Colombia V: High Times & Misdemeanors

The little town of Camarones was our last stop on the Caribbean. In the Los Flamencos Sanctuary we rented a room in a place that was more restaurant than accommodations. It was between a ranchería and the beach. That’s what the Wayuu people call their villages; to us it was just a collection of stick and mud huts in a dusty palm grove. We stopped to ask some kids the way and they followed us there with their little geometric-patterned shoulder bags (mochilas) offering handmade crafts. One tough little guy Jose stayed around, barely cracking a smile when Fran gave him a ride in the sidecar. He softened later, coming for a walk on the beach while weaving bracelets with our names with a crochet-type needle and flying fingers.

We spent the afternoon in a small boat on the reserve’s lagoon which is a temporary habitat for the flamingos of Venezuela. I don’t think this was their season but hiding in the tangled mangroves we did glimpse some flashes of pink. Never mind, I can’t remember when we last had a more peaceful day and afterwards our boatman took us home and we met his cousin who needed ‘special care’ and sidestepped chickens and goats. For dinner we ate camarones (shrimp, what else!) and watched dusk settle behind the palms. We were the only guests and alone in the dark it was our own private paradise. Here I could understand why some people discard their shoes and combs and opt out of the daily grind to live on beaches like this. I could become an honorary Wayuu and if I asked nicely, maybe Jose would give me a job making bracelets.

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We still had nearly two months on our permits so the plan was to slowly make our way south. Colombia has some great roads, amazing feats of engineering that slice through mountains and across ravines but in many places they’re still under construction. Half-built bridges rise out of the jungle, their abrupt endings in mid-air giving them a post-apocalyptic look, like a land abandoned instead of one looking to the future. Most of the time the main highways were two-laners with never-ending lines of groaning trucks. Fran was becoming a tad cavalier in his driving habits, overtaking more than one vehicle at a time, like the old fairy tale, Seven at One Blow. I warned him but he kept doing it until one day instead of a nice clear road ahead there was a police checkpoint and this time it wasn’t our usual social stop with photo op. Three cops descended on us but God love ‘em, they were torn between getting a good look at the bike and writing us a ticket. We played dumb as long as we could. I smiled till my face hurt, even when their dog sniffed around the sidecar and drooled on my cover. They tried hard, really hard, to get us to understand but gave up in the end. With dire warnings about crossing the Dobles Amarillos (double yellow lines) they sent us on our way. I felt bad. We didn’t deserve it.

I told whatshisname the next time he got caught he was on his own and road rules were largely adhered to after that. Of course the Policia did stop us again, many times, but it was back to the old 360º strut around the bike, a quick read of the ever-growing sticker collection and finally out with the phone for a picture. They liked us to be in it too and on one occasion the cop-in-charge draped his arm around Fran, yelling at his subordinates “Mi Papa, Mi Papa!” He was falling round the place laughing, Mr. Comedy Central Colombia. Meanwhile I was wondering what was I, his dear Mama? But we really enjoyed these encounters and they left us on a high for miles. It must be quite boring to be stationed in the middle of nowhere and when a mud-caked Pferdi comes puttin’ over the horizon, weighted down with bags, spare tires and gas cans, you might as well stop him and have a bit of a laugh. The army are even nicer, they salute you! Even if there are 6 or 7 of them from one end of a checkpoint to another, they will all salute. At last. Respect.

We continued south, passing tableaus of everyday life: makeshift barber shops under roadside palapas, a child getting its pigtails done on the back of a moving motorbike and men raking tablecloth-size patches of drying coffee beans. I lost count of the “Sloth”, “Snake” and “Boys Playing Football” crossing signs. It was early October and a miniature Spiderman on a dilapidated porch reminded me Halloween was coming. The roads were new for us but the towns could have been anywhere in Colombia: the ubiquitous roasted chicken restaurants, the fruit and juice stands and the chaotic traffic. The store names were always the same too: The Divine Child Pharmacy, Blessings of God Hardware and Sacred Heart Autoparts. The good Lord is franchise king in Latin America, I only hope he’s getting his cut.

Unless oil refineries are your passion there isn’t much reason to stop in Barrancabermeja. This one was the biggest in the country and dominated the skyline, the cathedral seemed just an afterthought. But there was beauty beyond the mould-covered buildings where the Rio Magdalena sliced orange and gold through the jungle to the distant horizon. It was here too that we first read of the protests in Ecuador. It was bad news, our deadline to cross there was December 1st.

