I’ve had MANY hard days on a motorcycle.  I’ve ridden through rain, over rocky mountain passes, down the sides of snowy mountains, across ice fields; I’ve ridden through cold that left me shaking and unable to move my limbs and through heat that felt like an oven with no escape; I’ve nearly had to leave my bike behind and walk out.  (Twice.)  I’ve ridden so hungover that I had to pull over so the hallucinating would stop.  I’ve crashed a scooter in Croatia on slick oily pavement.  On the way back from Alaska we hit 90+ degree heat with cross-winds in South Dakota so bad that we had to ride on a slant and got battered so violently that we could only ride 40-50 miles at a time.  I’ve even ridden 1,000 miles in one day.  All of those days, as challenging and sometimes frightening as they were, now seem like soft little furry adventures to me after today.

My morning was nice and relaxing. I got up super early and then spent some time (more than I’d wanted, but that’s ok) working on my route.  My plan was to take two days to get to Bogota by taking the northern route and staying in Honda for a night, but the weather was showing a high of 96 today in Honda, and honestly, that was just not of interest to me, so I decided on the southern route and making it to Bogota in one day.  Only 300 KM, like 180 miles – that’s nothing, right?  When Brad and I rode to Alaska we AVERAGED 400 miles a day (with several clocking in at 600+), and that was with 3 days of almost no riding.  Today should be no problem…

Let’s start the ride from the beginning.

Full of promise is how I’d describe it.  The ride started smoothly, and in fact a bit chilly, which was nice.  It was about 7:30 am on Sunday, so very few cars were on the road, and the blacktop back to Armenia is super twisty and smooth, and all was good.  It had rained shortly before sunup, so the roads were shiny and clean, the smells were fresh and fragrant, and the air was clean and crisp as I smoothed along switchbacks and made my way around Armenia – even that was great to not have to go back through the city.

The other side of my hotel this morning.

Peacefulness while getting ready.

All packed up and ready to go.

The beautiful scenery of my early morning ride.

More of my morning.

What struck me more than anything was the amazing bicycle culture that I was seeing.  All through this section of my ride around Armenia, there were people geared up in spandex crushing these mountains on Trek carbon fiber OCLV, mountain bikes, and a myriad of other styles.  Honestly, it’s crazy they do it because the trucks are right there, and they’re all spewing diesel fumes, but I saw hundreds if not thousands.  You can see why Colombia is known for having some of the world’s greatest cyclists (Nairo Quintana anyone?).  Very cool to see that.

I should have put my phone next to this guy to show how HUGE he is.  Bigger than a golf ball – like as long as a deck of cards. I flipped him over – he was stuck on his back. He OWES me.

About a half hour out of Armenia I had my first blunder – I had forgotten to get gas as I zoomed around the city.  Rookie move.  Come on Wags.  I realized it with about 75 km showing on my tank left.  That’s not a lot in the middle of nowhere.  As I was climbing the mountain, I was watching the kilometers left in my tank, and they were dropping WAY faster than the kms I was putting on.  I was pretty much certain of my fate.  I stopped and asked some military guys where the next gas station was, and they said about 35 km, and I had about 50 reading on my board at that time.  But, you know how that goes with cars, they’re never accurate, and this isn’t my bike, so who knows.  Thankfully I made it to the top of the mountain and literally coasted down it for about 20k and found a gas station with some to spare.  Duh.  Get gas moron.

While I was on my way up sweating the gas, I was starting to get a taste of what the trucks were going to be like for the rest of the ride and weaving in and out of them until I got to the top of the mountain and was hit by fog so bad (and sooo cold) that I could not see the front of the semi in front of me.  Crazy!  Luckily, once we started descending, the fog burned up.

So after I got gas, all was going fine, but then the congestion really started.  Imagine 50 MILES of switchbacks going up and down mountains (mostly up).  Amazing right?!?!  That’s why we ride!  Well, imagine doing it while thousands upon thousands of semis are also doing it and holding up other traffic, which is made up of cars of varying abilities, other smaller trucks and lorries, and a locust horde of motorcycles.  It’s indescribable.

