Day 68 - Marko Round The World

Day 68 1/2/2022

Odometer 31,340 – 31,381—- 41 Miles (8679 Miles Total)

San Gil, Colombia

Alejandra was the name in my dorm room that was there with her family. I told her this morning that her dad is a champ at snoring. She replied that it was my mom! I couldn’t believe it. Haha. I was supposed to be on my way towards Santa Marta today but I said fuck it. I wanted to spend another day here since it’s so nice and quiet.

I went out to the market again this morning. I got myself two more cups of fresh squeezed OJ and a smoothie. The smile that gets lit up on my face when I get told the price for that will never stop. I got myself a chopped up mango on the street for like $.50 and shoved that thing down my throat. I wanted to eat like 6 of them but I couldn’t. I finally found a place after walking around for 15-20 minutes that served eggs for breakfast. Most people just have juice and pastries here I think? I had a lovely view of the town center while I worked on the blog a bit and studied my Spanish! I got back to the hostel and all I had planned was to ride up to Barichara to watch the sunset where there was the view of the mountains I went to yesterday. It was hot today and I had nothing to do so I was gonna take the bike back to Curiti and go swimming as long as I wanted. As I was getting on my bike Alejandra told me her and her family were on their way there. So I started up the bike and raced over there. The thought of hanging out with people there was nice since I got a bit bored yesterday all alone there all day. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find them there since there’s no cell reception up there so I rode up there as hard as I could. As I’m getting to the end of the dirt road to park I just passed them walking! So close to spending another day there alone!

They stopped for some mangoes with lime, salt and pepper. I’ve noticed it’s a trend since I got to Central America. Then they stopped for some smoothies and beer before we walked down to the river. We all hung out and chatted a bit. Well I was talking to Alejandra while she was translating to her parents at times. We all took the walk down to the river where me and Alejandra split up from her parents and went upstream a bit where all the kids went I guess. There was some music, a bar, and plenty of cliffs to jump off of into the water. We jumped in the water to cool off and I saw her eying the cliff. I asked her about it and she seemed skeptical. Not on my watch. Little did she know she was 100% jumping off this 15′ cliff into the water. We both went up. I jumped off and then it was her turn! She was a bit nervous but she sent it 2 minutes later and nailed it! I went back up and jumped in a few more times. People were throwing some fun moves into the water. It was fun to watch. We chatted for a while while lounging on the rocks with half our bodies in the water trying to stay cool since it was so hot out.

We had a few beers and got some free ones from people leaving their spot and suddenly realized her parents said we were supposed to be back by them at 3pm to leave. It was now 4pm. Her poor mother was probably thinking this American idiot murdered my daughter! We walked back to their spot and all three were just staring in our direction waiting for us to pop over the path. Sorry mom! We hung out for a bit and then walked back to the dirt road where everyone parked. I’d see them back at the hostel since they were taking an overnight bus back to Bogota at 10PM. I got a lot of funny looks from people while passing hundreds of parked bikes. I wish I could just blend in sometimes instead of getting so much attention with my big bike that you don’t ever see down here really. While I was riding back there was a tonnnnnn of traffic leaving town. At the end of the town I noticed a lot of people. As I creeped up closer I saw maybe 100 people wearing costumes. Weird. I got even closer and they had a rope up making people pay to leave. Ugh fuck. I got to the side and showed them I had nothing in my short shorts pockets. They wanted me to rev my engine for them. So I did it a few times, then one guy wanted to do it, he revved it a few times. This was really getting annoying. They let me pass through without paying and as I was creeping away slowly one of them ran up and ripped a bunch of hair out of my leg and then ran away. Ugh I would love to get off my bike and knock this fucking guy out but there’s too many of them. I got back to my hostel, showered up and rode up to Barichara to watch the sunset but I got up there a bit too late. I hung out for a few hours up there and had some food. I got back to my hostel and made a few phone calls and talked to some people at the hostel. I said my goodbyes to Alejandras family and herself. I’ll miss them, they are so sweet! I worked on the blog for a while and uploaded pictures and that was my night!

Me standing on the edge of the cliff in Barichara