Southern Exposure

Thursday, January 15

We awoke feeling damp, as our hotel air conditioner wouldn’t even have qualified as a swamp cooler. It was cooler and less humid in the open air hallway. We sampled the breakfast buffet, packed our things and headed to the airport in a state of anticipation. We were finally clearing North & Central America and beginning the heart of our trip, South America. Since we had cleared Costa Rica, each new leg of the trip had taken us farther south than either of us had ever been, and now we were headed to a new continent.

We had a particularly nice surprise waiting for us in my email inbox this morning. My father had sent an email to a former colleague and friend who he thought might still be living in Bogotá on the slim chance of us having a contact there. To our great pleasure, his friend, Lew, had replied and was going to help us out. We exchanged emails, and by the time I checked mail from the airport lounge Lew had offered to host us in his home and to call him when we got there. Fantastic!

The flight itself was uneventful, aside from the strangeness of being on an airplane and separated from our motorcycles. We had done so little research on Colombia we were surprised to find ourselves at an altitude of over 8000 ft when we landed in Bogotá. We took a taxi to the Girag offices, which turned out to be mostly unnecessary, as unlike Panama, the freight terminal was hardly a block from the international terminal.

The Girag personnel gave us our paperwork and sent us over to the aduana to clear the bikes with customs. This was a much more civilized process to do at an airport than at a border. The lady who processed our paperwork was very efficient, and even provided free photocopies for us. We thought we were done until she handed our papers off to two seemingly random people who had been sitting in the lounge. They filled out more forms using carbon paper to make duplicates. I don’t really understand what was happening during this step of the process and who these people were, sitting around to fill out forms, but once they were done we signed our papers and were cleared.

Back at Girag we were shown to our bikes, which had made the trip without incident. Hurray! Now the fun began. We had to remove all of the luggage from the bikes again, so that I could reconnect the batteries. I replaced Inna’s blown Starcom fuses while I was at it with new ones I had picked up in Panama City. It took us over an hour to unpack the luggage, reconnect the batteries, bring the tires back up to proper pressure, repack the luggage, and suit up for riding. Although the Girag personnel had told us that bikes go through regularly, they crowded around us watching us work as if we were the first riders to ever go through their system. Perhaps they were just fascinated with Inna. All together the air freight process was very smooth and simple.

Once we were ready to roll, I called Lew and introduced myself. Lew was very friendly and told us we could just sit tight at the airport, he would ride over on his motorcycle and pick us up. How cool was that? Getting a motorcycle escort into Bogotá was a first class reception. Lew turned up to meet us at the gas station a short while later, with his son Jeffrey riding on the back.

We followed him into town and got our first taste of Bogotá traffic. Those people are insane. They are by far the most aggressive drivers we’ve yet encountered on our trip. If they wanted your space in your lane, they would just drift over into the lane until you got out of the way. Sometimes a driver can’t tell which lane is going to end up being faster, so they’ll just drive down the center stripe, blocking everyone behind him, until they finally pick the lane that is a clear winner. More than once I watched Inna get nearly sandwiched between two cars, the most memorable time when it was two small buses. Those drivers are nuts!

Lew took us to the area of shops where they make the special vests, chalecos, that motorcyclists are required to wear in Colombia. During the Escobar era, many people were assassinated by machine gun toting passengers on motorcycles. To help identify the assassins, motorcyclists were required to wear brightly colored vests with the license plate of the motorcycle in reflective lettering on the front and back. They are not required by law for tourists, but not wearing one greatly increases your chances of being pulled over or stopped at a checkpoint to verify your papers. After being stopped and searched ten million times in Mexico, we were happy to wear the chalecos if it would save us hassle.

The chalecos only cost $7 each and we waited while our license plates were stitched onto the vests. We chatted with Lew and Jeffrey, getting to know them a little better. Jeffrey seemed like a great kid who had a lot to say that night. While we were waiting, a guy pulled up on a KTM 950 and introduced himself. He was a local named Raffael who was very into motorcycles and who had a motorcycle and 4×4 shop run out of his garage. He was very interested in our journey and offered to help us out with Inna’s oil leak if we were interested. Lew asked him what his rates were, and he said he’d help us out for free. Amazing. We took his phone numbers and he was off.

Our chalecos were soon done and Lew took us to his home. When we stepped out of the elevator you could hear Inna & I’s jaws hit the floor. It was an absolutely stunning home. It occupied the entire floor and was immaculately decorated with art from around the world. Lew gave us the quick tour and introduced us to his charming wife Jennifer, who was a native of Colombia.

Since it was already a bit late, we quickly cleaned up and sat down for dinner. Jennifer had just returned from a business trip in Brasil, and was in the mood for home style cooking. Inna had just been telling me how much she was craving a good soup, and as our luck would have it, that is what Jennifer had in mind. It was a traditional Columbian soup that had chicken broth as its base. Served separately were pieces of sweet potato, regular potato, avocado, corn, two kinds of meet, and a few other ingredients I can’t remember now that we added to our bowl of broth. The soup really it the spot.

After dinner, we chatted for a bit and I played a few songs of Guitar Hero with Jeffrey before retiring to bed. Inna and were tired from a day of travel so we were ready for rest. It had been a remarkable day. Only 24 hours earlier we’d been struggling to find an affordable place to stay in Bogotá and wondering how our bikes would fare in transit. Now we had been taken in to a lovely family home and our bikes were secure downstairs. I know what a relief it was for my parents to know someone was looking out for us in Colombia, as their anxiety level went through the roof when we told them we were going there. We went to sleep counting our blessings.