Day 70 - Marko Round The World

Day 70 1/4/2022

Odometer 31,780 – 31,790 ——– 10 Miles (9090 Miles Total)

Santa Marta, Colombia – Minca, Colombia

I slept pretty well at the hostel which I was surprised at. I got up at about 7:30, took a cold shower, packed up in a rush and grabbed my bike from the parking garage. I loaded up and got the hell out of town ASAP. The ride out was windy and ugly. I couldn’t wait to get out of the city. I had a 45 minute drive to Minca but it was only 10 miles away. Once I got up out of the city it got cool so quick and the roads were small and twisty. I got up a few miles and this was my jam. I’m so happy I was able to get out of that traffic jam in the city. I pulled into town and made it to my hostel. It’s such a small town with maybe a few hundred residents here. It’s mostly tourists here but it’s still old school in the town. The roads are all dirt, cold showers and small food shops everywhere. I’m probably gonna stay here for 4 nights because it’s so nice and quiet. I checked in at 9am, dropped off my bags and went out to explore.

I went out for breakfast at a nice little spot where I met some people from the UK, Texas, Toronto, Puerto Rico and some locals of Colombia. We all chatted from our separate tables, I ate shit walking over to one of their tables and almost broke my foot on a step. I had a huge breakfast which was eggs, arepas and French toast with a coffee. I’m starting to drink coffee now because it’s so delicious down here. I can’t believe it. So weird

I hung out there till about 10:30 chatting with the new friends I made and working on my blog as much as I could fit in. I uploaded and edited a bunch of pictures. I went back to the hostel to grab my towel, camera and shoes so I could go explore some things around town. I hear there’s a bunch of nice waterfalls here, plenty of rivers to swim in and some hiking. I asked the girl at the front desk of the hostel where to go first and she recommended a local waterfall. She said I shouldn’t take my bike up there because it’s so steep and it’s all dirt roads. It’s about a 90 minute walk from the hostel she said and there’s really no parking at the bottom of the dirt road leading up to it. I decided to do some googling and found out you can take a motorcycle taxi from the center of town for $1 to the waterfall. Wait, a motorcycle taxi can take you up there but this girl doesn’t think I can go with my bike? Pshhhh. I got right on the bike and rode over there. There were a bunch of little Chinese made motorcycles coming off the dirt road into town so I figured I had this. The road was about 5 miles of real shit dirt roads with a bunch of river crossings. There were a bunch of concrete small 2′ wide paths every now and then I tried to stay on. I made it to the top in 15 minutes. Not bad. I passed a bunch of the motorcycle taxis with tourists and locals on the back.

I parked my bike and had another 10 minute walk where you definitely can’t take a motorcycle up since the road was so steep and shitty. I got up to the waterfall and paid my $1 to get in. it wasnt much special but I was covered in sweat from the walk up the steep hill. I checked out both waterfalls, jumped in the lower one which was freezing and then went up a few steps to a small restaurant where they had nets overhanging the waterfall you can just go lay on. I hung out on one for about an hour working on the blog and taking a small nap. There’s some brutal small bugs here that are worse than mosquitos which ate me alive even after I put bug spray on. I’ll post pictures of it so you can see. I feel like I don’t even know that they are biting me. I just looked down at my ankles and they are bleeding everywhere. I rode back down the dirt road and stopped for some pictures. I went back to the hostel to hang out by the pool and work on the ballot some more and edit some more pictures. This shit takes up so much time it’s insane. I did a small workout at the “gym” they have by the river. I went for a walk through the forest along the river to a “secret spot” the hostel had on their property. It was a nice deep part of the cold river and I went for a swim there, took some photos and met some people from Netherlands, LA, and a local going for a swim as well. The girl from LA told me about a bunch of cool places to check out in the area since she’s been here for two weeks.

I went back to the hostel and some guy from Germany asked to use my computer to make a Pdf with his information to extend his visa for a few more months in Colombia. We ended up chatting for a while about all kinds of things. I went up to my bike after and decided it was finally time to reorganize part of my luggage since it was an absolute mess in there. I worked on my bike for a while remounting my GoPro on the handlebars so I can actually start taking some video with it. It’s been over 2 months and I haven’t really even taken the camera out to record anything because of where I had the camera mounted on the bike. I hid a few tools under the seat, moved around my hand guards since they moved when I crashed in Costa Rica and they weren’t protecting my hands from all the bugs smashing into my knuckles. I found a nail in my tire which luckily didn’t pierce through thank god! A bunch of organizing and fixing small things later I was finally done with that. I’ve been holding off on those small things for a few weeks now.

I showered, loaded up with bug spray and went for a walk to town where I had some delicious dinner. My hostel only had room for one night so I made reservations for another hostel tomorrow night and then the next night I have to go back to my original hostel. I’m going to look into hostels at Cartagena for the weekend. I don’t know how much i’ll like it there since it looks like it’ll be the most expensive hostel i’ve stayed at this whole trip.

Bike parking on a dirt road in town when I went out for breakfast.