Hey guys,

This is the end. I’m still in Medellin, but with only 30 days left before I need to be in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the motorcycle part of my trip is over. I fly from Bogota, Colombia, to Sao Paulo, Brazil on the 10th of June for a couple of weeks in Brazil, before jetting to Europe to achieve fame and fortune… or something

I plan to return to finish what I started in a few years time. I’ve fallen in love with this continent, its people. I’ll write at length in a few weeks about my feelings, but with still a month of travel left I haven’t even begun to mentally digest the journey (you can probably tell by my very occasional blog updating). Currently i’m sorting out how to store the bike in Colombia.

I’ve (finally) written upwards of 15,000 words, covering the last 3 months worth of traveling. Because of the length i’m spliting it up in to sections, and dropping a group of stories each night for the next week or so. This way its a bit easier to read

Last time I properly wrote I was back in San Pedro de Lagoona, Guatemala…..

(clicky)

Part 1

Leaving. Fucking. Sucks. - Tales from San Pedro de Lagoona, Guatemala

As I rolled out of San Pedro de Lagoona, Guatemala, climbing the face of the steep volcanic peaks that surround the lake, I tried to keep my eyes on the road. It was the perfect a morning, the slight mist that had hung over the lake for the past week burning off in the wake of a rising sun, lighting the still, crystal waters of lake Atitlan.

This was the morning I had made my mind up to leave. Originally planning to be in San Pedro for only a few days, it seemed that since I had arrived I was unconsciously finding reasons to stay longer. Not a hard task. But josh was waiting in Honduras, I couldn’t keep him waiting any longer. Wake up, wash my face, bag packed and on bike, hrrrrrmmm… it won’t start. A sign, no? After monkeying around with the bike for an hour, I find that my poor battery has died - a few of its cylinders having completely evaporated in the heat. I bump start it and roll out. Focus. My eyes return to the road, running lengths across the face of the mountain with hair pin turns at each end. The lake was talking to me. ‘Your leaving? You idiot!’

Folks in the Garden

My first morning in San Pedro (a week earlier), after locating a good Spanish school, I went searching for a good hostel. Right down near the shore I find Hostel Ti’Kaaj - outside it doesn’t look like a hostel, just an over grown yard with creepers obscuring the view through the fence. Inside the yard you find a garden, a few tables, and a bunch of hammocks strung up around the centre. Surrounding the garden are the hostels very basic rooms - think just a bed, mattress and a dresser in a shed. Just clean and functional…. and cheap. Staying here cost me 20 Quetzals a night, the equivalent of 4 NZ dollars. In this garden I met some of the most beautiful, fascinating people.

Entering for the first time I meet Ben, sitting on his bench. He’s wearing a long African robe, a bowler hat, and a comically (awesomely) long moustache that he curls up at the edges. He wears a number of curly rings, and sports a metal bracelet with an aboriginal looking lizard on it, matching the tattoo on his arm.

‘Hey, is this a hostel?’

The only response I get is a stoned giggle. Right, this guy smokes a LOT of weed. Ben points over towards a shack in the corner of the yard. A friendly Guatemalan man in a cowboy hat appears, and I negotiate a rate for a double room (I figured i’d splash out, ha.). Over the next two weeks I would hang out with Ben on the deck in front of our rooms, while he imparted his (sometimes incoherent) advice to me about things. Nothing in particular, just what ever he was thinking about at the time. I sat and played guitar, he listened, he talked. Ben is from Belgium, and suffers from epilepsy - hence the huge duchies he rolled three times a day had a medicinal purpose in keeping his epilepsy in check. The cause of his epilepsy was a brain tumor he had suffered a few years earlier, he shows me the scars hidden under his hat.

Later in the garden I meet Jeremy, a laid back outdoors type Canadian. His job back home is to police the back country in a national park (I forget which one), check permits, that sort of thing - he loves his job!

‘Basically I spend a whole lot of time in the back country, I get time to think, write.’

He writes his thoughts as spoken word poetry, and reads me some of his work…. holy shit. Lots of hammock time was spent soaking this guy up, a genuinely nice guy with some serious talent. I’ve been bugging him to record some of his stuff, when it happens I promise to throw it up on the website (blurg).

