Wednesday, September 28th.
The Cranky Croc Hostel had run its course, and it was time for me to hit the road. The steed was saddled up with new panniers and top case, and ready to hit the road. Tom and Charlie were about 6-7 days of long riding ahead of me, and I had the urge to catch up.
With nearly new tires on the bike, new sprockets,a new chain, new oil and filter, I was set to go. And so the road burning began. I stopped on the side of the road some hundred miles later, grabbed a coke and a bag of chips, filled up with gas, and took a photo.
Another 100 miles or so, and I was hungry. So I hit up this road side Parilla, and stuffed face on grilled pork and potatoes. Awesome.
These guys spent most of their time trying to flag down other customers. When I arrived, a couple in a car left, and no one else arrived for the 30 minutes I was there.
Then for the next few hours, I hauled more ass to Cali, the destination of the day. With only a far away destination in mind, it made little sense for me to plan any of my nightly accommodations, and instead just stay at the first one that I could find.
Well in Cali, that doesn’t make the best sense. As I found my way into the outskirts of the town it was getting dark, and the first people I asked for hotel recommendations recommended that I get out of the Barrio I was in, and make my way towards the center. Well, I’ll take a locals advice any day when it comes to their city, so with their assistance and a 2-up police escort riding a Dr200, I was directed to the first less then shady hotel.
Well, as we’ve come to be accustomed to, this hotel charged by the hour, and was quite swanky in its own right. It wasn’t cheap but it was clean, safe, across the street from the police station, and had underground parking with a guard.
Well, that night, as I was making my way to the hotel in the middle of Cali, my Vapor Tech Speedometer abruptly turned off. Well, that doesn’t make any sense now does it? With little time to think about it during my police escort to the hotel, I forgot about it until the morning.
When I got to the bike at 7am the next morning ( I had paid for 12 hours, 7pm-7am), I realized my problem again. With no speedometer, or odometer, I was pretty inclined to find and fix the problem on the spot. And so I did exactly that.
You see these little guys? I brought them with me to specifically connect the vapor tech wires should I have a problem with their connection. Well they came into good use!
The power wires of the Vapor Tech had pulled loose from their one time use plug. I had to make new connections with the small gauge wire that I had to work with.
Well, to top it all off, as I was removing the plugs that held the wires together, the two power wires that were connected to my battery made a connection and instantly fried the ground wire into smithereens. Daaaaamn it.
Soon, the bike looked like this.
And I had walked across the street to the ferreteria, bought some speaker wire, and was back in the workshop (garage).
Check out the ground wire!! It fried its coating from the triple tree to the battery. Ugh.
In no time at all however, my new speaker wire had battery contacts wired to it, was routed, connected, secured. The Vapor Tech was back in the game. It only took me 1.5 hours. Damnit.
Thursday September 29th, the next day was up into the mountains, and it was awesome. The roads were great, the traffic was light, and I was making good time.
The bike was doing well also, and I was having a great time. My new luggage was great.
From Cali, I made it all the way to the border of Ecuador, and found myself in a bit of a predicament. It was about 5pm, and about to get dark, and the border system was down. Yep, it had been down since around 11am, and there was a pile up of people to prove it.
So I tried to import my motorcycle. However, as I wasn’t able to yet secure a stamp for myself, I too wasn’t able to import the bike. However, the Migration officer was familiar with these kinds of situations, or so it would seem. There had been a couple of Argentinean bikers that had arrived before me, and he told them the same thing. The border system would likely not fix itself soon, and I was better off riding 5 minutes into Tulcan, the Ecuadorian border town. There, I could spend the night and return in the morning to import both myself and the bike.
Well that sounded better than sitting on my ass and waiting, as many of these people had been doing for the past 8 hours. So I did exactly as suggested, got on the bike, headed into town, asked a few directions, and found a cheap hotel that immediately offered the front hallway as a parking lot for my bike. Deal.
Friday September 30th, the next morning, I was ready to get my bike imported, and get my passport stamped. So I packed up the bike and hit the road for the short hop back to the border. On the way there, I passed by a hotel with large bikes parked outside, and henceforth met the Argentineans.
They were 4 in total, two men and two women riding a late model KLR650, and a Buell Ulysses 1200. The men had ridden solo from Argentina to Colombia, where their wives met them, and they were riding south to where the women would fly to Santiago from Lima while the men would continue the ride home.
