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Day 88

Day 88  1/22/2022

Odometer  32,590 – 32,836  –—  246  Miles (10,136 Miles Total)

Medellín, Colombia – Cali, Colombia

Well I definitely got enough sleep in the last 36 hours. I got up quite early, packed up and loaded up the bike. I have an 8 hour ride ahead of me to Cali today and I’m expecting some rain with the forecast I’m seeing. It’s a bittersweet feeling leaving Medellin. I’m going to miss my routine I have of working out, seeing friends and hours of salsa lessons with Angie and Dani. It’s always a weird feeling after being somewhere for a little bit and getting comfortable. I almost forgot what this feeling was like.

I dressed up in all my gear today hoping the ride would be a bit chilly and it was for quite a while in the beginning. I headed up into the mountains for the first part of the ride and all the familiar smells of when I was a kid in Serbia was coming back to me with the smell of burning wood here. I even got a sniff of something that reminded me of my grandfather’s old 1980 Mercedes Benz 300SD. It put a smile on my face. It was drizzling for quite a while and the roads were slippery as hell. Thank god I had my ABS fixed in Medellin because I probably would have gone down a few times on this road the way I was riding. Or I would have slowed down after the first one. As soon as my tires touched the white lines on the side of the road or the yellow in the middle it was like hitting black ice. My rear tire would just kick out to the side and my ABS would engage instantly. I was super focused the whole ride while the road was wet.

I downloaded two Spanish audiobooks yesterday so I can start engaging with this more often now. Since salsa classes are officially underway it’s time to catch up on a lot of Spanish lessons. Focusing on the road while trying to learn Spanish might not be a good idea. I stopped at a little roadside restaurant and got a delicious order of grilled chicken with rice and the usual stuff. I wanted to stop more to take pictures but the amount of trucks on these roads holding up traffic was insane. If I stopped for pictures I would waste so much time trying to get in front of them again and on these slick wet roads it would slow me down so much. I hit a few spots of some major road work which held me up for about 30 minutes. I realized towards the end of my wait motorcycles were free to ride through the roadblock. So I followed some other guys on small bikes through the roadblock into oncoming traffic on a one lane road. It got pretty hairy at times but we saved a quick minute or two almost getting run off the road by 139887 huge trucks. Not doing that again!

I was about 2 hours north of Cali when passing a gas station and I saw a guy on the phone on an Africa Twin. I looked over about 100′ and there were about 10 of them parked in a parking lot. I said to myself I think I remember these guys from Panama. Right when I was leaving the cargo parking lot a group of guys from Mexico pulled in to ship to Colombia as well. They didn’t speak English and I didnt speak Spanish so the only thing we exchanged was that we were all going to Argentina. I made a U turn and holy shit I couldn’t believe it but it was them! I saw them 25 days ago in Panama and here they are. I was wondering where they were the whole time. They still couldn’t speak any English so they went into the restaurant and pulled out one guy they picked up along the way from California. He came out and was telling me about his adventures with the group. These guys were crashing left and right destroying their bikes and I was nearly crying laughing hearing about it all. They were sure having a good time and hung over as we were talking about it.

As we were chatting we saw two white guys getting fuel for KTM 790’s. They ended up coming over. They were from Boston down here renting bikes and had to get back to Cali for a covid test before one of them flew back to Boston in the AM. I decided to leave the big group after I got their contact info and jetted with the Boston guys. We were ripping through traffic and riding hard. There was a huge storm brewing up ahead so I threw my gloves on and zippered up my jacket. We were about 1.5 hours away from Cali at this point.

When this storm hit us, it hit us fucking hard! My water repellant on my shield wasn’t even working. I was doing maybe 30 and couldn’t see more than 20 feet ahead of me. I lost the guys on the KTM’s as soon as the rain hit. I turned my go pro on to record the rain blasting me which I was sure I would appreciate later. The rain was nice to cool me off since it was pretty hot most of the last few hours. My bags also still had mud all over them from the dirt road I took out of Cartagena so I was happy to have the mud get washed off. The rain lasted the whole ride into Cali.

I got to my hostel and my gear was soaked. I checked in and unloaded everything. I worked on the blog a lot and signed up for two hours of salsa lessons, did a small workout and then got right into the salsa class. The Cali style is much different than what I learned in Medellin. I’m not sure I liked it since it was brutally fast but I picked it up pretty quickly I think. I don’t think I’ll be taking another class down here. I’m sticking with my fav teachers in Medellin. After two hours of me sweating like an animal I was burnt. I walked into the old city to get some good Ramen and ice cream. I didn’t like the vibe of this place so I’m thankful I booked only one night because tomorrow I’m going to continue towards Ecuador.

I’m going to do part of a ten hour ride to a small town I have saved near the “Death Road” by the Ecuador border. I’m not going to book anything at all, I’ll just camp tomorrow or find somewhere to sleep along the way.  Should be a fun time. I’ll have an extra day or two to explore the mountains since I’m skipping a day in Cali. I’m excited about tomorrow!

