The 254 miles from Monteria to Medellin looked straightforward enough. Unfortunately, when it comes to roads, nothing is straight in Colombia and our motorcycling is extremely tough. Whilst the scenery is stunning, we have no photos for there’s no laybys, no photo stops, no opportunity. It’s all about making progress. It’s not a holiday.

The sting in the tail for this ride was the ‘Monstrous Mountains of Medellin’ after 150 miles, just when we were looking forward to the finish. 16,500 feet of ascent and 11,000 feet of descent before we entered the multi lane carraigeway that cuts through the city. It’s a bit like driving into Glasgow I thought 🙂

It was dusk and I was already at the limits of my endurance and, like the rest of the country, there’s no lane discipline, no consideration for others and absolutely no road sense. That may be a sweeping statement but it’s 100% true!

I have worked out the outside lane is probably the safest to progress. Inside lane is for carts, donkeys, banana sellers, stationary buses and those lost to this world. Middle four lanes were just a cacophony of crisscrossing vehicle madness.

Even in my optimum choice of outside lane, motorcycles would pass us on the offside, inches from the central concrete barrier. If I moved too far to the outside to stop these crazy overtakes then a car would squeeze alongside me in my lane. It’s not for the faint hearted. You must keep moving fast. Keep making progress.

As we approached a road toll station the six lanes divided into 12. It became a stationary sea of thousands of motorcycles, cars and gigantic trucks. As we waited in a mayhem of a queue, trying to edge our way to the motorcycle lane, a gigantic truck rear ended us. Now I won’t exaggerate, it was more of a kiss, a nudge than a hit. The bike jumped forwards a little and I managed to keep it upright. I was reassured that Susan wasn’t going to hit the ground this time. We were so tightly packed with vehicles all around she would likely roll onto a car bonnet.

Susan kept calm, said we were okay, it’s fine, let’s keep going. There it was again that angel in my head, I mean my intercom, cutting through my ranting and raving at the truck driver. I’m not sure the truck driver could hear a word I said and not even sure he knew he had hit us from his lofty cab position in the fading light. So we moved on. This was not a place to stop and assesses the situation. This was a time to get out of the bloody situation! So we did. We kept making progress.

Eight hours and 50 minutes after our departure from Monteria with only 50 minutes of breaks, we reached our destination. You will be tired of hearing about how tired we were but we were. We were tired.

No ‘first class bell boy’ this time to help us with the luggage from the underground car park. Only me. You see we have a fair division of work – Susan sorts out the check-in and I do everything else. Susan says it’s fair and who am I to doubt her judgement?

Once the panniers were in the room and without getting changed I went out on the Friday night streets of Medellin in search of beer and water. It’s so so hot walking in heavy motorcycle goretex trousers and boots in 30c. However, I have come to realise over the years I unparalleled stamina if beer is my goal.

Our hotel was in the middle of a nightlife hotspot and it was jumping with bars, music and party time people. I had swapped road mayhem for night life mayhem. I’m quite sure people looking at me thought I was dressed up for some wierd club scene. Then again, perhaps they really just saw an old man desperately looking for beer.

There were police everywhere and none of them knew where I could get beer. Friendly and nice to the desperate old man but they lacked beer intelligence. I was on my own. No help from my brothers in arms.

Eventually I stumbled on a grocer shop, bought beer and water then walked 20 minutes up a steep hill to get back to the hotel. As I crawled into our room dragging the carrier bag of beer and water I was greeted by Susan refreshed after a nice shower. I told you this division of labour worked out well!

That night dinner was a takeaway Domino’s pizza. Oh I know, half way across the world and it’s Domino’s pizza. However, we were busted. Again. And needs must.

Leaving Cartagena, after three days rest, we finally started travelling south. As usual, the roads were relentlessly winding and Colombia threw in a few million potholes to keep me focused on the road. You can miss the majority of potholes but some are unavoidable and the bike clatters each crater very hard. I try to give Susan warning but sometimes it’s quite a surprise to her. She takes each shuddering well. I do think it’s a testament to my good riding that she hasn’t lost any fillings. Yet!

Of more concern to me are the sleeping policemen. No not the ones I used to work with (sorry for that pun) but the speed bump ones. Every small village, every small town, every place the school bus stops, every bridge, every marketplace, every ….. You get the jist – they’re every bloody where! I estimate we bump over 60-80 each day.

