Diario Colombiano – Part 1
by Ralphino Verde
Colombia. What notions of violence, criminality, guerrilla warfare, drug lords and para-military death squads are summoned up at the mention of the country? These perceptions will be examined later from a behind the handlebars experience but first letÕs briefly start in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The flight from Melbourne via Auckland and Santiago de Chile is no honeymoon cruise. Usually around 18 hours including airport transfers this was extended by almost another 24 hrs due to Ômechanical problemsÕ with a LAN aircraft. Overnight in Auckland was passable but what use is 3 hours at the Sheraton in Santiago – when you arrive at 2am Christmas Day to find the bar closed for the holy day! CanÕt say I felt any more wrecked on final arrival than usual despite spending enough time in transit to have used up a round the world ticket.
The purpose of the Argentinean visit was to participate as the Ducati Owners Club of VictoriaÕs representative in a modest ceremony for the delivery of two motorcycles donated to Pilotos Solidarios, an Argentinean non-government organisation. Dedicated volunteers make up this group supplying primary and secondary health services to the poor and indigenous in remote regions of the country. Since that topic is the subject of another article let us move further north.
Quito, Ecuador
To Quito, capital of Ecuador. Jewel of the central northern Andes. On the equator yet where an eternal spring lingers thanks to the 2,800 meter elevation. The only location on the planetÕs equator where snow capped mountains are to be found, those same peaks define the western skyline of the valley in which the city is located. Home of the Moto Hotel, the residence of Mr Motorcycling of Ecuador, Ricardo Rocco, friend to travelling local and gringo motorcyclists from across the world. For it is there that the worldÕs ugliest and perhaps most unreliable motorcycle, the Purple Swinehunt (BMW R100 G/S), had spent the last nine months in storage. Ricardo was absent on our arrival, having used the excuse of recovering a injured BelgianÕs Honda Africa Twin from Colombia as an excuse to introduce himself to a multitude of Colombian women; a further excursion into Venezuela was thwarted by immigration inconsistencies over visas.
We planned some R&R down on the Pacific coast while awaiting RicardoÕs return to advise on the ritual of negotiating our way through customs. This yearly conciliation is necessary since, in most (all?) countries, days equal personal visa/permit days. Most tourist visas being 90 days this meant that the swinehunt had overstayed about 9~10 months. Despite this it is actually OK to ride around inside the country without paperwork for the bike. If you are waved down by a local copper you just look to the other side of the road until almost level, switch your gaze to the official, give a friendly wave back at his halt gesture and keep going. Since such folk are often armed with combat rifle and pistol belt this takes a little nerve the first couple of times. Carrying a pillion is some insurance against getting shot in the back. AinÕt that romantic!
Playa Escondida, Ecuador
Playa Escondida, Ôhidden beach,Õ was a location discovered on the internet, run by a expat Canadian lass in her late 50Õs as an eco-type lodge but somewhat underdeveloped in this conceptual context. Located 50 km west of Esmeraldes on the northern Ecuadorian coast, the total ride from the capital was about 350km. A distance you might expect to cover in four hours in Australia extends to almost twice this time with the sinuous descent from Quito at 2,800m through cloud forest, fog and light rain, but with the reward of some magnificent mountain temperate, through to tropical rain forest, vegetation. Getting closer to the coast we were surprised at the extensive degree of de-afforestation to accommodate cattle grazing; the preferred breed being tropical Brahman.
The lodge turned out to be a mixture of rustic charm and pestilence. Rough hewn wood construction is softened by certain polished pieces in their natural shapes acting as towel rails, bed heads etc. Lower floor rooms have concrete cold water showers, decorated with cast-in smooth river stones and seashells. Composting Ôpit toiletsÕ are located a few metres stroll away. Mosquito nets hang from the ceiling above the beds, lighting is feeble and there are no fans. Proprietor Judith, greeting us warmly, was eager to continue discussions initiated via email on Permaculture a scheme of sustainable permanent agriculture adaptable to small or larger communities and a field in which our office, Visionary Design Development Pty Ltd, has some expertise.
