[Villagers washing laundry by a riverside in Honduras]
3 September (Tegucigalpa, Honduras → Colon, Nicaragua)
It was another early morning departure in anticipation for what turned out to be yet another painful border crossing—sans wasp sting. This time around I actually needed to purchase insurance to enter the country. Something tells me however that it isn't worth the paper it's printed on. After crossing into Nicaragua it was clearly obvious from my surroundings that this was the poorest country up to date in the trip. Not that the bar of living standards was very high in Guatemala and Honduras, but unfortunately for the Nicaraguan people, the country seems to be harshly suffering from the pains of a weak infrastructure, economic base and corrupt government more than its surrounding neighbors.
[Just one of the many immigration offices throughout Latin
America with which I have become intimately familiar]
[Somewhere in the middle of Nicaragua]
4 September (Colon, Nicaragua → Granada, Nicaragua)
With a mere 200km ride from Colon to the old historic capital of Granada, I spent the day exploring the city with some newfound friends in Granada. In fact, I ran into a Brazilian fella named Alex who is doing a long motorcycle trip as well, only in the opposite direction: Brazil up to Canada. We spent the evening recounting road tales and route suggestions around an envious audience and exchanging tips on what each one of us was about to encounter.
[One has to be quick to catch a bus here, bus drivers don't like to actually stop]
[Kids playing baseball just before the quotidian afternoon rain shower]
5 September (Granada, Nicaragua → San Jose, Costa Rica)
The ride from Granada to San Jose should have only taken me circa four hours but instead, due to some encounters with with local law enforcement, torrential rains, endless paperwork at the border, and finally, a head on collision with swarm of insects of unknown origin (elaboration to follow), what should have been a short leg ended up taking me over eight hours.
The first delay: Nicaraguan police. I had just left Granada and was approaching the next small village as I got stuck behind a convoy of trucks that looked something like what I imagine Noah's Ark might have looked like with all the different types of farm animals they were carrying. I saw cattle heads, pig feet, and a horses' asses sticking out of every opening on those trailers. All the while chickens were flying about trying to avoid being crushed by the masses of flesh and bone chaotically moving about. At this point you should probably know that Central American truck drivers are a bit more aggressive than the standard European or North American truck driver. I think they all grew up watching Formula 1 in the hopes that someday they too would be able to cross the checkered flag at Laguna Seca. After eventually finding themselves behind the wheel of an eighteen wheeler instead of a ferrari, they undoubtedly never let the dream die and have instead opted to live theirs out by racing fellow truckers to the next village market or speed bump—whichever comes first. With the animals as unwilling participants in the truck drivers' quest for glory, one can only imagine the types—and quality—of odors that emanate from those trucks full of animals after having the crap scared out of them, no pun intended. Now imagine yourself behind it all, breathing in that not-so-fresh air with nothing more than a thin piece of plexiglass separating you and the foul animal stench. Well, I had no intention of staying behind those trucks any longer than was absolutely necessary so I ignored the solid yellow line indicating a no-pass zone and quickly pulled ahead of the trucks just in time for me to run straight into a police traffic stop. After pulling over, the police explained to me that I had committed a traffic infraction to which I promptly displayed the requisite countenance of utter shock and dismay. After much discussion, the fine was apparently going to cost me a Thomas Jefferson and needed to be paid in person to one of the officer's fellow corrupt officials at a bank in the village somewhere. And they were holding my driver's license as ransom. It was Saturday and the banks didn't open back up until Monday. I was in quite a little quandary. There was no way I was going to stay in that town till Monday. I had two options: continue on without a driver's license or bribe the cop. Considering how many more countries I still had to get through, I decided against letting yet another driver's license fall prey a traffic enforcement official and opted for the latter. After a surreptitious exchange of money, the cop, who was afraid his boss, el Capitan, would see him, became incredibly friendly and put away his ticket book. A few minutes later I was back on the road with all my documents and twenty dollars less in my wallet. Lesson learned: never hand over the real version of anything to the police down here. Give them a photocopy and tell them that the real version was stolen this morning. I won't be making that same mistake twice.
