We left Bogotá to head north to Cartagena. If we were going to travel the length of South America it would be nice to start near the top. ‘Shortcut Susan’ would be quite happy to start south from Bogotá but I have principles about the inconsequential things in life.

So this is our route for the first four days – Bogotá, Villa de Leyva, Bucaramanga, Mompos to Cartagena.

A nice easy start to our adventure. Or so we thought!

Here’s us happy as Larry leaving our Bogotá hotel.

That’s Susan with her personal chauffeur for the next 18,000km or so. She’s a lucky woman! ‘Onward we go Bif’ she shouted in the intercom and tapped me on the shoulder. I released the clutch, accelerated and we were off. South America here we come!

Susan didn’t call her personal chauffeur James, Jeeves or any other stereotype chauffeur name. She called me ‘Bif’. That’s fine I thought, it’s a rather macho name and I quite took to it. It has a nice ring to it. Watch out South America here comes Bif with a Bike I thought. It was only a couple of days later she told me it stood for ‘Bast*rd in front’. We’ve now reverted back to Clif 🙂

Three hours after our happy start we had only travelled five measly miles. The traffic jams were astoundingly horrendous. In all honesty I must have made over a thousand start stops and essentially walked the bike out of Bogotá. It was completely exhausting.

Actually, Bogotá is the third most congested city in the world after Istanbul and Moscow. Kiev used to be third but I guess there’s not so much traffic there just now.

As soon as we cleared the jam we stopped at a service station.

Susan is still looking fresh but its all downhill from here as the heat and humidity took its toll. She doesn’t cope with the heat at the best of times but wrap her up in a goretex suit, gloves and a helmet, push the heat up to 36c and it’s meltdown.

A few hours later, as we reached Villa De Leyva and, at the end of our endurance, we realised it was a holiday weekend. The place was utterly and completely congested. To be fair, Columbia has 23 holiday weekends a year so it’s difficult to avoid them all.

Roads were closed, junctions were gridlocked and our satnav went into a spiral trying to find our hotel. Even open roads were thronging with pedestrians. To make matters worse for the bike the roads were paved with uneven boulders. Our route ahead:

We realised we had to turn around. Not an easy task on a heavy bike on such a surface. The balance is so so precarious. Luckily we had the assistance of a small girl for she walked in front of the bike, I braked, the front wheel turned on a cobble and we hit the ground. Thump!

Well to be correct it was more of a ninja like step off for me, a slow fall for the bike and a bit of a thump for Susan.

Thankfully we were only travelling 3-4 mph and as the bike fell I was able to step off. I tried to hold it up but when you know it’s going down you know it’s going down and a former pen pusher like me isn’t going to defy Mr Gravity.

Susan hit the ground. Thump. Her helmet bashed off the bloody big cobbles. Graze. Left leg was trapped under the bike. Wailing. At such a traumatic moment, I really couldn’t hear myself think with all the noise she was making over the intercom.

As I tried to stop the bike making an automatic emergency call, the onlookers lifted the bike and Susan. Thankfully the bike was okay and Susan was fine as well.

After such a long day, Susan had enough motorcycling and decided to walk the last few hundred metres to the hotel. ‘I’m walking Bif’ was the last words I heard as she marched off into the crowd.

With less weight on the bike and no Susan to tell me to go slow I managed to fly along the cobbles, used a few flat pavements and reached the hotel first. That will teach her to get off and walk!

After a quick check in and shower we headed out and my beer senses led me to a bar that sold pints! Pints of IPA in Colombia! Result.

Here’s a photo of Susan shortly thereafter to prove she was okay. Honestly I’m not holding her up.

And hear’s me back to being as happy as Larry.

All’s well that ends well for we all know what Chumbawamba said ……

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