Days consisted of sitting around eating, drinking and reading under the thatched roof of the restaurant / public space overseeing a rocky beach that extended for half a km or less than ten metres depending on the state of the large tidal range. Families would go out during the former in the morning crab spotting, searching for marine creatures in rock pools and recovering conch shells for the mantelpiece. High tide covered the rocks bring out the board and body surfers, largely day trippers from the port of Esmeraldes who had lingered after lunch. Quite, quite pleasant.
Nights comprised retiring on a stomach full of seafood marinated in Chilean boxed wine. While the temperature under a mosquito net was bearable to sleep, lulled by the restless surge and sway of the waves, in the tropics insects rule. Mosquitos can be held at bay to some extent by repellents at the cost of being clad in a cocktail of sweat and lotion. Invading ants are not so easily discouraged. Termites completed the top three list of vermin having infiltrated the double storey wooden cabins. Being on the ground floor meant that every time the upper level guests walked about termite dust descended upon us, in a hard rain, that infiltrated oneÕs intimate crevices, threatened to clog laptop keyboards, and threw a fine dandruff on all surfaces approximating horizontal.
On the third day we kicked the swinehunt into life and rode into the big smoke of Esmeraldes for a diversion. This diversion perhaps expectedly began with the swinehuntÕs first mechanical problem – fuel gushing from the left side carburettor. Diverting into a services station – with service but no such luxury as a mechanic or flushing toilet – where the left carburettor was rebuilt several times from the spares kit. Each time resulting in a continuation of the leak when the fuel tap was reunited with the on position. Obviously more drastic action was called for. I summoned up the last of my rapidly dwindling (im)patience to give the Ôhunt a man-to-man talk about its duties in life, using I would imagine, words similar to those which the Victorian police uttered when their bullets bounced off Ned Kelly. 'Hunt was however unmoved, and continued to dribble fuel in typical Germanic arrogance. A good thrashing with the nearest object to hand, which happened to be the tyre pump, resulted in a leaking carburettor and a broken pump. Our man to machine relationship was rapidly deteriorating. At least the conquistadors had horses – a type of propulsion infinitely more reliable, that you could grow fond of and if it came to worse, eat for emergency sustenance. Of what auxiliary use is a lump of rusty iron weighing over three hundred kg and returning, if lucky, 16 litres to the kilometre! Mary Ann, adopting the take it from first principles / read instruction manual first approach completely alien to the male ego, suggested the problem might lie elsewhere than the internal complexities of fuel flow regulation. Acting on her advice by adopting a position similar to that necessary for hands free guinea pig sexing there was indeed a suggestion that the leak sprung from a minute hole in the fuel hose close to itÕs union with the carburettor. A few minutes later with this short length of tubing replaced the flood had been stemmed. Thus the whole procedure was equivalent to performing a heart lung transplant, afterwards discovering the original symptoms were due to a chest cold. All part of the mystique of BMW ownership that drives owners together into small groups, often referred to as Ôowners clubsÕ where routine psychotherapy is the creation and perpetuation of the Ôlegendary reliability mythologyÕ passed down the generations. Argh, now medicated with Brava 6.5% alc/vol Larger I can finally get off this topic.
Esmeraldes is an unremarkable, sprawling, flat, coastal, tropical town. Lacking any central focus we soon abandoned a half-hearted effort to locate an ATM settling for an air-conditioned internet café instead. Next day, conceding defeat to the insect world, we threw in the towel and retreated to the moto hotel back in the Andes, above the insect line! We missed a turnoff on the way back, so took an alternate road, marked on our map as bitumen, surfaced that snaked back up to the high country. This soon turned to gravel which was no big deal, then to loose stones and potholes, a bit cumbersome for a Ôaircraft carrierÕ size pretend trail bike, then mud patches, carumba!, finally steep uphill rutted muddy track, struth! Finally an encounter with earthmoving equipment (re-)building the road. This was déjà vu; in Peru this same scenario had meant literally the end of the Ônew roadÕ requiring backtracking for hours while running out of sunlight. Fortunately the guy operating the front loader pulled back and waved us through the mud to crest the hill with the expected town in sight and a return to a sealed surface. By now the afternoon mist and drizzle had settled in for the rest of the day reducing visibility at times to as little as 15 metres on the twisty ascent. Just another day's riding in Latin America.