God, what a voice…

My bar of choice in San Pedro was two doors down from my hostel, a place called Nueve Sol (new sun). I hung here most nights, meeting people, drinking beer, watching movies. On Fridays they held Open Mic nights, where I got to unleash some tunes with my trusty duct-taped Mexican guitar, and was repaid with free beer and food. This is where I met Patrice (or Pat).

Half Italian, half German, she sports a lip piercing, dark sunglasses (at night), and has her hair swept back in a 50’s style quiff. She’s been in San Pedro for 2 years, working behind the bar at Nueve Sol, painting, and slowly earning enough money to get her passport back.

“Come on Pat, play us a song!”, I step off the performers stool at the front of the bar. Pat still sits shyly at the bar, her guitar resting on her knees. People start to join in… “yeah, go on Pat!” Eventually she gets up, and makes her way to the front.. it seems like its not going well. She has some trouble with her guitar, it wont stay in tune - people lose interest, start talking, go back to their meals. Then she starts playing… ‘Hey, Pats playing guitar!’…
then she starts singing….

Christ, I’m instantly smitten. She plays old 40’s and 50’s Italian music - her voice is gorgeous. This is just like the movies, its not supposed to happen in real life…. everyone stops talking, and listens. Someone turns the lights down. After the final notes ring out, there is a 5 second pause before anyone claps - as if everyone in the room had a moment where all they could think was ‘….. fuck.’ The applause goes up, and Pat tries to step down from the stool. ‘Hell no, get back up there!’ For the next week and a bit I split my time between playing guitar, lounging, chatting to the new people that appear in the hostel, and hanging out with Pat in Nueve Sol.

Flash Forward one week, open mic night number two, and I’ve just finished a song. Pat suddenly sits down next to me, guitar in hand. ‘Wanna jam?’ My heart skips…. I sat there, 2 feet from Pat, soaking up her voice, and did my best to focus on putting lead parts over her rhythm. We crank out 5 songs or so, on one song each taking turn to make up and sing some lines - something about leaving San Pedro.

I spent my last night with Pat, just hanging out and talking…. she had a pretty shit run of luck the last couple of months, the hurricane swamped her place and nailed her computer, destroyed most of her art. ‘I’ve got a lot of good karma heading my way, that’s for sure….’ She trails off.

I’ll always have fond memories of San Pedro, and leaving almost did my head in. In some ways, I’m still trying to clear my head. There’s a special feeling about the place, a collection of similar minded people arriving and leaving every day. God I wanted to stay, but I had a commitment to josh, and to a trip that had brought me to amazing places and people, I couldn’t bail on that - even when it felt right to.

Tomorrow: Three days of travel, things didn’t go so well…..

Medellin is a city that won’t let go. The difficult thing about writing about Colombia is that as a country it is so diverse, so inequalable, and on such a grandiose scale that comparison with other countries, landscapes or people seems to belittle the majesty of the place. Medellin as a city is a microcosm that retains this same diversity. 3.8 million people call this city home and it hosts both the desperately poor and the absurdly wealthy. Called Paisas, the locals are direct, fun-loving and are generally happy to see a visitor and freely dispense advice of their corner of the city.

Carlos Gonzalez smiles at me and shakes his head. “You will stay here longer than a week,” he promises. Is Carlos a wise man, a tour guide, or a hawker for hotels? No, simply the owner of the Kawasaki dealership in El Poblado. Yet after a week, I didn’t like Medellin. Little information is known about the city and Lonely Planet strangely dismisses the city for having little of backpacker interest. I find this interesting as Lonely Planet really does recommend some strange parts of the country and ignores others. I wonder if the author only stayed there a week. I spent a few days walking around, did an oil change, and met Jeff Sherren, a motorcyclist from Canada. He had spent a couple of months in Colombia already and seemed to have been similarly inveigled with the country. I gradually met more people, went to more interesting corners of the city and found myself slipping into it like a warm blanket. The city has many pretty parks, interesting statues and many civil works seem to be underway. But the charm of the place seems to be simply the positive energy of so many people chaotically co-existing whilst maintaining a cheery outlook on the city.