Your only real choice is to ride aggressively, or you’ll be there all day.  As it was, I averaged less than 40 kilometers per hour for the day – that’s 24 mph and change.  Riding aggressively means that you pass in any way shape or form that you can – right, left, it doesn’t matter – and since the whole country is one solid double yellow line, ALL your passing on the left is over double yellow.

And it’s not just over double yellow.  You set up your pass by peaking around the huge truck in front of you, and any opening you see, you sprint into and pass as many trucks and cars as you can, but when you run out of room, they don’t really let you in (although the cooperation and civility among all drivers is orders of magnitude greater than in the States), you just sort of slid yourself in, so it’s not unusual to have 2 feet between our front wheel and the back of a car and a semi 3 feet behind you – that’s the new normal.

While all this is happening, motos are screaming around passing on all sides, cars are constantly trying to pass trucks, and trucks are often taking wide turns into more than half your lane.  I have already seen two motorcycle crashes within 100 feet of me.

I hope I have somewhat painted the picture.  Now onto my “situation.”  (Mom, honestly, you might not want to read this part – nothing happened to me, but it was a scary moment, and I won’t run into the problem again.)

I hit a line of traffic that was moving really slow and had significantly stacked up, which is unusual.  Typically, because of all the aggression I mentioned above, most of the stacks were pretty small.  Not this one. It was particularly long, and so very, very slow.

So, I started my process of leapfrogging and sliding in and out like a knife through butter.  Like the 85 Bears defensive line through any offense thrown at them.  This time was different though because the stack was tight, and there were no openings between the cars.  So, I kinda got stuck fully exposed riding the double yellow line in between the semi on the right and the semis coming on the left, and I could not seem to get back in.  I ended up passing a couple semis that way – with me riding the line and a semi on my right – like I could touch it with my elbow – and one on the left just as close.  This was not comfortable, but it got worse.

Something happened, and all the traffic sort of slowed down.  Now we’re climbing a VERY steep hill VERY slowly with me practically under the semi to the right and left and all the cars are just packed into this curve.  Well, we were going so slow that my bike STALLED.  I had to put my feet down, break, clutch, start my bike, roll onto the gas while holding the break in with the same hand – I couldn’t use the rear break (controlled by the right foot) because I would have gone down if I picked my right foot up.  All while these semis are making a Wagner sandwich.  This was a scary moment.  If you have ever tried to start a stick shift car on a steep incline, this is way harder.

I ended up over-revving and then shutting down again.  Keep in mind, I have the opposing semi driver yelling at me (he’s directly above me), and both behemoth semis are belching black exhaust and farting diesel fumes inches away from me.  My paniers are under each semi, and I am stopped with my feet on the ground.  How they didn’t clip me is beyond me.

Somehow, and honestly I don’t know how, I got the bike started again and managed to get onto the gas and pull forward.  I slid between the two semis and then just rode the middle line until I found the lead tractor about a dozen cars up going about 4 mph.  When I got past him, I had free sailing in front of me and I leaned into it to just get away from it all.  I expected to feel triumphant with a wave of relieve, but the shakes hit me, and those lasted about 15 minutes.  They were kinda relief, but mostly solid fear that my subconscious held onto until my conscious mind could deal with it.  It wasn’t as bad as after my near-moosing, which forced me to pull over, but it was noticeable, and I was glad for some open road for a while.

Granted, this experience was ALL my fault, but the truth is that on that road, you really have to attack aggressively or you’ll end up spending hours going uphill at 10 mph, which is actually pretty hard on these machines.

From my (limited) perspective, these semis, while clearly needed for the people and the economy, are CHOKING the roads here.  This country could be one of the greatest motorcycling (and traveling in general) environments in the world, but the trucks are so numerous and so toxic that it turns great twisty smooth roads into nightmares straight out of Mad Max (if Mad Max was stuck with one twisty hilly road and there were millions of marauders late for a fight).  All the exhaust even gave me a headache, and I never get headaches, like ever – not even with a hangover.  My head has been pounding all day from sucking that down.