Quito, Ecuador
Several days of low productivity followed at the Moto Hotel. Chris the Canadian – whose full name would be admitted to protect the guilty, if I knew it - was meant to set off for his 6 month sojourn to the end of the world (Ushuaia, last mainland town in Tierra del Fuego) and most South American countries along the way there or back. When we first arrived he was working on a Honda Africa Twin of uncertain parentage and legality. This had been pieced together from cannibalising other bikes, made its way in part(s) from Buenos Aires, had a brief holiday in Colombia with further transplant surgery, crossed the Colombian side with forged papers and number plate, the latter being strategically removed by cutting cable ties in Ôno mans landÕ to reveal a Canadian plate taken from another bike. Finally crossing the Ecuadorian border as a Canadian tourist on a compatriot bike with a further set of forged Canadian papers. Such is the intrigue of the (part) round the world motorcyclist. He had been sleeping poorly with a head cold, delaying his departure, but had sensed a suggestion of overlander's diaspora also. Leaving your culture and travelling alone and independently for several months at a time is a stressful thing. Journeys approaching or exceeding years of the RTW type often result in a measured onset of a mid-ride crisis, mystical conversion to a cult religion, born again, or retreat to a dark cave to smoke ganja
and meditate.
We got up early the next morning to wave him off at his stated 9am departure. When this was delayed due to emergency laundry servicing we went for a walk around Quito, returning several hours later to note his absence from the garage. Buen viaje, Chris – a guy with a good sense of humour, politics and his own place in the riding cosmos. A whole day to ourselves passed living in the lap of luxury of having Rosita the housekeeper cleaning up after us and Jose the garage attendant helping with Swinehunt servicing before Colorado Mike turned up on his own Honda XR600 trail bike sporting (his) hometown plates. Mike had been hanging out in and around the moto hotel for a couple of months and been roped into competing in the Vuelta del Ecuador by Ricardo. This is a local, desert-less version of the Dakar run on mostly dirt roads with 4 and 2 wheel categories. To his credit Mike finished somewhere in or near the top five amongst the bikes, something always more difficult for first-time foreigners as they are more likely to stray from the route, consequently finding more difficult to communicate directions with the locals or native competitors in a similar predicament. He was a more experienced rider with better mechanical knowledge than Chris but somewhat self conscious, exaggerated by struggling with the spanish language.
Ecuadorian / Colombian Border Crossing
Ricardo was further delayed, more likely by Colombian women than guerrillas, so we decided to set off for that same country. For years we had been intrigued by the contrast between the countryÕs history of violence and the educated, sophisticated worldliness of Colombians we had met when travelling in the Americas. Without exception they had assured us that the major routes in the centre and east of the country were back under the control of the military, ruling out the past history of blocking of road stretches between two points followed by the ransacking of personal and mercantile valuables and the kidnapping of hostages for ransom. A good Ecuadorian friend of ours has both personal and family experience of this with himself being stopped in a F.A.R.C. (Frente Armada Revolucionario de Colombia) road block and a cousin being kidnapped in Quito then smuggled across the border into Colombia. Fortunately in the former he was quickly released unmolested, lamentably the second resulting in the family paying a small fortune to ensure the cousinÕs release. So the threat has been real and motorcyclists are certainly not immune as the case of a US rider kidnapped, beaten and malnourished by the E.L.N. (Ejercito Liberacion Nacional) in the north of the country proved in 2001. These marxist / maoist revolutionary armed resistance groups still control large jungle tracts of the country, the FARC in the south east and the ELN in the north east. Prior to a couple of years ago this territory extended to the pan-American highway – the route that connects with Ecuador in the South and Venezuela in the north.