Some are yellow, some are not. Some are obvious, some are not. They never work alone and each one requires slowing down to first gear. I kid you not I’ve even experienced them on 80 kmph roads before a corner and on a dual carraigeway just over the brow of a hill. Treacherous.

Our first stop after Cartagena was Monteria. We had booked into the fancy GHL Hotel and arrived hot, absolutely knackered and emotional. Just another day on the bike in Colombia.

The hotel was attached to a shopping mall on a very busy street with no parking out front. I wasn’t in a ‘wonder what I’ll do’ mood (remember I’m hot, absolutely knackered and emotional) so I ran the bike straight up the nicely paved guest area immediately outside the front glass doors. I mean immediately outside.

Unfortunately, my confrontational mood was completely disarmed by a member of staff. I had just put down the kickstand and was looking for the person who was going to say “you can’t park here, sir” when ‘first class bell boy’ magically appeared, smiling with two glasses of iced water!

He didn’t even show any emotion when Susan dragged off her helmet, hair everywhere, red sweating face looking like she had been wrestling a bear in a sauna. Yes, it was like a scene from Halloween but ‘first class bell boy’ kept smiling through it all. What a trooper!

He then guided Susan to reception where she sat down and now had a cool flavoured drink. I’ve no idea what it was because I was still outside in the heat dealing with the panniers. As long as Susan is okay in the cool who really cares about me? Well I tell you, ‘first class bell boy’ did!

I may have been temporarily abandoned by Susan who was only caring about herself and her cool unknown flavoured drink but ‘first class bell boy’ took the panniers inside and then jumped on to the back of my bike. “I will guide you to the parking” he said as he tapped me on my shoulder and said “lets go”.

He guided me around the back of the shopping mall where parking guy sorted me into my personal spot. Honestly, with this level of service from ‘first class bell boy’ for a fleeting moment, just a fleeting moment, I considered leaving Susan and her cool unknown flavoured drink, riding on and heading for Ushuaia with ‘first class bell boy’. Wouldn’t you?

We then anticipated the issue of getting the heavy panniers back to the bike in the shopping mall car park the following morning. Do you know the solution? Of course you do! – ‘first class bell boy’ changed his shift and started an hour early to assist.

That night we had a cocktail on the rooftop bar as the sun set. A toast to ‘first class bell boy’. May all your bell boys be ‘first class’.

I’m starting from the end of this story because it’s Cartagena, a pleasant and a happy place for us. It took three days motorcycling from Villa de Leyva to reach Cartagena. From Bogota northwards it was our journeys end. It’s also the start our journey south to Ushuaia.

Our journey north to Cartagena was rough, tough and at the of each day Susan had had enough. Rough, tough, enough.

The humidity and heat increased significantly as we journeyed. The roads rose and fell, turned and twisted unrelentingly. Each new day easily became the new hardest day I’ve ever motorcycled.

On day two, we travelled 163 miles from Villa del Leyva through the Chicamocha Canyon (deeper than that big canyon in Colorado). 163 miles in eight hours with only two short rest stops (totalling 33 minutes). Official speed limit for the majority of the route was 20mph and we curved over a thousand bends and overtook several hundred very slow moving heavy lorries.

You may ask yourself why didn’t ‘bif’ stop and rest. Well the road was narrow and off tarmac it was rutted uneven soil. No place to put down a motorbike kickstand. When a suitable place did appear we had inevitably just overtaken a dozen heavy lorries and we just could not let them back in front. We just had to go on. It was tortuous.

Our second rest stop at the bottom of the canyon was only 20 miles from the finish. I bought Susan an ice cream to lift her spirits and I can genuinely say I didn’t laugh when she had difficulty eating the ice cream because her hands were shaking. She got more on her nose than in her mouth. Oh I know another story where everyone thinks ‘oh poor Susan’. It’s okay though for as I watched her banging the ice cream off her nose I thought of a solution – next time I’m buying her an ice lolly! I’m a compassionate ideas factory.

It’s not to say I was standing at the garage without my own problem. You see as we were leaving Villa del Leyva I clicked a switch on the bike to adjust the electronic suspension. A warning sign came up saying the suspension was knackered (that’s not a BMW technical term) and to drive to the nearest BMW garage! Jeez there is only a handful of such garages in the whole of South America!