The guys from Mexico I found on the road.

A small town in the mountains. I stopped to take a picture.

Morning fog over the mountains in the distance.

Little show we had at the hostel tonight.

The crew from Mexico!

 

 

 

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Day 87

Day 87  1/21/2022

Odometer   32,590  —   0 Miles (9890 Miles Total)

Medellín, Colombia

Im sick. I got out of bed for lunch and watched 5 movies. The end.

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Day 86

Day 86  1/20/2022

Odometer   32,580 – 32,590 —  10  Miles (9890 Miles Total)

Medellín, Colombia

Im really appreciating these wonderful nights of sleep im getting the last few nights. Except I woke up today feeling a bit sick. It sounds like I have some fluid in my lungs or something when im breathing and my throat is killing me. I don’t have much planned yet for today other than 2 hours of private salsa classes tonight. I have been parking my bike out front since the parking garage down the street has been closed lately. I checked the gps at 9AM and it said moment at 8:45AM. I freaked out and jumped out of bed to look outside the window and my bike was still there. I looked back at the app and it just refreshed since that was yesterdays movement. Phew I thought I was about to have a wild morning.

I cleaned up and headed over to my normal breakfast joint. I literally sit down now and they bring me out exactly what I want I don’t even have to order anymore. I met some guy from Atlanta at breakfast and it quickly made me realize how I need to keep to myself sometimes. I won’t even get into that right now. After breakfast I shot back home and checked a few things on google. Time for me to explore Medellin a bit some more since the last few days have been so busy. I took a ride over to the Botanical garden and walked around for an hour taking pictures. The plants and trees they have growing there are beautiful. They have some monsteras that are as big as me. I wish I could get mine at home that big. I sat down in the jungly part of the garden and chilled out for a bit enjoying the fresh air. On my way out I remembered there was a butterfly sanctuary in there so I walked over and paid my fee to get in. Some guy was asking me in broken English about it but I couldn’t say much to him. When we got in I asked him where he was from when I heard the accent a bit better with his mask off and he said Serbia! Hah

He couldn’t believe it.  We chatted in Serbian for a bit which was nice while we walked around the butterfly place. I took some incredible shots of a few butterflies I caught landing on some beautiful flowers. These little creatures are so beautiful. There was a tour guide with us explaining things but I couldn’t understand any of it. After the guide I went to a huge local fruit market and got some fruit. Then I headed over to a park in memory of all the bombings that took place in Medellin since the 80’s. The amount of bombings that happened here are insane. I couldn’t believe how many there were day after day in the 80’s. These guys had it rough here back then.

After that park I went back to my hostel to get a quick bite to eat. I took a 3 hour nap after that. I feel like im getting sick since im so tired lately. my throats hurting and im coughing a bit here and there. Hope it doesn’t get worse and mess up my ride to Cali on Saturday. I slept like a baby for three hours and now I know somethings up. I never nap for that long. I grabbed my stuff and headed out for salsa. These were my last two hours before I leave for two weeks so i was hoping I make alot of progress tonight.

And as always with Dani she helped me crush it. I did all the moves she taught me for a straight 3 minute song without messing up any combo moves! I couldn’t believe it. I recorded the whole thing and im definitely going to study it and practice while im away. And im hoping to take some more classes in Cali and when im in Quito. Hopefully ill get to go dancing with Jacki as well when she shows up!

Between classes I got some dinner and after the last class I went home and crashed. It was a long day and my throat is for sure killing me now to the point where I can barely talk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Day 84/85

Day 84/85  1/18/2022- 1/19/2022

Odometer   32,560 – 32,580 —  20  Miles (9880 Miles Total)

Medellín, Colombia

Going to have to start combining days here in the city since there isn’t much adventure going on here. The last two days were pretty much the same. 2 hours of private salsa lessons each day with one of two classes of Crossfit. My salsa had really progressed a lot the last few classes. I have this new girl I’m dancing with and everything clicks so well with her which means I’m super determined to keep coming back now.

I’ve been looking into my trip to Ecuador and it seems like I’ll be fine getting into the country and then getting right back into Colombia when I’m done there. But that’s just what I hear so ill find out what’s going to happen when I get to the border. Alex brother you should be expecting a phone call from me around the 24-25th to do some heavy translating for me! Hah

I’m excited to get out of Medellin and hit the road again. The salsa classes sure are fun and getting myself back in tip top shape sure is good for me but some adventure would be nice. I’m thinking about stopping in the desert on the way to Ecuador or on the way back from Ecuador and doing some camping. I’m pretty bummed that I won’t be able to do much camping on this leg of the trip since I won’t be getting south of Ecuador.

