I better get back into the writing. A lot has happened, of course, and I am back in snowbound Utah. I had a great Christmas and am looking forward to celebrating the New Year at the Newby's cabin with Megan and Deanna and doing a little snowmobiling. How can it get any better than that. Then back to SA on the 3rd to play with some business deals in Ecuador and Southbound again.

21-Dec-2009

OK. I hope you all believe in star alignment when it comes to life, because I can't explain today any other way. We went back to a little town after making it to Quito and thought we might find a place there to leave my bike. We met a British couple that were very nice there and were trying to help us but it just wasn't working out. So we headed to Quito again.

BTW, we crossed the equator in doing this and had to celebrate. The one pic is of me pouring beer on the bike to christen it into a new hemisphere while chanting, "Equator virgin, no more". I also got beer poured on me with the same chant. Huge milestone. From here the days get longer as we head into the summer of a new land.

Anyway, back to Quito. Quito is about a 10,000 foot elevation city of 2 million people, not a small place. Nick had had his oil seal shipped to Quito and we had to find it. The address was long and we asked directions several times. I'm a little stressed cause my flight was supposed to leave that night. Just as I am thinking that this could take all day, Nick slams on his brakes and pulls over. I stop too and we are standing underneath the sign for the company that his seal was shipped to. Just as I am getting over that stroke of luck a guy stops, speaking very good English, and tells us that he has traveled by motorcycle quite a bit and has a bike shop close by in Quito and he would love help us in anyway he can. I felt like the stars had aligned and all would be well. But it gets better.

His name is Diego Salvador, phone 099702166, diego_s_@hotmail.com. If you are ever traveling in Quito give this guy a call. He is awesome. We followed him to his shop and over the next few hours he had his mom bring us lunch, had our bikes cleaned(cause we shouldn't be riding BMW's that looked like that), we arranged for some repairs, storage, etc. He even offered to have our riding gear washed. He has a shop where they are building custom panniers like are on my bike for people. He said he would take my bent up boxes and straighten them out again also. I can't say enough about this guy. I don't think he fully understands how great his help was to us at this point in our journeys.

My flight was supposed to leave about midnight but got cancelled at about 4am for weather at Quito. The delay allowed us to meet someone who wants us to start a flying biz in Ecuador and it may be worth it. We'll see. I left Nick to work with her till I get back and they are going to fly us into one of the Eco lodges in the jungle. Should be interesting. I will blog some more after I get back to Ecuador and on our way again. In the meantime, enjoy the pics.

I don´t want anyone getting worried or anything. We are alive and well. But have had some computer and internet difficulties. I am in a little internet place now. My computer is toast, don´t ask too many questions, yes it is from something stupid that I did. I have about 150 pics stored on my camera that I can´t download yet also. I may have to get that done when I get back. I will be back in Utah in a few days.



19-Dec-2009

We got another lesson in map vs. reality today. The map showed a 4 lane superhighway from San Agustin to Poypayan, wrong. 6 hours of dirt, mud, gravel, 30-40 degree grades, way cool. It felt really good to be up on the pegs really riding and getting a workout. Lots of trucks to dodge on roads almost as wide as the trucks. The country was amazing though. It was very high so the temp was cool, upper 50´s lower 60´s. That was a good thing cause the workout still made me sweat. For over 4 hours of this leg we were over 10,000 above sea level, amazing. Once we hit the pavement after about 80 miles, the bikes seamed to breath a sigh of relief, maybe it was me. I have run out of adjectives to describe this country. I will have to learn several more languages just to have enough. Even "Wow"just isn´t getting it anymore. We end up in Patia, Colombia, in a hotel next to a tire place. The hotel costs 12 bucks and the tire place charged me 4 bucks to mount my tires. Sweet. They were so helpful too, gave me a ride on a 100cc Suzuki to go get parts. Pics coming I promise.
Met a frenchman on a Yamaha 1000 taking it to Brazil. He bought it in California and would have to pay a 100% import duty to ship it to Brazil, so he was riding it. Interesting guy named Erik.

20-Dec-2009
We leave our new friends and head south again. Drizzling and cool and after a while it starts to rain. We rode hard and fast in more beautiful country in the rain gear. The new tires feel great. I rubbed off all the little knobs, all the way around the tires in the first couple of hours. These tires should last a long time cause we use all of them. The only time I am on the middle of the tire is going back and forth from one bank to the other. Got to the border about 2 in the afternoon. Erik is there, he has had a flat and looks a little rough for wear. It was after dark when we got through to Ecuador. Cool, a new country. Goodbye Colombia. If anyone ever asks me to come back for a trip I am all in. Tomorrow we head for Quito, hopefully Nicks part will be there Monday and we can find a place to store my bike for a while.