Well I had two options – deal with it or ignore it. This big brave man decided to ignore it. So as I watched the ice cream dripping off ‘oh poor Susan’s’ nose I had my own issue at the back of my mind – 17,800 miles to go and our suspension was not happy with our luggage, Susan and big lardy boy.

Once we reached Bucaramanga we checked into a nice hotel and, the following day, set off hoping for better things. What happened next made me nearly cry. Big lardy cry baby with broken suspension.

We followed the sat nav out the city. Actually we have two sat navs working at the same time. Now you’ve got to understand these city roads are chaos and once you miss a turn the sat nav should try to get you back on the right road. Or it could just find you a new route altogether. Well that’s what the bloody sat navs working in concert did. Big lardy cry baby lost with broken suspension.

I knew we were in trouble when we motorcycled high into the Bucaramanga mountainside right into a favela. That’s a very working class area where two gringos really shouldn’t be taking a big expensive bike. Luckily I wasn’t wearing my Gucci leather motorcycle outfit today.

The favela is built on a mountainside and consequently the roads are say 12 feet wide and sloping 25 – 35 degrees. I’m being conservative. They’re steep. Very steep. After forcing the bike up a few short steep streets I stopped and asked a local woman if the way ahead was clear. ‘Moto roadeo alongo’ I shouted in my best Spanish whilst gesturing up the hill. I told you I was a language melting pot. ‘Si si ‘ she replied and gestured up the hill. It was dry rutted mud and I ‘gunned’ the bike up the short slope and stopped on the first bit of flat ground (6 foot by 8 foot) I had seen in ages.

I looked at the onward road. It was like a blinking goat track tracing its way on a mountainside. I wish I had had the presence of mind to take a photo because honestly you would say ‘fu*k me’. Yes I’m sure locals on their scooters can scoot along it but certainly not this bike with our luggage, Susan and lardy boy!

I should apologise at this point for the profanities. However, I feel I need to convey, as much as I can, my feelings. And at this time I wasn’t thinking ‘golly gosh look at the road ahead’. No I was thinking what the fu*k am I going to do now?’

Right at this time, the voice of an angel entered my head. Actually, it was Susan on the intercom. ‘ Shall I get off’. Yup she was right we had to do a 24 point turn and head back down. The woman at the bottom saw us return and shrugged her shoulders. I know what she was thinking ‘grande wimpo gringo’!

One narrow escape. You would think we then got it sorted and that’s the end of the story. Well no. For it got worse!

Susan suggested looking at Google Maps. Yes that’s a good idea. Susan was being calm in a storm whilst I was crumbling. Maybe Google can give us an alternative way out of this favela helter skelter.

‘Turn left’ said Susan sitting on the back looking at her phone. I did. I was then committed to a 35 degree downhill. More profanities. We reached the bottom. ‘Turn right’ Susan said. What was in front of me was a two foot rain ditch across our path and the road I was to turn right onto was two foot wide. Even if I was stupid enough to try to force the bike over the ditch I would continue in someone’s front room.

I braked to a halt, struggling to keep the bike upright, with Susan behind me so high up she looked like she was sitting on my shoulders.

‘Shall I get off’ – there it was agajn, the voice of an angel in my head telling me the next thing to do. ‘Yes’ I squeaked.

Susan took command whilst I sat on the bike, gripping the brakes, trying not to pee myself.

Susan approached a young lad sitting in a nearby delivery van and asked for help. The young lad couldn’t move because his job was to sit on the footbrake as the handbrake wasn’t enough to hold the vehicle. I told you it was steep! When an ‘old delivery guy’ got back they found some rocks to put under their rear wheels and came to help.

Between the four of us we turned the bike to face up the hill. I’ve no idea how we did it without the bike falling over and if it had I’m sure we would have needed a winch to get it up again.

Then the ‘old delivery guy’ asked us to follow him and he led us out of the favela to a main road and our route out the city. We gave ‘old delivery guy’ a sizeable tip and he hugged and kissed us both and then blessed us for the journey ahead. Thank you ‘old delivery guy’.

Anyway, that’s some of the happenings on our way to Cartagena and I’m going to end back at our happy place. Here’s an actual photo of our ’boutique hotel’ and it’s ‘shabby chic’ look.

Cartagena for 3 nights. Bike parked up for 3 days. Suspension error code firmly buried in the sand. Susan back to eating ice cream like a grown up. Everything’s good.