One thing I wanted to mention is how I really am getting sick of Americans that have so much trash to talk about Colombia but have never been here. I heard about it a few times already from people reading my blog. This is why people hate Americans so much. They have so many opinions and know so many facts about a place they have never been to. It blows my mind and annoys the hell out of me every fucking time I hear it. Colombia is by far my favorite country of this whole trip and I don’t think anything will beat it. I mean Peru and Argentina might be nicer in the back country which will be a much more different experience but all around this is my favorite country overall. Even more than Italy.

And yeah for the tenth time there’s crime everywhere. Alot of these people think everyone gets murdered in Colombia. Hell they can’t even spell Colombia properly.

Well that’s that for the last two days. Tomorrow and Friday I am not going to Crossfit. Just taking two hours of salsa tomorrow night so I have the next two days to go explore the city a bit before I leave. I’ll post some nice pictures from the exploring I will be doing!

 

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Day 83

Day 83 1/17/2022

Odometer  32,550 – 32,560 —  10  Miles (9860 Miles Total)

Medellín, Colombia

This blog is starting to feel weird to update since i’m just hanging out in one city for the last week and plan on being here another 5 nights. I wonder if I should keep updating this when I plan to hang out in Medellin for a month or two after I get back here from Ecuador.

Anyway. I got up and had a busy day planned. I shot over to a salsa class I had booked from 10-11. I had a new girl I didnt dance with before. She warmed me up like everyone else but then got on my ass about my shoulders and arms not moving enough and I guess she decided it was time to get me working on that to loosen up and stop dancing like a white person. I didn’t know the hands and shoulders were supposed to move in sync with the opposite side of your legs. Well this confused the hell out of me and I did terribly during the whole class. Too much movement worrying about swinging my arms in with each step, making sure my arms are moving inwards, making sure my shoulders are moving the right direction, and then on top of that making sure im making the right steps on the beat at the same speed and catching all the sam moves out of basic 1,2,3.

For the first time in as long as I could remember I got frustrated that I couldn’t get it and just wanted to walk out in the middle of class and quit. I almost did. Now I know what it feels like for my skydiving students that can’t stop spinning in free fall when they can’t figure out how to fly stable. I stayed though and I just wasn’t having any fun at all. I got through the class and was bummed I had another hour booked with the same girl at 2pm. During the last few minutes of my class with her I looked over at Spencer and he was there grabbing some water. He was taking a class in a few minutes. So funny how I have friends I see around town now.

I grabbed my bag at the end of class and had two hours to kill. I went down to my normal breakfast spot. I sit down and the girl already knows what I want and how. 4 Eggs, hash browns, toast, pancakes, a huge bowl of fruit and fresh mandarin juice. I worked on my blog and edited pictures for a while. Spencer showed up at one point and he got breakfast here too. His bike has been having issues and he was telling me about it. We were trying to figure out what the issue might be. He dropped the bike off at the KTM dealer a few days ago and they’re working on it pretty slowly with no luck and he has to book a flight to fly his bike to Chile pretty soon. We hung out and chatted for a while and then he decided to go down to the dealer to put some pressure on them to find out what’s wrong with his bike.

I got back to the salsa school at 2pm for round two. It was the same deal I just wasn’t having a great time. I got a little better towards the end of class but I still wasn’t happy. I booked a class for the next day with the girl Spencer danced with today and one for Wednesday with the first girl I had teaching me.

I shot home and changed, and went over to Crossfit. Anastasia came to class again! We had a good class. It was quite brutal and quick. We stayed after for 20 minutes to do another good Ab workout and then went home. We cleaned up and decided to meet up for dinner with Spencer and Matteo from the other night. I ran some errands after the gym and got my linen shirts dry cleaned so I had to pick them up. I couldn’t believe how clean my white shirt was. I thought it was destroyed forever.

I grabbed Anastasia on the bike and we shot over to a Korean street food joint Spencer found. We had a good dinner, chatted for two hours, had some alcohol and Matteo showed up. We went out to a few bars he wanted to show us. He’s a tour guide in Medellin and starting a tour company in New York. He’s a damn good one as well from what we saw. We ended up at a small salsa bar that was pretty dead and we chatted for a while about all kinds of things. We all danced a bit and I worked on what I learned today in class and it was all so fun. The time flew by so quickly and next thing we knew it was midnight. We all went home and I passed out like a baby in my room.

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Day 82

Day 82 1/16/2022

Odometer  32,540 – 32,550 — 10  Miles (9850 Miles Total)

Medellín, Colombia

Getting out of bed was rough this morning. I barely slept last night. I’m ready to sleep on this bus on the ride to Guatape. I headed over to the park where the meeting place was. There were about 30 people on the tour. Me and Anastasia hopped on the bus and took a little nap. We all stopped for breakfast for a bit and then headed over to the large rock in the middle of town. I’m a little confused on what’s called what here but I think the town the rock is in is called El Penon. It’s the third largest rock in the world. Surrounding the rock is a huge reservoir that has the shape of a dragon.

