and 2: give us your finger prints if you want to exchange any money.
That night we met up with Erin and Kevin, another couple from Victoria doing a similar trip. The next morning we headed off to the Girag Shipping office to get our bikes.
This ended up being an all day affair- easily the longest bike importing procedure to date. Finally after nearly nine hours of waiting and run arounds, the Oompa Loompa from the new Willy Wonka movie signed the last of the paper work. 
Success! 
Gimme my damn bike back!
Before leaving on this trip I had not intended on riding the bikes through Colombia. I was under the impression that it was too dangerous. But talking to people all along the way, we were told how amazing and secure the country was- as long as you stay on your toes. The assassination teams in the country almost always used to work from motorcycles. They would ride 2 per bike- 1 driver and 1 shooter. So because of this, everyone on a motorbike has to have their license plate info printed on their helmet and wear a special vest containing the same information for identification purposes. 
There is a huge military presence everywhere you go. We usually didn't go more than 10 or 15 minutes without driving through a military check point, and, because we didn't have the proper vest and helmet info we stuck out like a sore thumb and were pulled over and questioned a number of times.
The next morning the 4 of us set out for the 1000km drive north to the coast city of Santa Marta. We had some beautiful rides on cool mountain roads,
being broken up only by bagged water breaks,
and the occasional sighting of the rare Colombian pig-dog.
It took 3 days to get to Santa Marta.
My good friend Javier from Whistler is from this city and was kind enough to put us in touch with his folks. They run a great hotel right in the central plaza, only steps away from the ocean. And to top it off, they invited us in and let us stay for free. They are wonderful people and were an incredible help while we were there. Thank you!!
Just a little outside of Santa Marta is a National Park named Parque Tayrona that we went to visit. It was really sweet.
After one last night we said good-bye to Javier's parents and headed to Cartegena. The best way I can describe Cartegena is it would be an amazing city if no one was there. It's the coolest looking city with awesome history to it.
But it has become so over run with tourism it just got annoying. Tons of people, non-stop, just kept on coming up and hassling you- trying to sell you shit. That got real old, real quick. But as I said, the city to look at- wow.
One thing we didn't get was how they had bushes lining some of the streets for aesthetics, but then had them caged in???
After another 2 days of driving we arrived in Medellin, once the cocaine cartel capital of the world. Due to the bajillions of dollars that have flowed through this city from drugs, I expected it to be a very nice, wealthy, clean city. This was not the case. It was easily my least favourite place in the country. Bit of a disappointment. This statue in one of the main plazas was blown up in a suicide bomb.
A new one was built beside it but the remains of the original were left for people to remember those who were killed. Pretty crazy.
In some cities you see homeless people sleeping on park benches. Not in Medellin.
For the one night we were there we spent our time drinking the local specialty coffee
and bouncing around from patio to patio.
We split from Erin and Kevin the next morning because I had to get back to Bogota to pick up my video camera which was being fixed.
We try to drive at night time as little as possible. But after getting a late start from Medellin, our journey back to Bogota put us into the city well after dark. When we arrived at the place where we were trying to crash, it turns out they were filming a movie in the hotel.
We went to go check in and it turns out it wasn't that great of a place. **Here's where our already long day went from bad to worse.** We keep all of our tools and spare parts in a case that looks like a laptop case. As we were reloading our stuff, 3 people crowded around us and started asking questions about the bikes. They were trying to distract us and while we weren't looking, one of them managed to grab the case and get away. Hartt, who is in charge of carrying the case, immediately realized what had happened and went after the people while I stayed to guard our stuff and the bikes. He started yelling at them and because of all the commotion, all the crew working on the movie realized what was going on. They all came running, chasing and surrounding the 2 remaining thieves. Unfortunately the girl with our case was gone but the mob we had created kept the 2 others detained until the police arrived. Once the cops showed up they separated the 2 men and started grilling them. Turns out 1 of them had a criminal record and it wasn't long until 1 ratted the other out. We told the cops we didn't care about pressing charges- we just wanted our stuff back. Loosing the stuff wouldn't have been the end of the world, it just would've been a big pain in the ass to find replacement tools and the very specific parts for the bikes. Eventually they made an agreement that the cops would hold one guy and the other would go to meet the girl and retrieve the case. Half an hour later, it was like something straight out of a movie. Some homeless lady comes meandering up the street and says someone paid her to deliver this case to this intersection. And like that, we had our case back. The system works! We asked the cops what was going to happen to the guy they still had in custody and they said, oh yeah, he's going to jail. Ha ha sucker! We still couldn't believe it. Who gets robbed and gets their stuff back???
We hoped that meant luck was turning around for us. But while looking for a new hotel we still managed to get lost for almost another 2 hours in the city of 8 million people. Needless to say after 10 hours of driving(half in the dark), getting robbed, and getting lost, we were fricken tired at 11:30 when we finally made it to our new hotel.
We spent 2 nights in Bogota again. We had some work done on the bikes, had new front tires put on, and Hartt made a trip to the dentist.
We had another beautiful drive to Cali where we spent 2 nights of crazy fun partying.