Second delay: torrential rains. After spending an hour or so donning and doffing my rain gear for what turned out to be a quick thirty minute tropical downpour, I finally arrived at the Nicaraguan-Costa Rican border looking like I just got done mud wrestling wild boars.
Third delay: government bureaucracy. While still at the Nicaraguan border, I had to run off a group of young kids who were unsuccessful in trying to steal one of the bags that was chained on to my bike—all while a cop looked on pretending notice anything was out of the ordinary—and I guess the situation wasn't anything unusual from his perspective.
Fourth delay: bugs. After finishing up at the border and knocking a few kilos of dried mud off my clothes and bike, I was finally in Costa Rica and headed towards San Jose. It was just around sunset and I was happily taking in a landscape replete with volcano peaks disappearing into the clouds when out of nowhere I drove straight through a syrupy thick swarm of bugs at 100+ kph. Up to now countless thousands of insects have sacrificed their lives in the name of "Argentina or Bust", but none have left behind much more than their grotesquely contorted little exoskeletons plastered on my face shield. These Costa Rican bugs however were made mostly of some unusually sticky yellow substance which left me covered head to toe in this yellow liquid with the consistency of hollandaise sauce. I'll never be able to look at eggs benedict quite the same way again. After another hour of cleansing myself and the motorbike, I was once again making headway toward San Jose.
[Work: untitled, artist: unknown. One of the many exquisitely preserved specimens of the automobile art genre quickly emerging across Latin America. This artist's style displays influences from pornographism and the television show "pimp my ride"]
I arrived around midnight in San Jose and ended up staying at the first hostel I came across. The next morning during breakfast--or at least what they call breakfast--I sat down next to a fella whom, as it turned out, I had wrestled against in high school nearly 18 years prior. The guy's name was John and he had decided against returning home to the U.S. after a certain encounter with a member of the opposite sex during a vacation in Costa Rica over ten years ago. John was a nice guy who really like to talk a lot. The kind of person you really hope to avoid sitting next to on a transoceanic flight. So I quickly curtailed the conversation with the invention of some urgent matter I needed to attend to and quickly made my way out the door with the mind of getting into Panama City before nightfall.
6 September (San Jose, Costa Rica → somewhere near Portobelo, Panama)
On my way out of San Jose, I stopped at a gasolinera to fill up my tank. While there I asked one of the Panamanians for the best way to take out of the city toward Panama. I just so happened to ask an older gentleman in his 80s who was headed the same direction and I told me I could just follow him. I quickly got the impression that either this guy was trying to lose me or he just enjoyed breaking every traffic law available—Costa Ricans generally seem to follow traffic laws in their country. The older gentleman was driving through red traffic lights and weaving in and out of traffic like a madman—and all of this in a 70s Nissan pickup truck. I thought for sure he or I were bound to be pulled over but the last thing I wanted was to spend god knows how much time trying to get out of that city. When we finally got to the highway I waved thanks to the octogenarian lunatic and slowly pull ahead of him. This gesture must have really aggravated him as he seemed to have gotten the impression that I wanted to race him. I comically spent the next few hours to border watching, from a safe distance, as he constantly tried to overtake me by such wild maneuvers as passing trucks on a blind uphill curve. I guess his thought process was that at his age he didn't really have much to lose.
[Sunset off the northern coast of Panama near Portobelo]
[Sunset drive along the northern coast of Panama]
I spent the night comfortably in my hammock in the jungle somewhere far from civilization and woke up the next morning to complete the remaining 300km to a sparsely inhabited village on the northern Panamanian coast near Colon where I was told I would be able to find sailboats headed to Colombia. On the way I stopped in Panama City for some lunch. The city reminded me very much of Miami without South Beach, but instead with the addition of the old historical district on the waterfront called Casco Viejo somewhat representative of Old Havana. The city didn't compel to extend my visit so I continued onwards and finally arrived to my desolate destination in the early afternoon. Along the way I had stopped to verify my directions with a heavily armed soldier standing around watching the grass grow. When he saw the towns I was passing through his eyes lit up and he told me not to stop for anyone or anything I might encounter there—including stop signs. He went on to say that dropping below 30kph would not be good idea and might incur an additional security risk. And he was right, driving though those towns with over 80% unemployment rate gave one the sense that thousands of eyes were watching one's every movement. Unfortunately the next several days would require I transit through that area many times, but all fortunately without incident.
