We left Mompox early for the drive to Cartagena but found a surprise ferry crossing on the way. Long, narrow wooden boats were carrying both passengers and motorbikes but Pferdi, being a plus size, had to wait for the bigger ferry. It was a long delay but worth it to coast down the river and see the landscape from a different perspective. “Muy tranquilo” as the Colombians would say. It was just us and the truck drivers allowed on board and Fran got to practice his limited Spanish when he was asked to pay. He opened his (empty) wallet and said: “No tengo dinero, porque tengo esposa” ("I don't have any money because I have a wife"). The male bonding was immediate. So typical, it doesn’t matter what country you’re in, on the subject of wives, they all speak the same bloody language.
Back on tarmac, the landscape flattened out and we reached the Caribbean coast. It was beautiful but the poverty was dreadful. People were living in shacks with much of the land around them flooded. Arriving in Cartagena later, it was hard to reconcile the two very different worlds. We were just in time for a chaotic rush hour and at every red light were surrounded by motorbikes who found Pferdi of great interest. Because of the heat and the dust, all the riders had scarves covering their faces. They looked like Isis on bikes.
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Helena, a very active member of the Colombia moto support group, had insisted we stay with her but when we got to the house it was her 12-year old daughter who opened the gates and showed us our room. The grandmother (Helena’s mum) came home later. They gave us a lovely welcome and a chance to experience firsthand life in the barrios (neighborhoods). We saw more of the real Cartagena in those three days than at any other time. At night the grandmother took me up to the roof and we looked down on the city while she gave me a history lesson. Of course I missed about 70% of the conversation but it was nice to listen to her. One thing I did learn was if you want to know the history of Cartagena, you go to the barrios; not the old downtown, not the Spanish fortress, but the barrios.
We were extending our Colombian permits for another three months and went down to Immigration and the DIAN (the Colombian Tax and Customs Authority) the first morning. Migracion was in a beautiful old building on a quiet street and apart from a few officials and security guards, we seemed to be the only people there. We’d already applied online but the system, a beautiful system in place for foreigners, didn’t accept foreign credit cards so we had to go pay in person. We were wishing we didn’t have US passports because the Europeans got approved online for free and saved $30 per person. However, it went very well and we were able to go straight down afterwards for the bike extension. In a huge room in the customs building we sat at one of the many desks while Nelson our agent silently filed out forms. It was a front row seat to Colombian office life; Dilbert at the DIAN. The owner of the desk next door was having a birthday and colleagues drifted by for candy, hugs and kisses. During the singing I was nudged to join in and got a lollypop for my efforts at integration. Even Nelson managed a faint smile, though not at me. He stamped the last page and told me to come back the next day for the bike inspection. No amount of sweet talk could persuade him to do it now so back we came the next morning and parked illegally on the street (they don’t allow you into their parking lot). An hour of traffic for a five minute once-over but Pferdi was approved for another 90 days. Thankfully there’d be no family separations at this border.
We moved out of Helena’s Mama’s. We had to find somewhere with air-conditioning as Fran was about to expire. After driving through daytime traffic he just sat staring into space on the patio at night, mechanically lifting a cold beer to parched lips, like I’d put a quarter into him. Traffic, he said, I can deal with. Heat, I can deal with. But not the two together. We moved into an apartment near the beach and took early morning walks. We explored the centro historico but it was too touristy for us. There were no pirates on the horizon, just kids flying kites beneath the towers of the old city walls. And Fran got to do an oil change and had the sidecar fender welded with the help of Alex, a Venezuelan, at his bike repair shop. It was like living in three different towns: the barrios, the old center and the beaches. We’d planned to rent a place and stop a while but Fran decided he wanted to go to his niece’s wedding in Ireland after all. So we traded-in the crushing humidity for an Irish autumn and with that nullified all the hard work of renewing our visas. Our departure cancelled the 90-day extensions and on the return we were given yet another set of new passport stamps. It didn’t matter, Pferdi’s dates, not ours, determined our exit. It took a few days to get the packing system back on track and when we did we were pointing north. Weather-wise it was out of one frying pan and into another. Cartagena, so long on my horizon, was now behind us. We never did get to meet Helena.
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The streets of Santa Martha were flooded the day we arrived and less than 10 minutes from the hotel the clutch cable gave out. This had happened before, last March in Mexico. Fran had a spare but it took a while to fix, in front of a fishmonger’s and a tire repair shop. A guy who lived above the fish store came by and offered help, a glass of water or a bathroom if we needed it. Colombian people are like that, ready to welcome and help any stranger. The city had a seafront which was nice to walk (if you could stick the heat) but the port at the end wasn’t exactly picturesque. We’d eat breakfast on the roof of the hotel and later catch-up on business there when the skies became bloated and turned dark grey. Afternoon storms were a daily occurrence.
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We wanted to visit the northern desert. Colombia has two seasons, wet and dry, and it was now the wet. Most of the roads in La Guajira were dirt and we needed to find out the conditions before we ventured up. In Riohacha I put out a call to the moto groups but the responses advised against it. There was a lot of rain, even the local 4X4s were getting stuck so we decided not to chance it. I was disappointed but the area is remote and sinking in the sand or losing a bit of the bike would have been a pain at best. You don’t have to do major damage to the Ural to have a big inconvenience on your hands. A lot of the parts, even small ones, have to be sent from America, and from a dealer who’s willing to ship overseas (most of them aren’t).
Instead, we escaped the heat by going up the mountains to Minca and stayed in an old convent that was fighting a losing battle with the jungle. Breakfasts here were with a chorus of hummingbirds feeding off the balcony, the sight of them made you want to clap your hands with glee. Perfection was reached when we were allowed more than one cup of coffee. (Nearly all 'breakfast-included' hotels have a limit of one, sometimes one half, cup. It’s seems to be an unspoken rule. Breakfasts in Bogota were the worst, like dining in a borstal.) During the day we explored the Minca back roads but they proved more dirt than road and we came home with a cracked driver’s seat. For 10 days Fran drove sitting all the way forward and was walking funny when he got off. Like I said, even minor damage to the bike can be a pain. Certainly Don Pancho can attest to that.
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