We had one more stop on the way to the Ecuador border in a town with really cool old architecture
and at least one crazy death wheelchair ramp.
I cannot say enough good things about Colombia. After originally planning on not even driving through it, I hold it in my mind as one of my very favourite countries I have ever visited. The land is beautiful, the people are unbelievably friendly and the cities have incredible entertainment to offer- bars, clubs, restaurants, museums- you name it. I would go back in a heartbeat.
There is a huge military presence everywhere you go. We usually didn't go more than 10 or 15 minutes without driving through a military check point, and, because we didn't have the proper vest and helmet info we stuck out like a sore thumb and were pulled over and questioned a number of times.The next morning the 4 of us set out for the 1000km drive north to the coast city of Santa Marta. We had some beautiful rides on cool mountain roads,
being broken up only by bagged water breaks, and the occasional sighting of the rare Colombian pig-dog. It took 3 days to get to Santa Marta. My good friend Javier from Whistler is from this city and was kind enough to put us in touch with his folks. They run a great hotel right in the central plaza, only steps away from the ocean. And to top it off, they invited us in and let us stay for free. They are wonderful people and were an incredible help while we were there. Thank you!! Just a little outside of Santa Marta is a National Park named Parque Tayrona that we went to visit. It was really sweet.After one last night we said good-bye to Javier's parents and headed to Cartegena. The best way I can describe Cartegena is it would be an amazing city if no one was there. It's the coolest looking city with awesome history to it.
But it has become so over run with tourism it just got annoying. Tons of people, non-stop, just kept on coming up and hassling you- trying to sell you shit. That got real old, real quick. But as I said, the city to look at- wow. One thing we didn't get was how they had bushes lining some of the streets for aesthetics, but then had them caged in???After another 2 days of driving we arrived in Medellin, once the cocaine cartel capital of the world. Due to the bajillions of dollars that have flowed through this city from drugs, I expected it to be a very nice, wealthy, clean city. This was not the case. It was easily my least favourite place in the country. Bit of a disappointment. This statue in one of the main plazas was blown up in a suicide bomb.
A new one was built beside it but the remains of the original were left for people to remember those who were killed. Pretty crazy.In some cities you see homeless people sleeping on park benches. Not in Medellin.
For the one night we were there we spent our time drinking the local specialty coffee
and bouncing around from patio to patio.We split from Erin and Kevin the next morning because I had to get back to Bogota to pick up my video camera which was being fixed.
We try to drive at night time as little as possible. But after getting a late start from Medellin, our journey back to Bogota put us into the city well after dark. When we arrived at the place where we were trying to crash, it turns out they were filming a movie in the hotel.
We went to go check in and it turns out it wasn't that great of a place. **Here's where our already long day went from bad to worse.** We keep all of our tools and spare parts in a case that looks like a laptop case. As we were reloading our stuff, 3 people crowded around us and started asking questions about the bikes. They were trying to distract us and while we weren't looking, one of them managed to grab the case and get away. Hartt, who is in charge of carrying the case, immediately realized what had happened and went after the people while I stayed to guard our stuff and the bikes. He started yelling at them and because of all the commotion, all the crew working on the movie realized what was going on. They all came running, chasing and surrounding the 2 remaining thieves. Unfortunately the girl with our case was gone but the mob we had created kept the 2 others detained until the police arrived. Once the cops showed up they separated the 2 men and started grilling them. Turns out 1 of them had a criminal record and it wasn't long until 1 ratted the other out. We told the cops we didn't care about pressing charges- we just wanted our stuff back. Loosing the stuff wouldn't have been the end of the world, it just would've been a big pain in the ass to find replacement tools and the very specific parts for the bikes. Eventually they made an agreement that the cops would hold one guy and the other would go to meet the girl and retrieve the case. Half an hour later, it was like something straight out of a movie. Some homeless lady comes meandering up the street and says someone paid her to deliver this case to this intersection. And like that, we had our case back. The system works! We asked the cops what was going to happen to the guy they still had in custody and they said, oh yeah, he's going to jail. Ha ha sucker! We still couldn't believe it. Who gets robbed and gets their stuff back???We hoped that meant luck was turning around for us. But while looking for a new hotel we still managed to get lost for almost another 2 hours in the city of 8 million people. Needless to say after 10 hours of driving(half in the dark), getting robbed, and getting lost, we were fricken tired at 11:30 when we finally made it to our new hotel.
We spent 2 nights in Bogota again. We had some work done on the bikes, had new front tires put on, and Hartt made a trip to the dentist.
We had another beautiful drive to Cali where we spent 2 nights of crazy fun partying.
We had one more stop on the way to the Ecuador border in a town with really cool old architecture
and at least one crazy death wheelchair ramp.I cannot say enough good things about Colombia. After originally planning on not even driving through it, I hold it in my mind as one of my very favourite countries I have ever visited. The land is beautiful, the people are unbelievably friendly and the cities have incredible entertainment to offer- bars, clubs, restaurants, museums- you name it. I would go back in a heartbeat.