[A cargo ship transiting the Panama Canal at the Gatun Locks section]
I immediately went to work trying to find a sailboat and skipper willing to take me and my motorbike across. The place I was staying at had arrangements with around a dozen boats but the next one which had the necessary space required to take on a motorbike wasn't going to be leaving for another 7 days. Considering the additional 5 day transit at sea, that sort of delay was unacceptable given my time constraints. So I went about looking for boat and skippers of boats where I assumed they would congregate: bars, internet cafes, brothels, etc.. I avoided the brothels as far as I could tell and by happenstance found a skipper with a boat while I was on my phone at the local bar trying to get more information out of Panama City. He agreed to take me and the price was settled at $875 USD for both my bike and me. I knew I was overpaying but he was very unwilling to take the bike on board until I sweetened the deal a bit. So everything was set for a departure the next day when all of sudden I got a call from the skipper telling me that the boat owner would not allow the motorcycle on board. There wasn't much I could do . I even went so far as to swim the bay for half a day going from boat to boat asking if anyone would take me and the bike to Colombia for $1000 USD. Two other boats fell through in a similar fashion and I was beginning to get anxious. Panama is a beautiful place, but if I was going to be forced to get stuck anywhere, I was hoping it would be in Colombia and not Panama.
[A welding repair on my motorbike being performed by the hotel owner in Puerto Lindo, Panama]
9 September (Panama City, Panama→ Bogota, Colombia)
[Here I am on the flight from Panama City to Bogota hoping my motorcycle will be waiting for me when I arrive]
After much running around in circles trying to secure a sailboat which would take me across to Colombia, I threw my hands up and decided my time would be better spent if I just air freighted the bike across the infamously impassable Darian Gap. $900 USD later my motorbike was on a cargo plane to Bogota and I was at the airport trying to catch the next flight out. After arriving in Bogota I made my way to the district called La Candelaria and got a peek into Bogota's film culture with an advanced live screening of one of Colombia's leading film directors followed by a very heated discussion involving several members of the audience. For a moment I felt like I was watching a live re-enactment of a Jerry Springer show with chairs flying through the air and the whole bit. This all seemed like an excellent prognostication of exciting times to follow in one of my favorite cities in the world. These thoughts were flying through my head just in time to bump into Manu Chao as I was going into a bar to get a drink with some people from my hostel. And although the extent of my interaction with the famous gypsy singer consisted of my saying, “sorry about that bro”, I was nevertheless reminded of that particularly special vibe that Bogota has always radiated. I was later told by a local Bogotana that La Candelaria—a famous neighborhood in Bogota—is one of Manu Chao's favorite areas to hangout--just in case you wish to try your luck.
[La Candelaria at night (Bogota)]
I spent a good part of the next day at the airport extracting my motorcycle from the red-tape lined claws that is the Colombian Customs Office. I am not exaggerating for a heightened dramatic effect when I say that on my drive back to the hostel I was stopped by the national police nearly a dozen times for not wearing a reflective vest. Fortunately my paperwork and foreign tags got me out of paying a fine every time. However, each time I was stopped meant a 20-minute delay involving a full security pat down and then a thorough explanation of my particular situation. So even though I'm not required by law to wear one of these ridiculous looking reflective vests, the first thing I'm doing tomorrow is to go out and buy one just to avoid the incredulous amount of time I've already wasted talking to the police.