This is the biggest reservoir in Colombia. 45 Years ago they decided to make the area into a reservoir and the original town of Guatape was underwater. This reservoir somehow produces 5% of energy for all of Colombia. I was sleeping on the bus ride when they were explaining all of it so I heard bits and pieces of it all! We got to the large rock and walked up 700 stairs to get to the top. We had a lovely view of the whole area from up there. The reservoir is huge and it looks like a lot of people have vacation homes here. Pablo Escobar had one here too.

We walked down from the rock and got back on the bus to go to a small town nearby. We walked around and I took a bunch of pictures, we got some lunch, ice cream, coffee and met a bunch of people. Then we went to another small town where they made a replica of the town center that was underwater. After that we went on a boat tour of a small part of the reservoir for about an hour. We took the boat directly over where the town was buried 30′ deep and there was a cross from the church still visible coming out of the water. We saw Pablo Escobar’s house which was destroyed by his enemies but it was still standing. I think someone bought it to fix it up eventually.

After the boat ride we got back on the bus and took a two hour nap on the way back to Medellin. It was nice to just be able to sleep for once on a ride and relax. This trip is taking a big turn and is changing quite a bit right now. It’s weird to not be exploring on the bike as much as I was before. I think I’m going to head to Ecuador in about a week. Jacki has never been to Ecuador before and we made plans to meet up there and explore it together for the short amount of time she will be able to go there with work. I’m going to take a quick ride to Quito, Ecuador and see her for a few days and then bounce around Ecuador for two weeks or maybe more if I really like it. Once I’m done there I’ll head back to Colombia and explore everything the south of it has to offer and then I’ll end up back in Medellin for a while. I think I will stick around in Colombia until late march or whenever the sublet leaves my apartment. I’ll be back by April at this point for work this summer it seems. So weird to be thinking about all of this. It’s not the way I thought this trip would end.

We got back to Medellin and met up for dinner after we cleaned up. We went out to a restaurant Anastasia found which was incredible inside. She’s allergic to cilantro so the restaurant took about 45 minutes till we were able to order food with all the questions they were asking. They made it pretty difficult. An hour later I got my food and she ended up never getting hers. We ended up being there for 2.5 hour and just asked for the food to go which took another 3o minutes. It was pretty annoying. While she watched me eat she told me her life story with the jobs she’s had since she was a kid until now. It’s wild how hard people have it in other countries and what they have to go through to get good jobs and how much they have to hustle. My bringing up seemed much easier than hers. She’s a smart tough girl that can make her way around anything. After dinner we went for a little walk and that was my lazy Sunday.

El Penon

 

 

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Day 81

Day 81 1/15/2022

Odometer  32,496 – 32,540  — 44  Miles (9840 Miles Total)

Medellín, Colombia

Well I didn’t get much sleep last night since I got home so late. I made plans with my gypsy friend to hang out all day today! I rolled out of bed pretty late but didn’t sleep very well. I met up with gypsy woman to get some breakfast at the place I’ve been going to lately. We had a huge breakfast and she couldn’t believe how much food I ate for breakfast. I was taking the day off from salsa lessons and the gym since I need a break from it all.

Today was going to be a sightseeing day with my new friend. After we ate breakfast we got some coffee for her and exchanged some money. She looked up a lot of things to do unlike me and found some stuff to check out in the city. One of them was taking a cable car from the center of the city up to the side of the mountains surrounding the city. You can check out the whole city on the cable car ride to the top and once you’re up there you can explore the little areas of the city up there. We ended up taking a wrong turn and getting lost looking for the cable car. An hour later we found the cable car and the cops decided to give us a hand with getting a metrocard to pay for the cable car. They spoke to us in Spanish and after they realized we couldn’t understand a word they were saying they decided to speak to us at mach 3 in Spanish. 5 Minutes later we were all just sitting there confused as all hell but they decided to keep talking to us in Spanish. Really guys? They probably held us up there for 10-15 minutes. One of them took my phone and started to type in something on google translate. He was probably typing for 5 minutes and it was some useless information. Thanks for trying to help but you burned 15 minutes of our time! hah

We got on the cable car and transferred at a few stops. We somehow ended up at this park miles from the city center in the middle of nowhere. There was a botanical garden that looked pretty boring and was not cheap so we just bought some fruit up there from some vendors and laid out on the grass in the sun for a few minutes, staying warm since it was cold up there. When we got up my shorts and her skirt were covered in mud. Yay

We got back on the cable car and headed to the first stop which was the last part of the city on the mountain side. We walked around for 20 minutes and checked it out, I got some delicious chicken on a stick and we headed back down to the middle of the city to get on my bike and head back to our area. We stopped at a grocery store to get some water and snacks and then I dropped her off to shower, I went home to shower and we met up again for dinner at the place I went to the first night. I’m learning a lot about Ukrainian life hanging out with Anastasia.

