Bogota 3/10/11
We left for Bogota at 10:30am. Going to be a long day!

Great thing about riding in Colombia: Motorcycles don't pay tolls. Every toll station has a tiny lane on the far right for motorcycles and bicycles.


Ate lunch next to a picturesque river.



After a grueling 9 hours of riding, we arrived in Bogota.

We had planned to meet with Ronald (Colombian we met on the boat, lives in Bogota), so we gave him a call once we hit the city. "Oh, you're 4 hours away. Better find a hotel!". Bogota is an ENORMOUS city. Ronald says it has 12 million people and takes 4 hours to cross by car.

We searched and searched, but Bogota is so sprawling it took forever to find anything remotely reasonable. It always seems like it's the really long days where we had this trouble. Eventually we found a place to stay for $20,000, and we collapsed into sleep.

Next day we decided to ride around Bogota to see the city. Not really a great idea. Bogota is so huge and sprawling we rode around for hours without seeing anything interesting. Just an eternal sprawling metroplex. It is very clean and cool, but reminded us too much of Houston back home.

When we were stopped at a stoplight, waiting for it to turn green, a man approaches us. "I found this screwdriver on the road, I don't need it. You have it."

Since I had just lost my toolkit a few days before I was very excited. What a nice guy. Just long enough to adjust that pesky carb calibration screw too.

We were supposed to meet Ronald that day in the Simon Bolivar plaza, so we headed that way. The plaza is very beautiful, very European, but somewhat irritating to hang out in. Every two minutes somebody will approach you asking for money or offering to sell you something.



On the plus side, there are many little vendors selling interesting Colombian treats.

It's called Obleas. Two big paper-thin wafer cookies filled with cream, lecherita, crushed peanuts, cheese and fruit. Delicious.
We waited for two hours. Apparently Ronald had missed the last bus into the center. Damn! I guess we'll be finding a hostal.

... or not. After an hour of riding around we found the historical area with all the hostals. Unfortunately in the hostals it would be $40,000 for the two of us, and this was just too expensive. We settled on a hotel 3 blocks away, for $15,000 for the both of us, private bathroom.


Next day we did a little run around to take some pictures of Bogota. It grew on me during our stay downtown. Quite a beautiful city, just too big for it's own good.


Park close to downtown:


We met up with Ronald and his girlfriend and did the tourist thing. Museums!

Museum of gold:



Museo de la florero (flower vase): Colombian indepence was sparked by an argument over this flower vase.

The locals asked to borrow the vase for a dinner, knowing the request would be refused, and the Spanish government official refused. The vase was broken, a fight broke out and the Colombian revolution began.

Random museum of the HJCK radio station. It's free! Why not?


Their original record player, I love record players, I miss mine.

We could have spent days doing all the Museums in downtown Bogota. There are tons.

The ninja on the streets of Bogota:


Police motorcycle.

Suzuki Freewind 650. Never heard of it before, but it's a cool one. They also use DR650s and GS500e´s. I love police motorcycles down here!


I gave Ronald a ride on the motorcycle and we bid our friends goodbye.

That night we met the other hotel guests, a group of 5 Colombian military. They were all in town to collect their government disability benefits. One was missing a finger and had been shot in the leg, one had been hit by lightening while on patrol and his heart was connected to a battery on his belt. They were all our age or younger. We chatted for hours. Talked about music, culture and the guerilla. One of them showed us some pretty ghastly videos on his phone. Interesting night, but the talking lasted so long it was too late to grab any real dinner. We settled on empanadas and arepas down the street, which can be found at any time of day.

Next day we left for Cali, Colombia, the third large city of Colombia. On the way out we took a little detour to the kawasaki dealership to find an oil filter. Had to pay OEM prices, but since the filter hadn't been replaced in 3 oil changes I didn't care. Just happy to have found one. We also came across a little outdoor market with a guy selling tools, and I began to rebuild my tool kit.

Our little detour took up a good part of the day, so we didn't get very far on the road towards Cali. We spent the night in Fasafasuga, two hours away. Nice hotel for $20,000.

Bogota was high, but we'd be going even higher. Within a few hours we were in the clouds once again.


Crazy low visiblity up there in the clouds.