Day 115 2/18/2022
Odometer 34,860 – 35,263 —– 403 Miles (12,500 Miles Total)
Medellín, Colombia – Bogotá, Colombia
The time has finally come to start my journey back home. I’m heading back to Bogota today where I will spend about 5 days with my friend Daniella before I fly out to Guatemala. I’ll be in Guatemala for about 6 nights enjoying some time at the beach in El Pardon which was one of my favorite spots I’ve been to on this trip.
I’ve had a great time in Medellin the last few weeks. I have never stayed in a place this long in my entire life on motorcycle trips. Medellin is definitely a place I would move to and it’s one of my favorite cities I’ve ever been to. My last few weeks here have been interesting in another sense as well.
When I left on the trip I was telling Yak how I was quite unhappy, had lots of anxiety and always wanted to be around other people while making as many friends as I can. As my trip comes to an end I realized something that I did not expect at all. I am 100% happy on my own without anyone else in my life for the first time in maybe my whole life. I don’t need anyone to talk to or be around or hang out with. When I met some people here and there lately and they invited me out I would much rather just be by myself for the day and night. I didn’t need to see or meet anyone anymore. Such a weird mentality now that I think about it. Am I going to be that loner that doesn’t have any friends or doesn’t go out anymore? I’m not sure but I’m really enjoying my time with myself. Being in the desert in Peru, Argentina and Chile alone camping for weeks on end sounds lovely right now but unfortunately it’ll have to wait until October when I come back.
I wonder if I will feel the same way when I come back to finish the trip. I also wonder how I will feel this summer when I’m back at work skydiving and living in the city in a few weeks. Will I just be unhappy being surrounded by a bunch of people and will I need more alone time? Who knows, I guess I’ll have to wait and see. Yak messaged me reminding me about culture shock. I forgot all about that. I cancelled my coming home party I set up since I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle talking to too many people as soon as I get back. I might need some quiet time to ease into my old life again. A Lot of interesting thoughts the last few weeks.I’ve most definitely changed as a person thinking about the way I think now.
I walked out of my hostel at 7am pretty pumped on leaving. The people in my room are not thoughtful of other people. They walk into the room at midnight or 2am and leave the lights on to wake everyone up, or they make a lot of noise in the middle of the night when they get home from partying. Im very excited to get out of the hostel life and get back to my own personal space at home. Of course when I walked out of the hostel to load my bike up it was raining. I had a feeling it would be raining the whole ride to Bogota which sucks.
I was down to my last 50K pesos so I ended up getting money exchanged. I checked a few places on google maps last night and there were a few money exchange places nearby that were open 24 hours. I loaded up the bike and headed over to them. Of course I pull up and right next to the sign that says open 24 hours were gates covering the door. Closed! Oh it never ends.
I had a full tank of fuel and a credit card. I didn’t think I was going to stop for any food anyway because of the rain. Once I ride in the rain I don’t stop till I get to my destination because pulling over and taking off what gear and gloves and helmets just to put it all back on sucks. It’s gonna be a long day, I said to myself.
I hit the road and it started with a long climb up the steep mountain east of bogota. The roads were wet and slick and loaded with traffic. My clutch was taking a beating every time traffic stopped. I eventually got to the top and the rain started coming down even harder. Ugh this was going to be a long long wet cold day.
I stopped for a few pictures before the rain started with a beautiful view I found. That was pretty much the only one I saw for the rest of the day. As I kept riding I got blasted with some insanely heavy rain. It was too late to put my winter waterproof gloves on and I was too lazy to pull over and put my wet hands inside of the warmer dry gloves. The temps were around 50 all day so my hands were wet and cold. I went up and down a lot of passes going around trucks and it was exhausting.
I almost went down really bad at one point. I hit the double yellow line which is literally like black ice when it rains and as soon as I did that thankfully I was riding straight and not trying to turn. But as soon as I hit the yellow line my tires automatically started to slide. my front tire went to the right and my rear tire went to the left, I was about to go high side. I didn’t even touch my brakes and wildly enough with my bike sliding sideways at 65 my traction control light never went on which means my front and rear tires were still spinning at the same speed. I have no idea how I did not crash but I got out of that one with luck and some skill.
I absolutely cannot believe how slippery any painted surfaces are on these roads down here. Everytime I rode through a painted crosswalk or some sort of white painted sign on the road my bike would start to slide. More than once I was in 6th gear doing 50 and my back wheel started to spin until the traction control kicked in. I mean for an 800cc bike that’s slow as hell loaded up in 6th gear with low rpms to spin the back wheel you can just imagine how slippery the surface must be. After that I got some more rain and then the fog started. It was so thick at times I had to use my GPS more than looking at the road to see which way it turned. I couldn’t see more than 50′ in front of me at most times.
I was over this ride, I barely saw any nice views and I was bummed about it. I was soaked, tired, and just not feeling it. I eventually got to Daniella’s house at about 2:30 or so. I took a hot shower, dried up and we went out for some food down the block.
The next few days I’m going to strip the bike down and drop off the Givi top box mounting plate to get welded since it cracked on both sides from all the off-roading. I’m going to see if a shop can fabricate a piece of aluminum to cover the crack and then weld it on to give it double the support. I’m going to need it for the rest of the trip since I’ll be doing a lot of off-roading down in Bolivia, Argentina, Peru and Chile.
I’m going to leave the bike in Daniella’s garage for a small fee with most of my gear. I’m not taking too much stuff home just to bring it back. Mostly just my riding gear except my boots. I’ll buy new boots at home they’re too heavy to haul around back and forth. I might go and do one more ride if I get bored being here for 6 days but well see how that goes. My rear tire is getting pretty bald and I’m going to need it to make it back to Ecuador where I’ll buy new Motoz tires in October.