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 ……

So we arrived in Bogotá and stayed in a small hotel near the airport. Our first issue was getting the third member of our party out of customs – yes I’m talking about the bike. To assist we engaged ‘Cargorider’ – a local agency that sorts through the myriad of local customs forms and procedures.

That said, it really wasn’t our first issue. Our first issue was Susan having altitude sickness. You see Bogotá is 8,612 feet above sea level and the air is noticeably thinner. I manned up but Susan felt sick with headaches and grumped at me a lot. To be honest I didn’t notice much of a difference 🙂 Happily it passed after a couple of days and she was back to her usual self.

Back to more important things – the bike! Everyone at Cargorider was very nice and helpful but that didn’t stop me from having to sit in the customs administration building with this view for 10 hours over 2 days.

Then it was over to the freight terminal where Susan relaxed as if she was sitting poolside whilst I did all the hard work.

Eventually the bike was out and back to the hotel where they had a nice caged entrance to keep it safe.

For the next couple of days we aclimitised and went on walking tours of the city. It’s such a lovely city and everyone was friendly. I even managed to get the local police to take Susan off my hands for a few hours whilst I went for a few quiet beers.

I was rather nervous taking this photo and talking to the ‘agentes de policia’ for I had in my possession a plastic bag of white powder! I know what you’re thinking – 4 days in and already Susan has driven me to some ‘cocaina’. Let me explain.

Susan uses milk subsititutes – you know the junk they mix with water and call it milk – oats, almonds, soya etc. In Colombia it’s hard to find that stuff in hotels and coffee shops so she has coffee ‘creamer’ in a plastic bag. I carry it in my man bag. I’m the ‘milk mule’.

However, we all know about police jumping to obvious conclusions based on flimsy evidence suported by a suspicious mind and a sixth sense for bad guys. Well I’m a white dude with a man bag on holiday in Colombia with a plastic bag of white powder. If it takes two days to get my bike out of customs I reckon I’m going to spend a month in jail whilst the milk powder is analysed! Keep your fingers crossed I don’t get searched!

Later that day, whilst on a walking tour, we experienced a 6.1 earthquake. The epicentre was about 100km away and all buildings were evacuated.

I recognised the same side to side wobbly feeling we had experienced in New Zealand a few years ago. You know the feeling – when you’re over a certain age, you’re in the pub drinking, you’ve been sitting too long and you decide to use the facilities. Legs are a bit shaky, you use the table for balance and within a few steps it’s all over. That’s just like a small earthquake. Susan said it was the first time the earth has moved for her in years!

On our final day in Bogotá we went on a food tour and sampled many local delights. Usual South American food stuff like strange fruit, empenadas, tamales etc. However, we also had the opportunity to try some Capivara, a delicacy in northern Colombia. What’s a Capivara you may ask? Well let me help your enquiring mind with a photo of a taxidermy model provided by the restaurant.

Yup that fella is a Capivara, the largest member of the rodent family. Essentially, the restaurant was offering us a bit of barbequed rat meat.

Most of the tour group wimped out and gave it a miss but Susan reckoned it couldn’t be any worse than my cooking so we both jumped right in. What did it taste like? A bit like pork with a slight fishy aftertaste. It was more of an eating experience than a pleasant mouthful.

Susan takes the lead in most of interactions with the locals as the vast majority of Colombians don’t speak any English. It’s a great benefit that Susan has been learning Spanish for the past year and she makes a good effort. Myself, I’m kind of a language nomad – whatever country I’m in I throw in a random phrases like merci or danke schon. I’m just one big language melting pot. I get caught up in the enthusiasm of everyone speaking a foreign language and don’t want to miss out. Comprende?

My biggest issue here is replacing gracias (Spanish) with grazie (Italian). I think I get away with it and they think I’m Italian. Unfortunately, Susan is now inadvertently copying me. I’m sure when we leave this hotel the staff will say ‘they were a nice Italian couple’ 🙂

So that’s a short summary of our time in lovely shoogly Bogotá. It’s not like the narcos movies and a lot has changed in the last 20 years. It may never be a city you feel a need to visit but Susan and I thoroughly enjoyed our time. Bogotá is ‘molto bene’!

Our path to Bogota was a 6am red eye flight from London with a connection at Madrid. The motorcycle was making its own way via airfreight. All very easy you may think for a couple of seasoned travellers like Susan and me. You would think so?

