to think about whether I'm heading North or South.

All day long, I'm riding through the most stunnning verdant, green mountains you can imagine. You couldn't paint them a truer green if you tried. Just mind-numbing. And, now that I'm riding alone, I get to stop and take photos. I don't have to ask permission. And I don't have to share them with people that don't want me taking photos. (The good thing is I'm not bitter, right?)

So, all day long, I'm riding, shooting from the saddle. Occasionally stopping and going back to shoot some stills. Shooting all day with the GoPro. I just can't get over the scenerey of yesterday and today. The Andes are amazing.

In the morning, when I started out, I figured I wouldn't gas up because I had about 3/4 of a tank. At some point, I do stop and fill up with gas when I'm in Santa Barbara. This is the only gas I take all day.

Now, you understand, this is not a cake walk. All day long, you're dodging chickens, dogs, cats, cattle, horses, vultures, hawks. I'm riding through endless curvy mountain roads for hours on end. Because of the 18 wheelers going 7 kph uphill, I'm passing in blind curves. It's just so insane up here. The adrenaline is just flowing through my body so much I'm literally shaking. This is my first new country on this adventure. Hard to imagine that, I've finally ridden so far away from my house that I found a new country. Such a great feeling.

Now, I'm also dodging rain clouds. As soon as I roll into the town of Chinchiná, it starts to rain hard. All of the other motorcycles immediately head to the first gas station in town, and I follow them. We're covered now, and out of the rain. We roll our bikes around, as instructed by the gas station attendants, so that cars and vans can pull up for gas, but we're in front of them, but out of the rain. Apparently, this is S.O.P.

But the gas station attendants are very nice, and they allow us to stay here. After a while, it still hasn't stopped raining, and now I'm getting tired of this. So I leave my bike, and walk across the parking lot to order a CocaCola Sin Calorias, and also a small ice cream treat. This is my favorite part of the adventure, I think.

After about an hour or so, the rain finally stops, so I roll out of town, trying to make some distance before dark. But just outside of town, it's raining hard again, and I turn back to Chinchiná.

This is the best part, I think. I mean, I thought that I'd miss riding with the others, and I'd feel lost and alone. I feel nothing of the sort. Instead, I feel like I'm solely in control of my own destiny again. I don't need anyone's permission to turn back for the night. This is all me. It's one of the best days I've had in a long time.

Also, yesterday, they were all riding a little bit fast for me in the rain in the Andes. I seriously don't want to crash. Crashing out would ruin the trip for me. I set my own pace when I'm riding alone, which is always preferable, I think. Racing as a group through the Andes is never a good idea.

So now, I turn back to the town I just left - Chinchiná. For some reason, my GPS dies. There is an issue with the Garmin Montana 600. It's always saying "USB cable detected...do you want to go to USB mode?" And, once it starts doing this, you just have to take the cable out of it and let it die. I dunno why it does this. I should replace it, I suppose. It's not the cable. I'm certain of that.

I find my way back to the gas station in Chinchiná. I tell them that I need a hotel, and he tells me where a hotel is. I drive to it, about 2 blocks away. Hard to miss, really. Now, I can't find the entrance. I ask this young man unloading slate from a truck where the hotel is. He points to the entrance, and now I go in. How much is a room for the night? 33,000 pesos a night? With hot water showers? And Internet? I'm in. (Who can turn down a private hotel room with Wifi and a hot water shower for $11 a night?)

Now, I go outside, but can't find where I'm supposed to park my motorcycle. So, I ask the same guy where to park my bike. Now, he's pointing, but I don't get it. So I explain to him that he's going to have to walk there with me while I ride. He agrees, and we go about a block (me riding, him walking), and now we take the moto into a covered secured area where it will be protected from the elements and the public as well.

They write me a receipt to pick up the bike. I'm not clear if it was the right place that the hotel wanted me to put the bike or not. I don't really care. It's covered and locked up. Good enough.

I hand the kid a 10,000 peso note, and I think it's the most money he'd ever seen at one time. (Roughly equal to $3 USD.)

