Hey Everyone – sorry we’ve fallen a little behind in the blog entries -We have stayed at a few places that had no internet or the internet was not working well enough – but here is our entry for 3 days ago and we should catch up in the next couple of days. Including the story of spending a few hours in a Columbian Policia station… as well as Dan’s turn signal breaking when it met concrete…
We rose somewhat early in our slightly overpriced hotel in Bogota – around 6:45am – considering we went to bed around 1:30 and we were both dragging anchor. Quick breakfast and we jumped in a taxi to head back out to the airport and try to find the bikes, decipher the customs puzzle and get meat on the seat out of Bogota.
We found the Girag facility quickly – which was amazing in itself. We walked in the door and there was a lady security guard who was frisking everyone – unfortunately she didn’t frisk us for some reason 
. We quickly found the “man” we needed to chat with – “El Jefe” Marlio Collazos. He spoke pretty decent English and he told us our bikes arrived last night but we had some paperwork to take care of at customs (DIAN in Columbia).
Marlio pumped out some copies and filled out some paperwork for us and packed us off to walk across to the DIAN offices about 1/4 mile away. We walked over there and stood in line for a while, got some forms to fill out, stood in line a while longer, and learned a little bit about the way Columbians stand in line. Basically, they don’t stand in line – if you leave more space than the thickness of a credit card between you and the next person, you are more or less leaving a spot for someone to jump into. And if you don’t somehow completely block the window area for the person you’re trying to deal with at customs, you are inviting someone to push in and ask questions or request a pen, a form, or just tell a joke. We quickly set up elbow to elbow, watched our flanks and wedged our way in.
Anyway – the customs lady was super nice, very helpful and got us all setup with paperwork and then she said she needed to inspect the bikes. No problem – we should walk to Girag and she will meet us there. We walked back over and talked to Marlio… he said we should go have a look at the bikes because “maybe they need some repairs and we could get to work on them” – oh, boy… He took us back there and the bikes were sitting in a little private area off the pallet and ready to ride – and no damage at all!
We waited maybe 10 minutes and the customs lady shows up with another customs guy – look at the VIN and the plate numbers – sign the papers and sign the bikes and we are ready to roll…. maybe 1.5 hours of customs stuff… not bad.
After customs complete we were allowed into the bikes – and we had to re-jenga everything and dig out our riding gear. Marlio checked on us a couple times and we gave him a bottle of Johnny Walker Whiskey we bought at the duty free – he joked about how our boots stunk and we exchanged the proper word for that in English/Spanish – but then maybe he wasn’t joking about the smell because they aren’t all that pleasant at this point… after half hour of repacking and getting suited up – we were ready to head out. We got some directions for how to avoid getting lost in Bogota and then we had to navigate some doors and stairs to get out of the Girage facility.
The ramp wasn’t too bad but there was another drop after this ramp that we didn’t take a shot of – it was a bit tricky – but we cleaned it and were ready to roll into Columbia – total time from arriving to riding out was about 2.5 hours. Thanks a ton Marlio!!!!!!
We left the airport following our GPS (with NO maps of Bogota in it) and no paper maps of Bogota – and we were ok for maybe the first 5 miles. After missing a turn (we thought anyway) we decided to take a surface street and try to double back and pick up the highway to Cali. Big mistake… we were quickly sucked into a maze of one way streets, single lane streets, walking pathways and just general mayham.. Between the Altitude and the busses belching so much black smoke we were both getting headaches and nauseous. And to top it all off – It was lunch hour and the streets were absolutely crammed with people walking, eating, smoking, talking, and getting on/off busses. So – the traffic was virtually at a standstill and we were in our riding gear and it was hot – 85 probably and we were basting and wondering where we went wrong and blaming each other…
We could see where we “thought” we wanted to go on the GPS – maybe only a few blocks away – but we simply couldn’t get there – it was incredibly frustrating. Just when we would get to move the bikes a block or two and be able to see a “busy” street where we could maybe move a little faster - we would arrive to find that it was a one way – and ALWAYS it was the wrong way! Finally we got onto a street we knew would cross the road we wanted to take and as we rode along we quickly figured out there was absolutely no way to turn left… all the time we were being attacked by taxi cabs that clearly feel they should be able to push motos around like the busses push the taxi’s around. So who do we get to push around? Mopeds, zillions of them!!
This went on for 2 and half hours! – and we hadn’t really moved much at all – we finally worked our way to the outskirts of Bogota and spotted the actual road we were looking for – and the traffic was really moving quickly on it!!! – but, we couldn’t figure out how to get on the damn thing … we rode around in some circle patterns and finally figured out how to get on there… stopped for gas and after filling up we were on the road to Cali.
Working our way out of the suburbs of Bogota took quite some time – the little burbs just blurred from one to the other and the traffic was challenging. We eventually got on the real highway and started cruising pretty well – riding thru some nice scenery of lush hills and resort type towns. We ran out of time just short of Girardot and grabbed a nice hotel that was right on a nice little river and had a pool. Had a couple of beers and took a dip in the pool.
Long and challenging day but we are in Columbia and rolling – So far we feel safe enough, but there is an edge to the place and we both have or shields up.
Cheers!
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