I stopped and asked them if they were headed back to the border for the same reason I was. They confirmed, but also told me that the system was still down. They had called and asked. Well. That sucks. See you guys there I guess then? Yep.
Back at the border, it was a waiting game that sucked 3.5 hours from my day. A copy of my exit stamp from Colombia, and a copy of my passport home page (secured from a copier across the street for 10cents a piece) were necessary to manually enter me into the country for a temporary 10 days, which I had the opportunity to increase in Quito if I had the urge. The same went for the bike. Well, that’s fine, I’m hauling ass anyway, and won’t need more than 3 days if all goes as planned.
Well, after getting the paperwork finished, I asked/invited myself into the Argentinean group, and we tore ass out of the border. The Argentineans made traffic look like a joke, and were weaving their 500lb+ motorcycles like mini dirt bikes. Riding with them was a hustle to say the least, but on the open road they slowed through the corners, and keeping up on my DR was no problem.
As it was already nearly noon, Quito was the goal for the day. From Quito, which was only 3-4 hours away, Cuenca or Quayaquil would be a 7-10 hour ride. With luck I might even make the border, a claimed 14 hour bus ride, or 9-10 hours via Google Map.
On the way to Quito, one of the wives made sure we stopped for a photo along the way of a life sized statue of a Mammoth. And so we did. Here I am with the guys.
Along the way, I had been fiddling with my fuel mixture screw, and after a bit of fussing about, my bike was eating miles for breakfast. That was until I saw three huge bikes parked along the side of the highway, one of which had an American license plate. Two Suzuki V-Strom 1000’s, and a BMW F800GS were parked in series, and there were two guys smoking next to their bikes, drinking a
, waving me down.
Well those Argentineans were hauling so much ass that I decided to stop and see what was new and met these guys! If I’m not mistaken ADV’er Captbb is on the far left riding from Alabama on his F800GS.
I was hungry and they were eating lunch. They invited me in, and I had a plate of food too. They had seen the Argentineans haul ass passed the restaurant, and had been wondering where they were from.
Turns out that two of the guys are permanent residents in Colombia, and are of the retired type, while the other Captbb, is on a ride south from Alabama.
Thanks to ADVrider and HorizonsUnlimited, Captbb had already read my ride report. Aaaaawesome.
Well. After lunch, the three guys headed north for the Colombian border, and I headed south for Quito. They told me I would make it there before dark no problem, and so I did.
Entering into the city, I saw the KLR650 on the side of the road, waiting for the Buell. So I pulled over too. Turns out they were looking for directions to the Quito Hotel, where they had reservations. Well, that sounded like a surefire way for me to find the center of a city with well over 2 million inhabitants, so I followed along. Sure enough, after 20 minutes of riding around the perimeter of the city, the Argentine guys asking every other taxi for help, they brought me to the first sign that I recognized, 6 de Deciembre.
The first hostel that Kristi and I stayed at on our first day in Quito over a month ago was on the corner of 6 de Deciembre and Joaquin Pinto. The problem being, 6 de Deciembre is miles long and I had no idea which side of Joaquin Pinto I was on. Oh, yea, and at the time, I didn’t quite remember the name of the cross street. However, when I saw the sign, I gave a quick wave, and took off.
30 minutes later after a lot of looking around, I caught a glimpse of the road side store that fed me for the 4 nights Kristi and I spent in Quito. Just like that I was home for the night.
I had found the Vibes Hostel, and my dorm bed for the night, with secure bike parking, and my favorite food stand on the corner. Done.
Saturday September 31st, found me awake early in the morning, looking at directions to get out of Quito, and if luck would have it, passed the Peruvian border the same day in Piura. I followed the signs for Sur de Quito, quickly found the way out, and was well into the day before I knew it.
Hours later around 10am, I was up in the mountains, and the temps had never really warmed up. I had left my rain liners in from the night before and was glad of it. My heated grips were turned on, and I had zipped my jacket fully to my pants (3/4 zip versus 1/4 zip). This would come in handy later.
Along the road south, I kept seeing dirt roads up in the mountains that looked inviting. However, I had places to be, and I didn’t feel like being sidetracked. So I passed them all except one.