We had no checked luggage and our first issue was passing through the security gate boarding pass scanner. Using electronic boarding passes on our phones, we were rejected several times. Eventually, we accept the advice from the machine and contacted a British Airways assistant. She got on her computer, sorted out some visa questions and said we were good to go. Back to the scanner.

I breezed through, scan, photo, in a competent confident manner and waited on Susan. Scan scan scan – she couldn’t get through. Even after some good advice and tut tutting from myself she still couldn’t get through. It was embarrassing for me and I rolled my eyes when the security guard beckoned her over to his computer.

He checked her boarding pass and I looked over his shoulder and I could see a page full of attempts to scan. I rolled my eyes again. ‘How many times have you scanned this?’ he asked. ‘Just a few’ she replied. Just a few? – the guy had obviously never seen so many attempts. Regardless, he sorted it and she was allowed through. Thank goodness. It was a bit too early for Susan to quit this adventure.

As we were about to board the plane at the gate and pass through the final security check I again brought up the boarding pass on my phone. Actually I had 2 passes – Susan’s and my own! You see I always download both passes to my phone and transfer Susan a copy.

As realisation was dawning on my face Susan was reading my thoughts telepathically. There was no denying it and I had to confess, ‘I think I’ve scanned myself through the first security barrier as you’. There were now two Susans about to board this plane! Susan was not amused!

I briefly considered trying the same again to make it all balance up. There’s some logic to it – 2 Susans through the Security Barrier and 2 Susans board the plane. Nice and neat.

Fortunately, I found some commonsense and, at the next barrier, I scanned my own boarding pass and it took my photo. Did it stop me and ask how I got through security to the boarding gate? Did it ask Susan why her photo had changed from a man to a woman? Of course it didn’t and we both walked smoothly onto the plane like the competent travellers we pretend to be 🙂

On the flight from Heathrow to Madrid we were flying business class on short haul. At 0645hrs Susan went right up in my estimation. She was the only passenger on the whole plane that ordered alcohol! ‘Coffee for me’ I asked followed by ‘Bloody Mary for me please’ from Susan! It may only have been one small miniature vodka but that deserves some holiday respect!

So when we landed at Madrid I’m going to lay the blame on Susan’s drinking for what happened next. We landed Terminal 1 and briefly looked at our boarding passes and read Bogota Terminal 4.

We didn’t pre-plan or discuss the transfer from T1 to T4 – we just took it all in our compacent stride. Or maybe I should say my complacent stride. Anyway I had to take charge because after all, Susan had been drinking. So I checked a digital board and it said Bogota T4. Honestly, I think it did. Who are you gonna believe ‘drinking Susan’ or ‘sober Clif’? I ask you?

We had a 2 hour window before the next flight and to get to T4 we had to pass through immigration and board a transit shuttle. Well the immigration queue was at least an hour and that was very optimistic. So I brought all my charm to play on a security guard and talked our way onto an express queue. I didn’t even have to deploy my trump card – my wife has recently had a hip operation and may need a wheelchair. Yes I know I am swinging it using the word ‘recently’ for February but who’s to know.

So we were through the express immigration in a jiffy, passports stamped and downstairs onto the rail shuttle. We were officially in Spain. As we were standing waiting on the shuttle departure ‘drinking Susan’ looked at the boarding passes I had. ‘I think we’re leaving from T1 and not T4’ she said without slurring even though she had been drinking.

Now by this time my confidence was shot because I, technically, may be still travelling as a Susan so when the real Susan called for us to jump off the train I did so without question, holding the doors open as they closed on us.

So there we were in Spain and needed to get back through immigration, to T1, and leave Spain. I approached a Border Guard, explained our predicament. He referred me to his handsome young sergeant and with professional ease we were escorted back out of Spain and our passport stamps cancelled. I’m currently writing to the Guinness Book of Records for consideration for an award for the shortest entry-exit to a country.

After the sergeant (handsome young man) got us through the border he asked to see our boarding passes. He said we needed to ask the Info Desk downstairs as to how to get to T4 for our Bogota flight. Even he was wrongly reading the boarding pass – it appears it’s an easy thing for a handsome guy to do!

After all that myself and drinking Susan settled into our 10 hour flight to Bogotá. By this time I needed a drink or two myself. Hola.