Day 77

Odometer  32,062 – 32,464 —  402  Miles (9764 Miles Total)

Cartagena, Colombia – Medellín, Colombia

I woke up not very excited about this long ride today. I packed up in a rush and shoved breakfast down my throat, loaded up the bike, paid for my stay at the hostel and got on the bike. I have been bouncing between Waze and Google on this trip. Waze has been acting really funny lately with routes but they are usually way better with ETA than Google is. I looked into it a bit on my ride out of the city and noticed it was on the avoid highways option. I turned it off and It said I had a 9:46 ride to Medellin. Not bad. I think I might even be able to shave 1:30 off this ride even though Waze pushes hard with the ETA for fast drivers.

I finally remembered to put my earplugs in, I threw my shirt in the sink at the hostel to keep me cool and I was ready for this 10 hour ride. It was pretty hot and boring for the beginning. I slowly started to climb up into the mountains. Daniella told me not to wear my full gear since most of the ride would be hot but shit she was wrong. I stopped for lunch about 4 hours into the ride at a nice little restaurant on a mountainside. They spoke no English so lunch was sort of a surprise. I got a lovely chicken soup with another dish of rice and chicken with a salad, two cups of ice tea. It was delicious. Everyone was staring at my bike the whole time and trying to figure out where I was coming from. I went around the back of the restaurant and took some pictures of the mountains behind it.

I got back on the road and I kept climbing and climbing. My Garmin GPS said I was at 8500′. It got cold quickly. The temps went from 90 this morning to 50 very quickly. It even started to rain right after lunch. I pulled over after the rain got pretty bad and threw my pants and boots on. Now I was cozy and I was dry!  The roads were really slick and back before the rain I was causing through a town, I hit a wet spot and my rear tire kicked out pretty hard. I was almost high sided but thankfully I rode it out. The wet roads were very slippery on this side of the mountains. I was taking it easy remembering I just crashed a few weeks ago because of the rain. I stopped for a few pictures here and there. The scenery was so beautiful I was in heaven. The roads kept climbing into the mountains and at one point I rode right into the clouds where I was in thick fog for an hour or so. On the ride I saw a bad accident. A guy on a scooter without a helmet drove into the back of a pickup truck at about 40-50mph. The tailgate of the pickup was fucked. This guy bashed his head in and definitely would not survive. There was blood all over the floor by the time the ambulance came. I got the hell out of there I didn’t need to be around this. I can’t believe how many people here ride without helmets.

I pulled into Medellin at about 5pm or so. There was so much traffic but the temps were perfect at 70 degrees and it was cloudy while raining a bit. My bike was pissing me off again. It was running really really hot while I was doing about 20 in traffic and I had to keep turning it on and off to keep the temps down in traffic. It’s time I bring this thing to the BMW dealer here and let them take care of it. I’m sick of working on this coolant issue. The coolant flush needs two people really. One to work the bleeder screw and one to keep pouring coolant. I couldn’t quite do both when I was in San Gil. I’ll have to make a run to BMW in the morning and see what they say.

I got to my hostel and the vibe felt so good so I booked three more nights right off the bat. I dropped my gear off and put the bike on the sidewalk. I got on the computer and looked up things to do here. I found a salsa school in my area which is one of the nicer areas of Medellin. Thanks to the Dutch girls who recommended this hostel. I also was told to do the free walking tour of the city. So I signed up for that and it was tomorrow at 9:30am. I got in touch with a paragliding school to rent gear and fly over the city in the next few days.

I went for a walk to the salsa school to book some time. I ended up buying ten hours for the next few days at a good rate so I’ll be doing 2-3 hours a day of salsa. I went for a walk to a few bike shops since there were 10 in a row near the salsa school asking for help with some work on my bike and one of them mentioned a BMW shop down the block so I’ll be going there first thing in the morning. I went for a walk back to the hostel to work on the blog a bit and then I got hungry. I asked the woman at the hostel for some tips on where to get good food and she sent me to a place by the salsa school. I walked back up the hill and holy shit was this the best meal I’ve had in a long long time. A risotto dish with chicken, a Peruvian ceviche dish, a coke, a Pisco sour, and a wildly delicious fried Oreo with ice cream for dessert. I went back home and then got invited out to a little event the hostel had at a bar. Gringo Tuesdays. I went out and met some other gypsies like myself and we chatted until about 11pm and I decided it was time for me to go home. I was exhausted and ready for bed.

I’ve been having some issues with planning the rest of the trip which I might as well talk about now.