Now, I'm looking for a rain-proof-gear-suit thing like I saw people wearing today. I'm not sure if I need one or not, but it can't hurt. And I like trying to pick up whatever I need when I'm in these little towns. It's a good exercise in learning spanish, networking, etc. So, as it turns out. there are countless little shops in town that are tasked, primarily, with keeping the little beater motos operating. Cheap Chinese imported AVA's, Yamaha's, Suzuki's, Cargueros, etc. I buy a water-proof rain suit for 45,000 pesos ($15 USD).

It's hard to say what is the most fun about the adventure, but a HUGE part of it is landing safely in a hotel in a new country in a new town just before dark, and then stalking around the town for goods, supplies, food on the street, etc. Like, I feel like a freaking rock star. I got my hotel room. I got my bike put away for the night. I bought my rain suit. I'm buying food from the vendors off of the street. If this isn't heaven, then it's not far from it.

I sit and open my laptop in a small restaurant near the center of town. Stray dogs (peros calle) come in off the street to beg for food. Stray people also come in, leaning into the covered seating in the restaurant to beg for...I'm not clear what really...I just ignore them.

A woman is selling bracelets in the street. Toon had a bunch of bracelets on his arm, one for every country he went through I think. Now, I tell her that I want a bracelet that says "Colombia". She has some thread, and immediately sits down and starts braiding me a bracelt on the sidewalk. I just leave and go back to my room. But later, she sees me sitting in the restaurant, and comes up to me with the bracelet she just knitted/wove on the streets of Chinchiná. Her left arm is badly broken. Bones just barely under the skin, in danger of protruding at any second. Nothing I've ever seen before, I think.

I pay her $10,000 pesos for the bracelet, and ask her for clarification on what happened with the wrist.

Since I'm on my on now with my translation, I just use Google Translate.

She says: "me cai de un tercer piso y me quebre la mano"

Which translates to: "I fell from a third floor and broke my hand"

I also recall seeing a young man walking down the side of the road yesterday somewhere in Colombia, and he was carrying this huge burden on his shoulder...I assume it was some sort of produce, and he's walking down the shoulder of the road, alone, carrying this burden, with a crutch under his left arm.

Like...I think that that's probably the worst part of this third-world trip is that, you do see so much crippling poverty...so much desperation, that it's sad. To see the pero calles come in off of the street and beg for food, and then to see the pero calles dead in the street. That's not something we see in the USA. I don't think I've ever seen a dead dog in the street in my life, until I was in Central America. Very sad. But I just shoo away the beggars like so many unwanted mosquitos, and sort of go on with my adventure.

I try to help the people that help me, but I'm not down here to hand cash to strangers for no reason. I can't save everyone on this trip. That's not a realistic goal.

I like, the most, I think...rolling into town, finding a hotel...exploring around and finding people to help me. This is the most fun. You really have to let your guard down. To work on your Spanish. And I think I've done a good job of settling down for the night in this town.

I don't like using hotels.com or tripadvisor or ioverlander or any of those sites really. I like to just get on my bike and ride. And, let's be clear, that's what I'm doing. I'm not looking at what the best roads are through Colombia. I'm just heading for Quito, and going whereever the maps take me. By chance, I've stumbled onto one of the most beautiful countries I've ever seen. :)

Update 1: I should mention here that my Garmin Montana is acting very funny. Hard to predict how it will work. It died on me today. The problem is it keeps saying "USB Cable detected, do you want to go to Mass Storage?" I always say "No", but then, 30 seconds later, the same thing pops up. So, when it does this, I unplug the USB cable. But, it will die then. So, then, I have to change the display to go dark after 15 seconds. So, we'll see how it goes tomorrow. Hopefully it will get a full charge tonight.

Update 2: I just went and got an odometer reading off of my bike. I love having a guard watch my motorcycle at night. Makes me feel like a rock star.

Misc: The exchange rate is 3,000 Colombian Pesos to 1 USD.