After dinner I got in touch with Spencer. He’s the Canadian I’ve been talking to the last few months since I’m right behind him the whole time. He’s actually been in Medellin for a few weeks at this point. His bike broke down recently and it’s been in the shop for a little time getting fixed. We finally made plans to meet up and no better place than a salsa bar since he’s been taking a lot of dancing lessons lately too. He’s been going to the same salsa school I’m going to in Medellin!  We decided to meet up where we went dancing last night. We got to the bar at the same time he did but then realized quickly that he went to another salsa bar with the same name on the other side of town. He said he was with a tour guide who says the bar he is at will be much busier then the one we are at right now. We got on my bike and headed over to a little bar he and his friend went to while waiting for the salsa bar to get busy. Everyone goes out here at 11pm so we had some time to kill.

Spence is a really nice guy. I like him a lot. Super cool, good energy, smart, humble. He had a guy with him who he met recently. He’s a local here and lives in New York part time as well. He was telling me how he was excited to get his ass out to Fire Island to the gay bars because some wild shit goes down there! Hah We all chatted about all kinds of shit for about 30 minutes and then we headed over to the salsa bar.

We got in there and no one was dancing so we chilled out a bit waiting for Spence and Matteo to get there as well. Once they showed up there were a few people on the dance floor. Me and Anastasia got up there and warmed up. Matteo and Spence came over and started ripping too! Matteo is of course Colombian and can dance really really well. He took Anastasia and started dancing with her and immediately I thought to myself ok I’m ready to learn some more moves. I pointed out three moves I wanted to learn that he just did with her. Next thing you know the three of us are on the dance floor that’s packed and he’s trying to show up the move she was doing but we’re all confused at that point since it involves a lot of spinning and twisting with our hands interlocked. I didn’t even notice but we had a few people at the bar cheering us on to learn what Matteo was teaching us.

We walked back to the corner to work the confusion and after a few minutes we nailed it. We went out to the floor and put the new moves he taught us to use. Matteo grabbed me and danced with me for a bit and he blew my mind with this shit he was doing! We had such a great time it was an absolute blast. I’m ready to get back to class on Monday and show my instructors what I learned. I feel like such a geek. We ended up hanging out at the bar until about midnight chatting with Matteo and Spence. They are such good people and I would love to hang with them again.

Anastasia and I left since we booked a bus tour to Guatape in the morning and we had to be at the park by my hostel at 7am. What the hell were we thinking booking this thing it’s too early for me! Eh I was excited to get out of the city for a bit and not be on the bike. I get to be lazy on a bus and just relax while they drive us. It cost $30 for the day with food and a boat tour included. We went our own ways and we were gonna meet up in a few hours at the park to get on this tour!

Not many pictures today but heres a small view of Medellin

Its ok to just park your bike anywhere in Colombia.

The oreo dessert I made Anastasia try at dinner.

A little street in Santo Domingo area of Medellin. We stopped here from the cable car on the way up.

 

 

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Day 80

Day 80 1/14/2022

Odometer  32,466 – 32,496  — 30  Miles (9796 Miles Total)

Medellín, Colombia

Happy Birthday Mom!

I didn’t get much sleep again tonight. So much anxiety it feels like my hands are always shaking when I sit still. I got up and headed out to a Crossfit class at 10am. It was a pretty good class. I was beat at the end of it. I understood the coach from class talking to a few guys outside about motorcycles and crashing. I asked one of the guys that was in class what they were talking about. The convo shifted over to my bike since they saw it out front. We all hung out and chatted for a while. Well they spoke in Spanish and I had my translator but I started to understand quite a bit of what they were saying. I shot over to a restaurant near my hostel for a big big breakfast. I had 4 eggs, hash browns, pancakes, a ton of fruit, 2 cups of juice, and an avocado. I ate pretty quickly and then before I knew it I had two hours of salsa lessons coming up from 2-4. I went back to my hostel to shower and clean up. I was already starting to get sleepy and it was only 1pm. I worked on the blog for a bit at the hostel and worked on my computer for a bit.

I decided it was time for a cup of coffee which i’ve never ever done before to stay awake. I don’t like this. I should stop drinking coffee in the mornings. I want to go back to being all natural. I drank the coffee though since I had a long night coming up. I went down to the laundromat and got my clothes I dropped off the other day. I got right back on my bike and headed down to the salsa studio. I had two hours booked with my first instructor I learned with. I was excited to show her what I learned in the class yesterday.

We went over some warm up moves and she tried to help me loosen up my hips and upper body so I don’t look so white when I dance. We worked on all the small details of foot work and then letting my body flow through moves with momentum which is what salsa is supposed to look like. No stopping ever. We worked on the basic parts for a while and then she threw in two new moves for me, spinning her. I called it quits after 1:45 because my brain was hurting too much from all the knowledge. From now on we agreed that I can do two hours a day but it has to be split up. One hour in the morning and one in the afternoon. I’m pretty proud of myself for how well I’m doing and how fast I’m learning this stuff. On my way out the front door I booked some more time since I extended my hostel for another 4 days.