Right to the side of the road was a hilltop tower with an access road, so I hit the brakes, dropped a couple of gears, and ripped up it, fully loaded… And then started sliding backwards… Damn, it was a lot steeper than it looked. Well, the ground was dry, and with little effort I had the bike parked on the hill for the photo.
Here is a view to the south.
And the hill I made it part way up before realizing it would be foolish to keep going. A fully loaded Dr650 with Pirelli MT90 tires (more street than dirt) didn’t really fit the scene well.
And a view north, from where I had came.
Well a while later, it was about 11:45 and I was hungry, so I began looking for the next appetizing road side restaurant. Furthermore, I was closing in on Cuenca, with about 30 minutes to go before I arrived. I decided that rather than stop for lunch in a city of 500,000, I would stop early and blow right through the city. The border to Peru was only 5 hours away, and I could make it before nightfall. Saweet.
Well, that looks appetizing!
And so it was! For less than $3.00 I was munching on roasted pig and choclo, sipping a cold coke. Ecuador is cheap, the roads are good, and the people are nice. I like this country! See the skin that had been sliced off the side of the pig? The woman was slicing the hide into squares, trimming the fat that lined the inside of the skin, piling the squares onto plates, and serving them to some of the customers whom munched away happily. Roasted pig skin didn’t sound as good as roasted pig meat, so I let them have their fun.
I considered going for round two of mister pig, but instead, hit the road. I kind of wish I had, come to think of it, but hind sight is 20/20 right?
30 minutes later. I hit the man. You’ve read the report. He was drunk. He walked out in front of me at the last moment, and KaBloohey! I creamed him. Luckily, he’ll survive, as will I. I walked away (more or less) he was stretchered away. I was lucky I tell you. He was not. Damnit.
That man, lunch, and the roasted pig, were the last thing I remembered before the next thing I remembered. An Oxymoron you think? Only kind of, as about 20 minutes passed between that those two times.
When I “woke up” I was getting into an ambulance. I had my tank bag slung over my right shoulder and my laptop bag in my right hand. I was blindly following directions, speaking only in Spanish, and asking way too many questions. They informed me later that when they had arrived, I already had my tank bag and laptop bag in my hands. Apparently, I collected my most important belongings while “out of commission” and had managed to secure my passports (American and Canadian), money, camera, and laptop. That is what I call a success.
Then I was getting out of the ambulance, walking into the hospital, sitting down on a chair, and generally being in the way of doctors and nurses. Then, people started crying, and I was the subject of tearful questioning.
“WHY?” “HOW?” And, “WHAT HAPPENED?” Were all part of the barrage. I just looked at them sadly, and replied that didn’t know. I couldn’t remember. The doctors and nurses soon pulled away the grieving wife and daughter, and I was left to try and remember what happened, and reason out why my left shoulder hurt the way it did, and why I couldn’t squeeze my left hand.
The nurses and doctor were very nice to me, and one spoke decent English as well, though we conversed 95% of the time in Spanish. I asked the young doctor (in his residency year) to take my photo, and the nurse jumped right in. I was glad she did.
Well, after receiving an X-Ray of my shoulder, being informed that my collarbone was fractured, and receiving a shot for the pain in my shoulder (that helped, but I didn’t really need), the police escorted me to their vehicle and we headed towards the police station.
After arriving, and sitting around for a bit, I was told to follow two guys, which I did. However, it soon became clear a few moments later that they were asking me to park myself in an open air cell that looked like it had never been used, was dirty with trash in the corner, and home to at least one rat/mouse that I watched scurry out of the door/gate as it was opened.
I'm not afraid of sitting on the floor, and I would have probably had a pet mouse by the end of it, but I was not really in the mood at the moment.
I looked at the two police officers in turn, and without even stepping into the room, the following dialogue took place.
“ How long am I meant to stay here?” I asked.
“A few hours,” they said.
I asked them the same thing again.
“Only a few hours,” they said.
“Are you being serious?” I asked.
“Yes, you’ve been in a traffic accident, and you are being temporarily detained for the night as per law,” one said.
“I'm sorry, but I am not staying here. And a NIGHT, my friends, is not the same as A FEW HOURS. I don’t care who you talk to, but I’m NOT SLEEPING HERE,” I said in no uncertain terms.