[Trying some pizza at LBS's very own Juan Camillo Saldarriaga's Red Box Pizza in Bogota with his sister Fernanda as a very gracious host throughout my visit in Bogota]
My next few days in Bogota where spent reacquainting myself with a city and country I fell in love with many years ago during my first stay many years ago. For those who have been here, you know what I'm referring to, and for those who haven't, you need to come and experience this place for yourselves. Colombia and its people have a sense of genuine warmth and openness that I have yet to find in any other country. To the average foreigner, Colombia generally invokes images of cartels, kidnapping, and drugs. And although these things have all played a part in Colombia's recent history, things have changed dramatically over the last ten years. President Uribe has really turned things around, and now there is a definite improved sense of security felt by the average person on the street even if the security measures haven't yet fully disappeared—especially in the more affluent neighborhoods. I'm of the opinion that Colombia now has all the ingredients necessary to transform itself into a tourism mecca. Foreign money is pouring into infrastructure projects of all sorts, political stability seems to be strengthening trend, FARC eradication seems all but complete and the government is offering impressive incentives for promotion of growth in multiple sectors. It seems that all that needs to be done now is wait for the general global perception of Colombia to shift to more positive descriptors such as paradise, rum, and rumba.
13 - 18 September (Bogota → Medellin → Cartagena → Medellin → Bogota, Colombia)
[The dramatic confluence of two rivers with differing sediment content]
For brevity sake as well as salvaging any chance I have of getting to sleep at a decent hour, I will summarize a week's worth of travel throughout Colombia in a few short paragraphs even though I could most certainly write an entire book on just this part of the trip. From Bogota it was my intent to travel to Cartagena and then follow the Caribbean coast northward to Santa Marta and then into Venezuela from there. Unfortunately an ungodly 7-day processing time for a Brazilian visa at the consulate in Bogota required that I alter my plans to include a return to Bogota in order to pick up my passport.
I left Bogota for Cartagena thinking it would be a twelve hour drive but suspecting otherwise based on my previous experiences during this trip. The windy mountain roads cutting through the Andes took me eight hours just to navigate to Medellin which was only a third of the way to Cartagena, so I decided to make an unplanned stop there for the night. And quite a fortuitous stop it was. I will spare you all the details, but suffice it to say that Medellin is an incredibly fun city with fabulous people with an amazing zest for life. As you may remember, Medellin is most commonly associated with Pablo Escobar, who ran the strongest drug cartel out of Medellin for many years until hunted down by Colombian and U.S. agents. It has over the past years however returned to normalcy and is once again becoming a travel destination. I didn't know anyone there but quickly made friends with some locals who pulled back a part of the social curtain just enough for me to steal a small glance into their world. For the blog's audience, I will leave it at that. For those of my close friends following at London Business School, I'll share the details with you all in January upon my return. It was very hard to leave such a place and I briefly considered canceling the rest of my trip, shipping my bike to Buenos Aires and staying in Medellin till end of October. Reality quickly set back in, and the next day I was back on the road to Cartagena. I arrived late in the evening after a beautiful and exhausting ride through the tortuous Colombian jungle roads. The next few days I spent researching a business interest I have in Cartagena and getting plugged into the professional network of investors and business owners there. I befriended a 45-year old semi-retired swiss national named Bill (name has been changed to protect his identity as he is probably reading this blog now) who had settled in Cartagena about four years ago. Bill is going through an unadmitted midlife crisis, had recently divorced his wife and was currently dating a twenty some year old bronze skinned beauty who could have been a model in the next Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. He must have felt it was his duty to entertain lavishly so he had his girlfriend call all her girlfriends who then called all their girlfriends who then all joined us for drinks and dancing, and before I knew it felt like I was a judge at a beauty pageant without an audience. Cartagena is a popular destination for beautiful single Colombian women to go and find a wealthy foreigner to marry. I clearly was aware of ultimate purpose of the show unfolding before my eyes and figured it could hurt to play along. I found it all very comical and vastly entertaining to say the least, that is, until the bill came and I realized that I was splitting the bill with Bill for several rounds of top shelf cocktails for about fifteen girls. Luckily I was in Colombia and not London which equated to about three pints of beer in British sterling terms. That was of course just the beginning of the night, and before it was over I had run into another MBA student from UCLA who was on his way to Rio de Janeiro for a semester exchange. I will end the story there as I do not wish neither to incriminate myself nor others involved.