I rode back to the hostel and changed my clothes. I talked to the gypsy a few hours before and she wanted to come to a Crossfit class so I agreed to do a second one for the day. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to stay awake tonight with all of this physical work I’m doing all day with not much food. I grabbed her on the bike and we shot over to Crossfit. It was her first class. She crushed the workout and I did even more sets tonight then I did this morning. I couldn’t believe it. We went upstairs and did an Ab workout for about 20 minutes which was so nice to do. I dropped her off at her Airbnb and we made plans to get some dinner. I went home and took a quick shower and we met up at a restaurant she found.

Ehhhhhh the food wasn’t great. We have both been heading about this local dish with a lot of local meats. It was super heavy and salty. As soon as I finished eating it my stomach was rolling and it did not sit well with me. I’m glad I got that meal out of the way I for sure won’t be having it anymore. We decided to go check out a salsa club after dinner which was down the block from my hostel. I was sort of thinking about trying out some stuff I learned at the school but I was having second thoughts. We got in and had a seat. There were a few people dancing. I was nervous to get up there and try to dance with what i’ve been taught the last three days. Anastasia kept telling me to go up there and grab a girl and dance but I was too shy. We talked about everyone else and how god damn good they were. Everyone here was a pro. When we got there there was live music and only 2-3 people dancing but after about 30 minutes at 10:30pm the dance floor was packed. She mentioned she never danced salsa before so I offered to show her the steps and maybe we could go up there. I walked us to the back where no one was watching and boom my brain just blanked out and I couldn’t remember a single thing I learned the last three days.

I couldn’t even remember the most basic moves to start moving. I thought about it for a few minutes and figured it out. I showed her a few things.  This girl learned in 5 minutes what I learned in three days. I showed her how I lead her into moves and she had it all down. Here we go, time to get up there with everyone else.

This was the first time in 35 years of my life that I ever walked up to a dance floor without someone dragging me and just trying to blend in like everyone else. I couldn’t believe I was about to actually do this. But here was the moment I did all the private classes for. I grabbed her hands, threw her left hand back which let her know which direction we were going and for the next three hours we would dance for about a song or two and then sit down for one. I couldn’t believe I was doing this and we were fucking killing it! This was such good practice for me too. I’m going to go back to class on Monday and it’s all going to be so much more fluid and natural for me. We met a few people there that night and one guy told us he’s been going to salsa bars for 4-5 years for about 4 hour a night. I’m just sitting there thinking holy shit this guy is good and it took that long?!!??

At one point Anastasia was telling me to go grab another girl and go dance with her. I held her hands and didnt let her go but she eventually sneaked her way over to 4 local girls and started chatting with them. I’m going to kill her. If anyone had ever done this to me before like they have in my past I would have just walked away because I would be too embarrassed and shy to dance. One of the girls turned to me and she grabbed my hands. She4 started telling me how to do basic moves and I told her to follow me. I started to lead her with everything I’ve been doing the last three days and with Anastasia all night and this girl was impressed. She said to me “What the hell is that girl talking about you know exactly what you’re doing and you’re good”! HAH! I fooled her!

This was my turning point. It’s all easy from here. We danced for a song and then that was that! I felt so good and had a lot of confidence now. Anastasia and I sat down and watched a bunch of people dancing for hours while we danced for the next three hours. The people had some incredible moves out there and I’m feening to learn more of them. I was actually getting a bit bored with the few moves I knew and I was thirsty to go back to class to learn more.  We had such a blast I can’t wait to do this every night. I hope Anastasia doesn’t leave anytime soon since she’s my new salsa partner while I’m here. I still feel weird going into a salsa club and asking a random girl to dance but maybe that will come with time one I get a bit more comfortable. I told her how much of a turning point tonight was for me and if any of my ex girlfriends saw me with her or that other woman tonight they would be assassinated on the spot with how much grief dancing has caused me in my past relationships!

We ended up leaving at about 2am and called it a night. We made plans for tomorrow to get some breakfast which I count on waiting for since I was already starving after all that dancing. We also drank about 4 bottles of water each. This dancing is going to be one hell of a workout the rest of my trip!

 

 

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Day 79

Day 79 1/13/2022

Odometer  32,466  — 0  Miles (9766 Miles Total)

Medellín, Colombia

 

I didn’t sleep well yet again. I’m thinking too much about this trip and how it’s all gone haywire. I was very anxious all night long and I hated it. I got up pretty early and took an uber to a Crossfit class. It was good for me. I needed it. The workout was quite easy so I nearly did it twice. I earned the nickname “The Machine” right there on the spot! These guys must think I’m nuts.