And that my friends, is how I ended up sleeping inside, on the floor, here. Had I not had my sleeping pad and sleeping bag, I would have been sleeping on the floor with only the blanket for comfort. I was lucky again.
A few hours later found me eating this meal, courtesy of the police officer who brought me food. Although, I’m fairly certain he made off with a couple bucks, as I gave him $6, and I’ve been eating the same meal for $4.5 as of late. He told me it had double meat. Whatever.
Well, the next day, I had a court hearing. Or as they call it here, an Audience. I showed up with two police officers, 30 minutes early, and there I met the prosecuting attorney. We waited for 40 minutes, and my public defender showed up, 10 minutes late, having ridden the bus from Cuenca (30 mins away) to get there. The lawyer of the other party’s family was also there along with the man’s son and nephew.
When my public defender arrived, I made a statement to the prosecuting attorney about what happened during the accident. He suggested that I speak it slowly so that he could type it down. I asked that I be allowed to write it down so he could copy it. And so that is what I did.
It went similar to this, but in more detail.
“I was riding the motorcycle. I saw the man on the side of the road. I thought he was going to wait for me to pass before he crossed the street, but instead, at the very last second, he stepped into my path. I couldn’t do anything about it, I had no alternative path, it was too late, I couldn’t avoid the accident, and I hit him. That was the last thing I remembered until I was sitting in the ambulance.”
My public defense attorney read it to the prosecuting attorney in turn, correcting my ample grammatical mistakes. After typing it up, he printed it out, I read it over, and signed it along with my attorney and the prosecuting attorney.
Next, it was right across the hall to the Judges chamber which we entered, and left after 5-6 minutes. The situation was quickly described to the judge, and I was informed that I was not allowed to leave the country while the pursuant investigation took place, which legally could take as long as 30 days, but which would rather take closer to two weeks.
Well, that was simple. Now I get to wait.
Well, the prosecuting attorney is a nice man and he offered me a ride, along with my attorney, back into town where he would help me collect everything from the police station where I had left it, and take me to a hotel. Well isn’t that convenient and very helpful. Thanks!
And so, after dropping off my attorney for her next appointment, collecting my goods at the police station, and taking me back to his house where his wife fed me (I hadn’t eat at all that day and it was now 2pm), he took me to a cheap hostel where I checked in, and made myself at home.
The Chicago hostel was my home for following two nights. The nights found me sleeping in a bed that was not very comfortable, and the days found me spending most of my time at an internet café 3 blocks away, eating food at a local restaurant, and using public restrooms as my toilet didn’t work. Why didn’t I ask for a different room you ask? Well. It just didn’t matter enough I guess.
The same day I checked in however (Sunday afternoon), I walked across the street to the Hotel Rivera to ask a few questions. The first of which was, “Do you have internet?” To which they answered, yes, of course. I asked the price. $20/night. Can I have a discount for 10 nights? Yes. We can do it for $15/night. Deal. I’ll see you in 2 nights. Thanks!
And so, two nights later, I was in a much cozier room, with a better tv, a working toilet, better shower, nicer bed, a table, a night stand, and wifi. The difference in price was $3/day, which I easily spent at the internet café anyway.
And so, here I sit, enjoying my wifi, (which unfortunately shuts off at 1am, slowing down my movie downloads, dangit) the convenience of a flushing toilet, cheap food around the corner, and as much Animal Planet in Spanish that I could possibly desire.
Oh the joy
All is well over here guys and gals!
Love you Mom and Dad!
--Alex
helps answer the question - Why Go? Inspirational stories by veteran travellers Greg Frazier (5 times RTW), Peter and Kay Forwood (193 countries), Tiffany Coates (Mongolia Mayhem) and Rene Cormier (University of Gravel Roads).
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Ladies on the Loose! For the first time ever, a motorcycle travel DVD made for women, by women! These intrepid women share their tips to help you plan your own motorcycle adventure. They also answer the women-only questions, and entertain you with amazing tales from the road! Presented by Lois Pryce, veteran solo traveller through South America and Africa and author of 'Lois on the Loose', and 'Red Tape and White Knuckles.'
Cotton or synth sweat-wicking t-shirts with the cool Horizons Unlimited graphic on the front and a snappy slogan (changing every year) on the back.
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Motorcycle and travel books to inspire and inform you!
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