I’ve dealt with congestion and semis, but this is just different.  The type of roads with that level of congestion seems unsustainable to me.

Well anyway, that madness kept up for another X # of km (I don’t know how many, a lot), and I learned my lesson and was far more cautious, but only to a point.  Your choice is to stay behind the truck and gulp its noxious emissions forever (because you’ll NEVER find a passing lane) or to sprint past it in a sudden burst.  I had a lot of sudden bursts, but was more under control.

The last half of the ride was pretty good – I never thought I’d say this, but I was happy to have some straight shots where I could go 6o mps for a while and get some wind blowing.  I stopped about 60 km outside of Bogota to wait out a rain storm, and I was thinking I was almost there – I mean, 36 miles?  That’s nothing.  Right?

Wrong.  Never think that in Colombia.  That 36 miles took me almost an hour and a half, and that’s not because I was stuck in traffic jams and lights (although there were plenty of those) – that’s just how slow you have to go even when riding hard here.  I couldn’t believe it when the city streets started with about 20 miles to go – it’s hard to tell how big and sprawly a city of 8 million + (metro area of 11 million +) is without the high-rise density that we see in US cities – it goes on forever.  20 MILES of congested city streets of 3 lanes, no rules and all kinds of competition.  The cars are actually pretty mellow and work well with the motos – it’s rather amazing to see.  No road rage, no honking, no bird flipping. It’s kinda beautiful.  But the motos?  Like some crazy attack in a Lord of the Rings war.  And the buses?  The colectivos?  Ok, these things don’t act like regular dopey buses, and they don’t have regular stops – they just jerk the wheel to the right whenever they see someone raise their hand.  So look out.

So I finally arrived at the hotel exhausted but feeling pretty good.  Kind of accomplished.  It wasn’t until having some dinner later when it all started to sink in a little bit.  Riding here is hard.  Apparently, you can get used to it because millions of people are riding motos all over the place, and in small doses it’s fine, even enjoyable.  It takes total focus, and you get to drive in a way that would get you thrown in jail in the US, so that’s kinda cool.  But trying to do long distance touring here is not easy.  And it’s not the hard part that brings it down – it’s the semis and everything that comes with them – diesel exhaust, excessively slow speeds, and unconcerned wide turns in blind corners.

But I learned a ton today.  I know how to slide into the rhythm of the flow better now.  And I was rewarded with a great night in Bogota in the end.  Nice and cool, great hotel.  And this city is really fantastic.  It’s like a gritty European city.  But it’s got some really pretty tree-lined neighborhoods, and people are everywhere.  Incredibly safe feeling. I saw single women walking around, families, older couples, younger groups – everyone out just enjoying the city.  And a great sandwich at Azahar coffee – awesome place.

What fruit SHOULD look like. So much more fun.

Tomorrow I just enjoy the city with an off day.  Walk everywhere and check a few things out.

Oh, I stopped into the grocery for some fruit.  So cool seeing the ugly fruit.  I wish our fruit looked like real fruit and not like something that Martha Stewart handpicked out of her garden.

I’m exhausted.  A lot of other stuff happened today, but maybe I’ll fill you in tomorrow. Did I mention that Bogota is super rad?

Oh, and one last last thing. I had a little Bogota miracle when I got here.  I got to the room and could not find my earbuds.  Now, keep in mind that I researched the SHIT out of these and ordered 4 pair before landing on these – it’s hard to find an earbud you can wear for 8-10 hours in a helmet, and I found THE one.  Also, I am using that for my soul source of GPS, which in a country without a straight line is critical.  Anyway, they were nowhere to be found.  I called the front desk, nope.  So I retraced my steps back down the service elevator to the garage and one of the ladies came out of the office holding them up.  The relief!!!  They had landed in the GARBAGE when I took off my coat in the basement.  I needed a little pick me up, and the travel gods gave it to me…