I had a busy day coming up. I took a 2 mile walk to a breakfast spot I found and stuffed my face with some good food. I went back to the hostel, grabbed my laundry to drop it off and brought a shirt to get repaired. I was getting a bit sleepy so I went back to my hostel to try to nap for 90 minutes before my 2 hour salsa lesson. The anxiety was kicking in really hard but I tried to ignore it. I slept maybe 5 minutes and then rushed off to the salsa class. On my way there BMW texted me and said my bike would be ready by 4Pm and it was going to be $350. $100 cheaper than what they said it would cost. Well that’s lovely since that never ever happens. I asked why it was cheaper and Carlos said because not all the parts were broken in the ABS pump they just replaced some seals and a bearing. There was a lot of dust in it and that’s why it broke. I’m thrilled to hear that.

I showed up to salsa after doing my Chilean vaccine stuff on their website just in case I make the trip. Once I was done sweating from the walk and the vaccine stuff I started salsa. I had a different girl this time and she was teaching me a lot of footwork which was interesting. Completely different from what I was learning the other day but I guess it’s good to switch it up. After about an hour she started to dance with me like the first girl did. She told me to show her my moves that I learned and I worked on them with her for a bit, then she showed me a few different ones that we worked on for the rest of the class. I was exhausted and called it a day 10 minutes early. I can’t believe I’m actually doing salsa and I’m doing it pretty well. It’s a nice feeling knowing I can go into a salsa club and actually throw some moves down.

After salsa I took a long 30 minute walk to the BMW dealer. I talked to the mechanics for a while and bullshitted about the trip, the bike and the rest of my trip. Carlos is looking into having someone talk to DIAN which is the Colombian customs office in Medellin. He’s going to try to help me extend my motorcycle visa which is so sweet of him. The mechanics found some missing bolts on my bike and replaced them. They also fixed my crash bars on my bike since the screws were all rusty and I couldn’t barely tighten them. I got on the bike and made plans with a Ukrainian gypsy girl named Anastasia I met the day before to go out to Comuna 13. I rushed home and took a shower while she went to a bike shop on the corner of my hostel to rent a helmet with no luck.

We jumped on my bike to go look for a few more bike rental shops that might be open but not one of those places were where google said they were. We stopped for some burgers after we gave up looking for the helmet. Some guy clipped my bike in traffic and knocked my bike over into another car 2 minute after she jumped on. Great, I look like I don’t know what I’m doing on a bike to this girl! Haha. She’s Ukrainian, they’re all crazy though. She’s going to slap me when she reads this.

We went back to my hostel to get an uber and this girl walks across the street to someone’s house and knocks on their door asking them if she can rent their personal helmet. I was cracking up. I couldn’t believe it. She really wanted to go rip around on the bike! The guy comes outside and walks us over to the bike shop that was closed but we kept telling him it was closed., Once we got up in front of it they were open! She begged the guys to rent a helmet and they finally gave in and it was free of charge.

We got on the bike and rode 15 minutes up to Comuna 13. It’s an old part of the city which used to be the most dangerous part. Now it’s all touristy and full of hipsters. The reason it’s such a hip place now is because there’s beautiful graffiti everywhere all over the city there. They do huge tours showing all the graffiti and the history of that part of the city. We walked down 239813473 steps to get to the main part where you can walk. We walked around for a bit and had a lovely panoramic view of the city where we took tons of pictures. There was a spot with 6-7 escalators bringing you down the rest of the way to the bottom of the city there. We walked around a bit and took the escalators back up. We found the stairwell which we came down from where I parked my bike and the gypsy was leading the way but she made a few wrong turns so we were sweating climbing up and down the stairs.

We finally got to my bike all sweaty and wet. She mentioned there was another viewpoint back towards our area so we hopped on the bike and rode over there. It was drizzling a bit. We got to the other view point and parked the bike. It was about a 15 minute walk up to the top and the view there was beautiful as well but it may have been nicer from Comuna. We chatted for a while up there while the rain picked up a bit and about 45 minutes later it was raining pretty hard. We took my bike back to my hostel and went out for some drinks and food. It’s so much fun hanging out with Anastasia. We have so much to talk about there’s never any silence. I talked her into coming to Crossfit with me tomorrow since she’s a pretty active girl. She’s going to do really well I think. The rain picked up really hard and it was down pouring so hard the whole time we were eating dinner. We each had two mojitos and after hours of chatting she called an uber home and I made my short walk back to the hostel. I threw my bike in a parking garage and went to bed!

My gypsy friend

Medellin from Comuna 13

I even got a free bike wash from BMW!

Another view

You can guess where I worked out

So clean!

 

 

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Day 78

Day 78 1/12/2022

Odometer  32,464- 32,466 — 2  Miles (9766 Miles Total)

Medellín, Colombia

This hostel is ruining me. A comfy bed, a hot hot shower with plenty of water pressure. That was the nicest shower I had since I left Austin, Texas. I want to move here. I have a lot planned today so I needed to get moving straight away. I rolled out of bed and did my thing. I went downstairs to get breakfast but all they had as cereal and fruit so I bailed on it. I went to the parking garage and got my bike. I had 1.5 hour until the walking tour started so I had to get moving to BMW. I got to the dealer and waited a few minutes for a mechanic to come out. I had Alex on the phone ready for him to translate but one of the mechanics spoke great English. I explained to him the overheating problem and he said $75 and it will be done today. Perfect.