I even started to enjoy the traffic. A common point of debate is whether Colombia is Dangerous. Yes, Colombia is dangerous. Anyone who claims this country is not dangerous hasn’t driven on the roads. Although Colombians are in society polite, courteous and seem to ‘follow the rules’ to a fault, on the roads they really let their hair down. In New Zealand on a motorcycle I practice what could be called Defensive Driving. In Colombia, I speed to survive. Lanes are ignored or changed without regard for anyone using the road. Buses stop in the middle of the road to unload passengers leading the taxi drivers behind to lurch homicidally to the fast lane. I have learned to recognize many seemingly innocuous hazards as more serious simply because other traffic will happily run me over to avoid them. Colombians think nothing of stopping their trucks around blind corners and traffic rules are more negotiable than any other country that springs to mind. Colombia is very dangerous – but maybe safe if you just catch the bus. The upshot of this situation is that my red machine can accelerate ahead of the blood-lust at traffic lights, can break quickly and swerve more effectively than any car. God bless you Rosa.

Having procrastinated about leaving Medellin I decide on a Friday and a good night’s sleep on Thursday. That is until I get flicked a free ticket to a party on Thursday night. With a good group from the hostel we move to a functions centre and it becomes apparent that this party is BIG. It is actually the launch party for Barena, the latest beer to hit the Colombian market. About 2500 people are in a huge marquee, the beer is free, the food is free, the girls are like all Medellin unbelievably hot, and the live music is good. And why am I leaving tomorrow? The bar service is the best I’ve had, anywhere. Walking up to the bar with an empty bottle, skimpily clad girls take the empty and ask, ‘do you want one beer or two?’. Why am I leaving tomorrow? Trying to keep a semblance of sobriety I do some twirls on the dance floor and the night whiles away in great form.

9am rolls around and I get out of bed. Goodbye Medellin, you’ve been great. You’re a difficult city to get leave.

Today I will have a pillion. Mar Elizabeth is from Bogota and heading in the same direction as I am for a few days. She’s managed to pack her gear into one bag and everything is loaded up. I say goodbye to the staff at Casa Kiwi, who are a good group of people and we head south towards the famous zona cafetera, Colombian highlands ideal for large scale coffee plantations. More ranges beckon on the road. Traffic is heavy today, and trucks slow me down on the hills. After an hour and a half, I’ve completely left the remnants of Medellin’s urban sprawl. I climb a hill and approach a police checkpoint. I slide through past a restaurant and suddenly parked in the lot are approximately twenty Harley Davidson’s. It’s time for lunch.

They are heading off but we shake hands before they move on for the city of Manizales and a bike rally. In classic Harley fashion they set off two car alarms outside the restaurant while leaving. I have another visitor while waiting for my steak and arepa. Carlos, the Kawasaki dealer is heading south to the city of Cali and has seen my bike. He has a quick meal, discusses where I am heading and says, ‘What did I tell you? I knew you would stay more than a week. Medellin is a tough city to get out of.’ Before leaving he gets out my map and gives directions for the secondary roads to Pereira.

It’s a lucky recommendation. We quickly leave the trucks to the principal highway and start to rise. The weather threatens to rain but this never materializes. Instead we wind up into mist enshrouded lush hills past banana and coffee farms. Having a pillion on board means I get someone to take a few extra action photos and although tired, the riding is great. Colombia’s small towns on the map tend to be quite substantial in size and the buildings are great, while the scenery is staggering. This countryside is home to the grand landscape.

As the day wears on, we cut short our touring and head to the city of Pereira to Mar’s friend Cristina and her beautiful family. We get welcomed into the door but I have a nasty shock. My luggage emits a nasty plastic smell, a bad sign.

When adjusting the bike for a pillion, I had moved my saddlebags back about two inches which was just enough for the bags to rotate against the exhaust pipe. The pipe burned through the protective foam, a thick plastic plate and then proceeded to scorch all the clothes I wasn’t wearing. Bugger!