[Cartagena at night, it's still early]
A few days later I begrudgingly left Cartagena nursing a lingering hangover and made my way back to Medellin. After a Thursday night of bacchanalian festivities in Medellin with the same previous paisas—what the locals are called—I drove the remaining eight hours back down to Bogota and arrived just in time—with literally 15 minutes to spare—to pick up my passport from the Brazilian consulate before they closed for the weekend.
[Medellin's barrios disappearing into the clouds]
19 September (Bogota, Colombia → Malaga, Colombia)
After saying my goodbyes to the incredibly kind and generous parents of Juan Camillo Saldarriaga, a good friend and classmate of mine at London Business School, who hosted both my stays in Bogota, my next destination was meant to be Venezuela. As usual I opted for the road less traveled, allowing me to pass through the small villages and landscape which truly embody the soul and character of a nation—things that cannot be enjoyed from the blindfolded confines of high-speed highways. For me one the most exciting thing is to get onto one of these small dirt roads which you hope will take you to your destination eventually, and to have no idea what you're going to come across, you only know that you have never experienced it before and will probably never experience it again.
My most insightful conversations and experiences during this adventure have come from my interactions with the working class people. Trying to reach a semblance of understanding of how the world is viewed from their perspective, what concerns and dreams they have and those of their children gives one an important indication how others parts of the country is functioning. And to avoid sounding too much like a Karl Marx manifesto with a proletariat slant, I don't deny the importance of observation of the other classes in society. In Bogota, Medellin and Cartagena I was able to see life from the eyes of very privileged people, and as comfortable and exciting a perspective as that may be, my own relatively privileged past decade means for me that there is little learning to be done from observing that side. Although I'll admit that the more subtle idiosyncrasies of a geographically specific class of people always has some learning points to offer, I have always found the working class to offer something a bit more rich in flavor.
[One of the many curious stares on the side of the road]
But I digress, so let's return to the story at hand. Even though the road less traveled lacks tolls booths and the like, it extracts its own fee on its travelers in the form of unpredictable terrain and random life-threatening obstacles. The road I was traveling along was pure rock and dirt. Cars were averaging 20 kph while I was able to squeeze out 40 kph without vibrating myself into a thousand pieces. A few kilometers into the ride, I came a large flight of vultures which were feasting on a carcass. These were apparently not used to having to evade a motorcycle traveling faster than the usual dump truck or horse and carriage. The result was that one of the vulture hit me square in the chest and knocked the wind out of me. I was luckily uninjured, not sure about the vulture, and it sort of bounced off and fell to the ground. The next mentionable event occurred when I came around a corner to find that there was no road in my lane and a tow truck and numerous police officers occupying the other lane. I hit the brakes and skid to a stop just in time to avoid sliding down a 400 meter plus cliff. Apparently the road collapse had just occurred and my near fall to my death finally prompted the police to place warning markers where I had just come from. I got off the bike to see what the tow truck was pulling out of the gorge when I realized that it was something that resembled a large vehicle. Unlikely there had been any survivors. The police saw the video camera on my helmet, thought I was filming the event, quickly became very animated and asked me to move on immediately.
[Approaching Malaga, Colombia on a very desolate road]
I had the ambitious goal of making it into Hugo Chavez territory by the end of the day, but alas I only made it as far as Malaga, a small town with a population of circa 20,000 (just a pure guess) a few hours away from the Colombian-Venezuelan border. When I stopped at the town square to ask for advice on where I could find a decent hotel, I was once again immediately surrounded by curious townsfolk who had probably never seen a motorcycle loaded down such as mine. During dinner at the hotel I struck up conversation with a couple of young guys in their early twenties, Jesus and Juan Pablo, who had never met a gringo and they decided to show me a good time in their humble little village.