It was customs officials rather than guerrillas who had caused me a couple of restless nights prior to departure. We had been waiting for RicardoÕs return, not just to meet up with the giant of a man whose heart has reached out to help so many riders over the years, including lengthy periods of Swinehunt storage, but also to consult him on what strategy we should take with the border bureaucracy. There were two options as we first understood. Numero uno was to fess up, while stretching the truth somewhat, i.e the bike broke down when we were here this time last year and could not be repaired before we had to fly back home to go back to work. This is generally successful in obtaining a permit of 10-14 days to ride out of the country but letters from motorcycle dealers and lawyers are necessary to authenticate the perjuries, if you follow my oxymoron. It can also be quite time consuming, a quantity we are always scarce of. Numero dos is to give the dates on the permit letter a ÔhaircutÕ. Due to readily availible standard image manipulating software and expertise we were equipped to exercise either option. Mike however made us aware of a third option. He had left with Ricardo for the trip north to Colombia but returned earlier alone when they became separated. He had some days left on his Ecuadorian vehicle permit so rather than surrender this and negotiate another on return he kept this document in his pocket and rode straight through customs after getting his passport exit-stamped out of Ecuador's immigration office. We had not considered this possible since our experience of entering and leaving Ecuador was restricted to a minor border crossing in the south east frontier with Peru. The much larger volume of traffic and the different physical infrastructure setup at the Ecuador/Colombia frontier allows vehicles to pass through apparently unchecked.
So we set off north reasonably chuffed that if neither bureaucrat nor guerrilla could be defeated they could at least be out-manoeuvred. It might seem optimistic that two large gringos mounted on the purple pig surrounded by luggage cases – one of which is an army disposals grenade carrier with these same words over-sprayed – could cross a border seldom crossed over several decades by citizens other than those of the nearby countries. The price of failure being at the least a delay long enough to rule out experiencing Colombia. I will leave the worst scenario to your imagination.
Riding out of Quito though familiar never fails to impress. Beyond the last traces of urban barrios a broad vista expands to the east as the road spirals down in a continuum of fast and tight sweepers. Shimmering dams glint past loitering clouds as the humidity and oxygen levels rise. Just as your respiratory system and sweat glands are beginning to adjust a return to the clouds challenges both homeostasis and hard Brazilian 100% nylon tyres on the damp switchbacks. Otovalo with its world renowned market where local indigenous indians in traditional dress gather weekly, and the larger more industrialised Ibarra are skirted. Tulcan which is the last town before the border is new to us, resulting in some confusion about where to get lunch. A hasty choice is made, resulting in a crappy local version of KFC – though less greasy if my memory will go back >20 years, and some decidedly limp chips across from the bus station. Filled yet unfulfilled we then ride on to discover the centre of town; we ride on to the nearby border. 7 km on at a river crossing we follow the strategy of riding past the customs / migracion main car park to the rear car park that gives us access to migration but is blocked from customÕs view. After passport formalities we then emerge from the road that leads out of both Customs and migration posing as if we have dealt with both. It is a slightly anxious moment as we pass the final checkpoint before the bridge – close rather than Òtoo farÓ. While it would be very 007 to fib that all eyes were upon us but we met their steely gaze and crashed through, bullets ricocheting off the metal panniers, sniffer dogs dragging attached to riding boots and military types leaping into armed pursuit vehiclesÉ the reality was ...one official leaning on a post looking dis-interestedly the other way.
Over an hour in the queue for Colombian migracion was more that ample time for the slight adrenaline rush to be succeeded by a seeping trance of mañana-itis. Colombian customs (for the bike permit) were on the contrary super efficient, attentive and friendly. Their Ecuadorian counterparts could learn a trick or two. The German customs service has been operating along term aid project in Ecuador to make the service more efficient and transparent. Mike, howeverm, may not think too much has progressed. He was forwarded a camera from the US when his ran into 'problems'. At the customs office in Quito he had to pay $34 duty to get the package, only to discover that it had been tampered with in transit and the camera stolen. Sorry no refunds – wryly amusing when it happens to someone else!
Resort Office & Restaurant, Playa Escondida
Playa Escondida – view from the (termite) hut
Chris & ÔmultinationalÕ Africa Twin, Moto Hotel workshop, Quito
No volacnic eruptions today
Moto Hotel View, Quito
RALPH GREEN
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