17-Dec-2009 5673 Miles

I wasn't going to write. I was just going to post pics. But my stupid new camera seems to have lost over half of the pics I took yesterday. And some great stuff it was. We rode up a dirt trail to a mission that was about 2000 vertical feet above the valley floor. I don't know what Spaniard decided to build up there but he obviously did not have to carry the materials up there to build it himself. What a view though.

We are in a very pretty, very friendly town called San Agustin in Southern Colombia and have decided to stay here for another day. We are going to ride to some nearby Incan ruins and hopefully I can post some pics from there. The people here have been great, showing us pics of ruins and statues, providing maps, helping with accomodations, etc. It is really fun and I hope to come back to Colombia again some day. The hotel we are at has a fantastic view, is as nice or nicer than anything we have stayed at and costs about $10 a night. The meal I had last night is the best of the trip so far and cost about $4. How can you beat that? Anyway, enjoy the pics as I have enjoyed the country.

Someone very close to me, told me to "enjoy whatever tomorrow brings your way", and that has been the most fantastic part of this trip so far. A lack of planning, living out in the weeds, not ever knowing what is around the next corner. There is a downside of course, finding a place to stay, acquiring tires or needed parts, whatever, but the experience of continuous awe and surprise is priceless.

I need to put a plug in for our new friends in San Agustin. They offer horseback tours, river rafting and stuff here. So if you are ever in San Agustin, Colombia look up Lucas Garzon or email lucasgarzon1@yahoo.com. Also Humberto, I don't have his address but either one of those guys will probably find you as you roll into town as they did us. Lucas speaks good English.

15-Dec-2009

Neiva, Colombia. Wow, what a day. I don't know how many times I have said that but Wow. Stuff just happens, sometimes we make it happen, sometimes it's about going with the flow, but there are a lot of Wow's. Sometimes it is hard to think about all the events of a single day. So lets see, where did today start. Oh yea, the Sheraton in Bogota. I never got a call about my tires. I tried again to call this morning and got nowhere so we got ready to depart and went to the airport to fight this fight. I think this was at least a 3 hour ordeal, maybe not it just seemed like it. I couldn't go to the baggage area cause it is "secure", so I spent some time trying to find a Delta office and finally did. They proceeded to tell me I needed to go to the Avianca Air counter in international arrivals, that place I could not get into cause it was "secure". They told me, and some others, at the secure door that they were working a flight and would be with us shortly, about an hour later, nothing. This little Colombian girl was getting mad and the next time someone showed up she started in on them. I don't know what she was saying but I was glad it wasn't directed at me. I just got behind her and figured I'd benefit from whatever fallout she created. Good strategy, they let all us lost luggage people in. Security hole, I think so. I was in the secure area with pretty much free reign. After I figured they were going to make me wait a while I started searching the premises for my tires and found them. Yea. I went back to the guy in charge and told him I where they were and he had me sign something and started to escort me out. Almost. Stopped by the military guard that said tires have to clear customs. Sooooo, I go to customs, where after some posturing and wrangling, they told me that there were rules and tires could not be brought into the country. For those of you who really know me, the rest of this may not surprise you. How long have I been trying to get tires? They are in my hands now. I am not going to lose. They told me they had to go back to Avianca. Now, I have a view of the whole scene here. They are telling me to take them back. So, I do, sort of. I can see the military cop, he's busy, I can see the exit door, clear path, I leave their view after leaving the door. Soooo, I head for the door, tires in hand. I fully expect for alarms to go off, someone to say stop or halt or some such crap. But it doesn't happen. I don't look behind me for 300 yards out of that door. Whew, got away with it. Tires in hand, I head for the bikes. What do I see when I get to the bikes? Nick, entertaining 3 cops. Great. So as I am sweating bullets, I go ahead and pretend all is well, say hi to our cop buddies and load the tires on the bike. No problem, but a little high stress.

We head southwest out of Bogota. Feels great to be on the road again. We wind and wind and wind out of Bogota, probably descending at least 6000 feet into a big valley between mountain ranges and it gets hot, up to 100 degrees today. I wish I had an altimeter on the bike, it would be cool to know how much we are climbing and descending. More beautiful country and fun, fun roads. Good roads, too. We seem to becoming more and more of an oddity the further we get away from Bogota. By the time we get to Neiva, it is getting dark and we are getting tired. This is a pretty big place and we are having a tough time finding a hotel. People are just staring at us, like we were just beamed off the mother ship, weird. We go back to our original scheme of getting a beer somewhere and asking for help. (A word here about Colombian beer, I don't know where they get the water for it, and probably don't want to know, but it is awful). We are truly an oddity but it is fun. These 3 girls wanted their pics taken with us and on the bikes. So we just smiled and let them take pics of us with these 3 cute girls. The language thing wasn't working so they just had us follow them downtown to a hotel. Thanks, girls.