[It was really hard to carry on a conversation because of all the people in the club as you can see from the picture, but the night proved to still be young]
It was Saturday night and I was curious to see what their concept of "going out and having a good time" meant to them. The two kept on raving about a place with lots of girls and good music. I didn't really care where we went as I was tagging along more for the ride. I should have asked more details about the establishment they were taking me to because as soon as I walked in I realized that I was not in any club or bar, it was a seedy brothel. I was at least pleased that my young companions hadn't lied to me: there were lots of women and music. However, neither of which was even remotely appealing. I'll spare you all the details of the ladies of the night and the establishment but suffice it to say that I was very glad that it was so poorly lit as I did not wish to observe anything that was going on. Just as I was telling Jesus that we should move on to a more comfortable establishment, a fully armed squad of Colombian military walked in shouting orders for everyone to get up against the wall. At this moment I nearly started laughing out loud and thought to myself,"I cannot wait to explain this one to my friends just as soon as I get out of here." I glanced over at Jesus and Juan Pablo and noticed that they were perfectly calm. Jesus was standing up against the wall still half dancing to the cumbia that was still playing on the jukebox while the soldiers patted down all the men for weapons. Here is when I realized that this was merely a routine security check that occurs in such places of ill repute. After few minutes later the sergeant thanked us for our cooperation and filed the troops out the door. A few minutes later we were on our way to the next place which I was promised was a discoteca. It was in fact "the" discoteca as Malaga has but one club. And here we innocently finished out the rest of the evening dancing salsa and cumbia--mainly with the staff.
20 September (Malaga, Colombia → San Antonio del Tachira, Venezuela)
[A heart-racing, hard-pounding ride to leaving Colombia]
I'm an illegal in Venezuela! After a breathtaking drive to the Venezuelan border, I arrived at Colombian immigration and went through the procedure of canceling my vehicle importation document and getting my passport stamped as having left the country. At this point I drove over the bridge into San Antonio, Venezuela and tried to get the paperwork process started when I was told that the customs office, those responsible for giving me the transit papers for my motorbike, were closed until the next day. It was only 2pm and I was hoping to make it halfway to Caracas but now I was going to have to spend the night in Colombia until morning. I tried persuasive methods on the immigration officials involving surreptitious financial remuneration for a set of papers with no luck. I drove back across the bridge into Colombia and went back to the same immigration officer who had stamped me out a few minutes earlier. I explained my situation to her and asked for a stamp back into the country until the following morning. She told me it would only be possible with a stamp from Venezuelan immigration showing that I had left Venezuela. The resultant absurd conversation that took place lasted another several minutes ending in my having to go back across the bridge a third time to get an Venezuelan exit stamp. Of course the Venezuelan official refused to give me a stamp without the motorcycle paperwork. To make a long story short, I could neither get back into Colombia nor could I enter Venezuela. I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie Terminal. Having given up talking any sense into either Venezuelan or Colombian officials, it suddenly dawned on me that I was famished and needed some time to think about how I was going to get out of my current predicament. I found a food cart which happened to be positioned at the foot of the Colombian-side of the bridge. There was a group of Venezuelan men having lunch and I eventually struck up conversation during the course of which, I comically explained to them my unusual siltation. I bought their beers with the remaining Colombian pesos in my pocket and at that point one of them told me he would be able to help me get into the nearby Venezuelan town if I wanted. To make another long story short, I suspect these gents where transporting not-so-legal goods from Colombia into Venezuela because the next thing I know I was following their pickup truck down a rocky trail which they said would take me across the river into Venezuela. They said they did it nearly everyday and had never had a problem--they had clearly paid off the right people. I was of course weary of any ulterior motives these guys might have for taking me across but decided I would give it a go. I followed them from a safe enough distance so that I could easily turn my bike around in case anything seemed wrong, but fortunately everything went just as they had said and the next thing I knew I was safely in Venezuela looking for a hotel for the night. The rest of the story has already occurred but I'll leave it for the next post. Until then...
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