So there you have it. I’m currently in the pretty city of Pereira. Tomorrow I will try to get my saddlebags repaired and work out some strategy to clear the bag of a strong plastic smell. Otherwise I may have some shopping to do in Bogotá.

From here, I will be going to some thermal baths and also to the small town of Salento, to see some more of the coffee set-up close up.

Into The Jungle
I’m wandering through the Colombian jungle for the second day of my trek for the Ciudad Perdida, the ‘lost city’ of the Indigenous Tairona people. The bush is dense and green but the trail is well defined. I have yet to see much large wildlife. The jungle teams with life of course; bugs, ants, spiders and crabs are everywhere to be found and fireflies at night punctuate the otherwise inky blackness. But larger animals are more reticient and through Central America, I’ve yet to see monkeys, tapirs, any of the super-shy jaguars or even any snakes.

Whoomp, something flies past my vision and plants itself on the ground a metre in front of me. Sure enough it’s a snake, my first snake and being striped bright red and black looks far too tropical for a city boy to try his hand at being Steve Irwin although had it landed on my head I wouldn’t have had the option. I wait for the guide to come up and he solemnly tells me it’s a corral, a highly venomous variety. Why on earth a snake would fall out of the vines overhead is beyond me but I curl him around a stick and hurl him off the track. I resolve not to think of any more poisonous creatures for the rest of the trip.

The heat is intense at lower altitude but it is amazing how 500 metres of altitude freshens things up nicely for hiking. The trek is quite comfortable and a change of pace from the bikes. The local indigenous people use the same tracks through the jungle and we pass dour faced men with machetes running tasks and women who avert their gaze, generally with a baby slung on their back while they gather food. The trail provides a steady flow of consumers for the local wares and women offer traditional bags while their children demand lollypops.

We come across a small indigenous village and the cameras come out. It is fascinating to see the traditional manner the Indians still live in and the basic standard of their huts. Children heave out of their homes and we take a few photos but the air is tense. A far cry from mass-tourism seen elsewhere, the indigenous seem to feel our curiosity is an imposition on their lifestyle to be tolerated. This is a small village, larger cities are deeper within the jungle, inaccessible to foreigners without a local Tairona guide.

The military maintain a highly visible presence along the trail. Five years ago, eight backpackers were kidnapped by guerilla ELN (Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional) masquerading as army. The whole account with the benefit of hindsight is one of confusion as to who was holding who. When the tour guide cut the ropes binding him and escaped through the jungle to raise the alarm the police threw him in jail thinking he had a hand in the plot. A far cry from accounts of torture, beatings and mistreatment in other kidnappings, these tourists were well looked after and releasing after over 100 days and negotiations with the government. Eager to avoid a repeat in present day, military presence is high but guerilla activity weak. Coca leaf is grown in the area and most military operations seem focused on stifling this production.

The military in Colombia are extremely well equipped, Current US aid must extend to supplying these soldiers. But like armies everywhere the fighters are generally young boys who get bored easily. In our case, they wait on the trail and try to barter with tourists to accumulate luxury kit in exchange for military issued badges and caps, with an added bonus of ogling sweaty girls in tank tops. I ask Beto, our guide why they are so present on the trail and he accuses them of laziness in being reluctant to hack through the jungle. It seems to make sense to me; if there is no guerilla activity there seems little point to their efforts.

Arriving at the Ciudad Perdida, nearly 2000 stone steps rise out of the riverbed to enter the city. Indigenous peoples abandoned the city when the Spaniards arrived and their military dominance became obvious. To survive, the peoples formed three separate tribal groups and abandoned the city to retreat higher into the Sierra Nevada which soars over 5000 metres (the lost city being situated at about 1500 metres. As such, the city was lost to the jungle – the simple thatched houses only last 5 years, leaving only the terraces the city was founded on. Rather than being an arresting example of the advanced technology of these people like Machu Picchu, the city is a mysterious marker of a people integrated to the jungle. Tomb raiders discovered the city in 1973 and by 1976 the site was under protection. In contrast to Machu Picchu the site hasn’t been developed and our small group of 12 could enjoy the surrounding jungle, swim in the river and explore the site undisturbed.