I figured this wouldnt do anything but I mentioned the Panama story to the mechanic about how the ABS pump was broken and its $1600 for a new one. I asked if they could scan the computer again to double check to make sure its the pump that’s broken. The next words out of his mount I couldn’t believe. He said this is a common issue on this bike if you go off roading without the ABS turned off. They have this happen a lot. Usually the bikes only go 30K miles before that happens. How the fuck does BMW advertise this bike to go around the world when this is another common issue? These guys have their heads up their asses. This big German company known for quality and their stuff is breaking left and right for everyone. Yamaha and Honda make way better motors and motorcycles in my opinion after dealing with all of this bullshit.

What he said next flipped my day around. He said they are able to take the ABS pump apart and fix it for a whopping $350. I couldn’t believe it. I hope they’re not lying to me and just screwing with me. Why hasn’t any other dealer offered this? I told the guy to take my money as fast as he could! He said it would take two days. I don’t care if it took a week I told him. They rolled the bike in and told me they would call me if they found anymore issues. I heard another guy speaking perfect English there with a little 310cc BMW. I asked him where he was from and he said NY. I asked again where and he said Long Island, once again where, he replied with patchogue! What a small world this guy lives down the block from where my parents live. He has a shoe warehouse in Ronkonkoma as well even closer to where my parents live.

We chatted for a while and he was telling me how he just moved to Medellin a few years ago and he goes back and forth. What a small world. I got his number and we will keep in touch. I started my 20 minute walk to where the walking tour started and chatted with Alex for a bit telling him the good news. I got to the walking tour and I was the third person there. I gave Julio the tour guide my name. A minute later he called another guy Marko by accident and that was his name too. Turns out the guy is from Croatia and we start speaking Serbian to each other. We were cracking up.

The tour was a good one. It lasts about 4 hours. We got to learn a few things about Medellin and the history of it. We all had a blast. A few interesting things we learned we would have never known if we didnt do the tour. In the center there’s a bunch of old men usually that show up and just trade watches. One guy likes another guys watch and they will trade. Some of them have more then one watch on their wrist. Some guys have 20 on them and try to trade them for others. if one guy doesn’t like another guys watch he will actually throw it down and fight the other guy! These guys are nuts! Also these guys are all old and retired so this is what to do to keep busy! We finished up the tour learning about a lot of bombings they had in the city. Its pretty wild how much of a bad place this city was in the 80’s and 90’s.

I met a few people from the tour at the end and we all exchanged info to keep in touch. I just made alot more friends to hang out with here in Medellin! I had a 1 hour long walk back to the hostel before I went to my 90 minute salsa class I booked yesterday. On my walk back I grabbed a taxi and got dropped off at the hostel but decided to walk right to the salsa place to get lunch around there. I found a laundromat that was able to sew my pockets back on my workout shorts. they charged me $1. I looked for a few places to do it back home this summer since I sold my sewing machine and they wanted $15. Im not paying that. I should have brought more clothes here to get fixed!

I got some lunch and worked on the blog. I decided im going to just save the drafts on the website and publish the day once I get the photos up with it instead of posting for the day and then going back a few days later to add pictures. I made my way over to the salsa class and damn im so happy Im doing this. I had a lovely girl named Angie and she is a great teacher. The way she teaches was at a much faster pace than what I learned in Guatemala. She was picking the pace up for me a lot. I learned a few moves for foot work and then a few spins between her me and then both of us. The music was so fast and when she stopped with the count while the music was playing it threw me off so bad but it was so much fun learning. I havent had sensory overload in a long long time and it was so hard for me but she said I nailed it and was progressing really fast. She even lied to me and told me I had great rhythm and could move my body. I don’t know if I believed her. I reminded her I was white and she was cracking up half the time. We had a blast. I have another 90 minutes tomorrow with another person and then 2 hours with her on Friday again.

The movements are so easy but so fast to the point where I can’t even get ready to spin her on the 1,2,3 count so I just keep repeating the 123, 567 foot moves. I hope I catch onto this even more and it gets easier. My brain hurts from thinking so much! We stopped a few minutes early because we were so tired. I got into a 20 minute conversation with the woman working at the counter when she found out about my trip. She wrote in my phone in the translate app “You are a warrior, not everyone does that, Congrats”. That put a smile on my face she was very impressed with it. I got out of there and Walked back to my hostel to shower and then I found a dry cleared that can wash my white linen shirt since it is absolutely filthy! I went out for some tacos and worked on the blog.

People selling coffee and socializing in the center. This is what they do all day. They also have some beers and then come back and start dancing all day.

Live music all day in the center that people dance too

Actual footage of me on this trip after I found out about the Chile flight information.Ugh

Weird statues in the city. The city got these for free and they each should have cost 1 Million dollars. They were donated by the artist. The city got 23 total.

Cool buildings in the center