Usually when checking in to a place, Nick watches the bikes and I check us in. As I'm doing this I can look out and see Nick and the bikes. Within about 3 minutes, he is surrounded by people. I tried to count, at least 30. I watch for a while in awe as the crowd never thins. Some go and more people come. His 15 minutes of fame, I guess. They just wanted to know about the bikes, the trip, say "welcome to Colombia", etc. When I go out after checking in, we have to part the masses to go to the secure parking. All very benign but strange. We put the bikes away and are of no real interest to anyone anymore. Kinda sad. Maybe we should get the bikes out and sit in the middle of the town square.

More stuff. The seal was damaged on Nick's bike when we replaced the front sprocket and it is leaking oil. Trying to get one shipped to Quito. It is not too bad but needs to be replaced. The tires are still on the back of my bike where they will stay till we get to a good place to replace them. But I'm damn glad to have them. Thinking about the airport escapade, they are probably used to people exporting contraband but not importing it. And Megan, I know you were tired and it was 2 or 3 in the morning as we were driving to SLC to get me to the airport in a blinding blizzard, but I cannot thank you enough for spending that time getting new music for me to listen to on my phone. I really loved it today.

The pics. Cop buddies at the airport, next to the bike loaded with contraband. Bikes ready to make our escape. Whew, we are outta there. Beautiful Colombia. Beautiful Columbia. And more Beautiful Colombia. The coolest bathroom ever. And Nick using the coolest bathroom ever(JK).

13-Dec-2009

Well, for all my posturing back in SLC it made no difference in Bogota. Tires, the bane to my existence on this journey. The tires did not show up with my checked baggage in Bogota. They, Delta, has assured me that they will show up this time tomorrow at this same time but the language problem makes me not very sure of this. Nick will be here in the morning and we will have to figure out what to do. I guess we will have to stay in Bogota another night and hope they show up tomorrow evening. I can't really give them a base that we are staying at or a place they could send them down the road cause we are just living our lives out in the weeds on this journey. So I am back at the love hotel where our bikes are. They are here, yea, I got to touch it again. Ya never know about these things. They look at me wierd here and smile, I think cause its just strange for guys to be here alone. They don't know what to think of me but that's ok. One things for sure, I am not staying in this place for another night. I saw a hotel close to the airport as I was leaving in the taxi this time and I could actually tell from a distance that it was a hotel, so maybe I'll try that.

I think I need some encouragement. Such a culture shock to be around the people that I know and love and then in a few hours to be thrown back into this environment alone. Oh well, it will get better once Nick gets here and we can get out of Bogota.

Looking ahead. We are 5 degrees north of the equator, high in the mountains(Bogota is at 8500 feet msl) so the temperature is cool. 5 degrees of lattitude equals 300 miles to the equator but I am sure it will take a little longer than that. The equator goes right through Quito, Ecuador which is on our route. After that we will be headed for Lima Peru. I am excited to get on the road again and I guess the tires won't stop that yet.

The first 2 images are from the love hotel. My nickname, actually Amoblados el Romance. The first is the tiles in the bathroom. The second makes me glad I have a skinny butt. Nick has been telling people that we left our bikes at a brothel in Columbia. As much fun as we have made of this they have really been nice to us and treated us well. The bikes were as we left them and the place you see us working on them is in thier secured parking. I don't really think the prostitution is the biggest part of thier business either. It is mostly a place for couples to go that have no where else to go for privacy. Most people live in small flats with a lot of family so I guess these places are a necessity here. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking too it.

14-Dec-2009

Nick got here early and we started work on the bikes. We have all day cause I won't know about my tires until about 10 tonight. The place we are at is the secure parking at the love hotel. Very nice of them to let us work there. The owner of the place even brought us a beer as we were finishing up. I guess we give them something to talk about as they have done for us. We head for a Sheraton close to the airport where we can kick back, check out the pool(out of service) and the jacuzzi(out of service). But the rooms are nice and proximity to my problem is good. We will head out in the morning regardless. I hope they show up. If not I will try to get them forwarded to Quito or something. I'm not dead in the water yet.

My attitude is much better today after working on the bikes. I had to wander around town, walking, to try to find and negotiate for tools. It was cool. My spanish skills, although still weak, came back even a little better than from when I left. Funny what you let get to you. I was really struggling last night and I think part of it is the time thing. Back in Utah, it was so much about what I had to do before I left again, busy, busy. And I had to shake that off and get into the fact that we are here and we will get to, where we get to, when we get there and nothing more. I am having to re-evaluate the timeframe for the Christmas trip back. I don't know how that is going to work yet. Lima is too aggressive of a target for pre-christmas. I will keep you posted.