Valledupar
It was in Santa Marta drinking beers on the street that I met Cesar. An indigenous Arruaco he was passing our restaurant when I noticed he had a maori bone carving around his neck. I couldn’t believe my eyes and briefly thought someone had slipped something in my drink but yes here was an indigenous Colombian with an authentic bone carving gifted to him 19 years previously by a Maori delegation who had come to Colombia. We made friends and he invited us to his home in Valledupar for a national Vallenato music festival. Asking around Colombians everywhere nodded their heads vigorously and told us that this place was a good as the party got. For a musician like Jon this was too good a thing to miss so we lounged around in the heat waiting for it to begin and biked our way over. Jon made a mistake of giving a lift to a local artesan type muso he befriended. The problem with carrying people here isn’t carrying the person, it’s carrying their luggage. And this fella having promised ‘one bag’ has neglected to mention his guitar and that the one bag is a rucksack with his artisan work inside. Nevertheless, Jon in incredibly delicate state carries the guy – I tie off the guitar to my bike. After half an hour the bag is too much on the shoulders and they try to rig the bag on top of Jon’s luggage. It fails and rests on Jon’s tire biting through the bag and a pair of hiking boots – might have been easier to take the bus!

We get to Valledupar and have the exquisite sensation of being the only travellers’ group in town. The small rural town is packed to the gunwales with revelers from Bogota and Medellin all ready for a good time. They’re friendly and keen to share the party with a few strangers. The plaza is full of small bands while people buy bottles of whiskey to drink while warming up before heading off to the stadium to hear Vallenato until the early hours of the morning. I enjoy the plaza as it gives more space to socialize and we make a lot of friends. I dance with a girl and the Swedish girls we have met up with have plenty of suitors. Suddenly there’s a crowd and we’re the centre of attention. I just pretend I’m in Brazil and go nuts with the dancing. If you don’t know the steps, it’s no excuse to stand still and everyone thinks we’re hilarious. Women drag me away and dance a song and then I’m passed along. In the morning we head to the daytime competitions in a fairground where I try to play the Guacharaca. Vallenato music is made up of four instruments, accordion, bongos, vocals and the guacharaca, a stick with ridges making a rasping sound. The rasp had seemed to me a poor match for the other musicians but I found, to everyone’s amusement, it was far harder than it looks.

Walking around the town, people strike up conversation, invite me to their houses, recommend far-flung parts of Colombia and generally are happy to see me. I can’t think of the last time I spoke to people with such a simple motive of ensuring I’m having a good time.

Medellin
Medellin is a deceptively large city. The meat in a sandwich of huge hills, it’s compact appearance as a modest city is actually due simply to the majestic scale of it’s setting. Lush green pasture surrounds the city and 3 million inhabitants call it home. Once famous as the ‘murder capital of the world’ and the headquarters of Pablo Escobar, since the death of El Patron in 1993 the city has quietly rebuilt itself as a fashionable and industrious city. Pretty from a distance, the centre is a chaotic place. I’ve found it a difficult city to get to grips with, probably because of the size.

Also Casa Kiwi, a hostel run by a biker Paul Thoreson has had something to do with my lack of moving around. The hot water works, they have a kitchen for travelers and there’s always someone handy to go to a party. And they throw a pretty good party themselves.
The following morning they suckered Ritchie into a waxing.

I have managed some trips. I rode to the beautiful colonial town of Santa Fe de Antioquia founded in 1540 and made a visit to a finca (farm) which in this case was really a retreat into the jungle.

From here, I’m heading further south to the zona cafetera to relax further, from where I’ll make for Bogota and then it’s Venezuela and some long days as I restart the trip.

Josh

PS I know it’s been a long time since an update but more and more people seem to be reading (not just Mum) so thanks for your patience. I hope to flesh this out a little bit with some more impressions. But the summary is ; you just have to see Colombia for yourself!

Hey people, I have indeed been quite the slacker in updating this thing. Since we got to colombia a couple of weeks back it’s been non-stop-doing-stuff. We’re going to be a couple of days in Medellin, and I have have a big big BIG (think Mr T big) update in the pipe line, covering Central America, and our time in Colombia. Love you guys.

Jah love,
Jonno