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We returned to the stunning Cañón del Chicamocha having only driven through first time round. The 30-minute cable car ride was breathtaking with a panoramic view over the river and mountains. We would have stayed longer but needed to get to Bogota for parts and repairs. The KTM dealer recommended Gustavo at Garaje 57 for the labor. Not only was he close by but we were able to discuss our options with him and his father for getting the bike out of the country in the event Ecuador’s problems continued. People were stuck for days at the border and the support groups there were asking motorcyclists not to enter as they had their hands full with the travelers already in the country. Roads were blocked, hotels and gas stations were closed and the protests were spreading. The strangest part was that of Colombia’s five international borders only two are accessible by road: Venezuela and Ecuador. We certainly didn’t want to take another boat back to Panama and Peru’s and Brazil’s borders were in the Amazon jungle. To enter Peru the bike would have to be flown to the crossing and taken by riverboat for several days to the nearest town. I wasn’t ready to go there yet, neither physically nor mentally.

Meanwhile we met Jimmy and Leidy again and made a new friend. Guillermo met Fran outside KTM and he invited us to spend Sunday at his home in the countryside. It was like being transported to Switzerland for the day. In a house overlooking the mountains Guillermo had a collection of cars from 1937, through the 1940s, ‘50s and ’60s, not to mention motorbikes and scooters that sent Fran back to his teenage years. He was in heaven, the sound and smell of the engines throwing him into swoons of ecstasy. It was a day to remember.

Glad to leave the city traffic, we stopped a while in colorful Filandia. In the foothills of the Andes, it was an area of rolling hills and emerald meadows. Like most of Colombia, the clouds here hang low and in the high altitude towns it’s not unusual to find yourself looking down on them while doing the shopping. But it was rainy season and heavy thunderstorms made for muddy treks into town. We also had a surprise visit. The elusive Helena from Cartagena was travelling in the coffee zone with her soldier boyfriend. We had lunch and spent the afternoon together. It had taken some time, 1,400 km to be exact, but we got to meet in the end. We could finally draw the line under Cartagena.

We didn’t care much for Cali but it was a good place to stop and buy a new phone. My very old one was still working but who knew how long it would last. It wasn’t far from there to the small town of Silvia which has a very distinct indigenous group called the Guambiano. Everyone wore little bowler-type hats and some of the ladies had flat straw bonnets that reminded me of the dolls I got sent from the Black Forest as a child. All the women and little girls had bright purple capes and it seemed these were fashioned into mid-length skirts for the men. There’s a famous market every Tuesday and we arrived in good time on Monday afternoon. Walking around the plaza we saw an old fellow asleep on a park bench. Then we noticed a couple of guys lying flat on their backs on the grass. Further up there was another, curled into a foetal position in a flower bed. And on it went, men lying comatose like discarded dolls, some in purple skirts with little bootied feet pointing at the sky.

Somewhat perplexed, we went for a coffee. At the next table a man, head in arms, was fast asleep. The shock of waking-up a while later caused him to fall over backwards and his chair put up a good fight before he went back to sleep. On the way home two guys were hugging over a half empty bottle. One of them was crying. It wasn’t the Dead Zone after all, it was just the Dead Drunk Zone. There’d been elections the day before and now they were celebrating, or drowning their sorrows. I’m not sure it made a difference.

We were at the market by 9 AM. Every fruit and vegetable you could ever want, flour, sugarcane, herbs and machetes, a butchers and of course, every size and color of booties. We had to be careful taking photos so as not to offend. Afterwards we followed the river to the villages and trout farms in the surrounding valleys. The afternoon was quiet until we met a group of children playing in a stream on their way home from school. There were no problems photographing this lot; they raced up when they saw us and crowded around the bike. The market had been great but for us the ‘election results’ and the school kids were the icing on the Silvia cake.

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There were only three more towns to visit and at that stage our thoughts were more on the other side of the border where everything had thankfully returned to normal. We were surprised how lovely Popayan was. Known as the white city, it was like being back in colonial Mexico. The second surprise was Halloween. We left our hotel for an evening stroll only to find the streets filled with ghouls and ghosts and thousands of people on the plaza. There were Supermen and Wonder Women, I Dream of Jeannies and Brides of Frankenstein. Some children were dressed-up too. Food carts were working overtime, music played and someone had thrown baby blue and pink paint at the white government buildings. It was overwhelming but it didn’t end there. We’d met a guy from the local moto group who was helping us find a mechanic. (The sidecar wheel was buckled but unfortunately nobody was able to repair it so it would have to wait.) Sergio invited us to join the Ciudad Blanca Aventureros for a Sunday ride to a village an hour away and along with some local cops and army they were bringing Halloween to the children there.

We gathered in a makeshift soccer field in a hamlet that wasn’t even a bend in the road. Everyone brought candy and gift bags were made for every child. The police and soldiers put up bouncy castles, organized games and dancing and in the middle of it all Pferdi & Pfran drove around in circles with up to 3 children at a time in the sidecar. (They clocked over 2 km in that small field alone.) At the end of the day there were a lot of tired babies, some passed-out at the breast, others slung across shoulders and a tiny fireman sat dazed in the dirt stroking Pferdi’s spare tire. With that amount of excitement all I can say is it’s a good thing we have a year to recover.

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We were running out of country. In Pasto we drove into the clouds to see the Cumbal volcano but visibility was so bad we turned back. In other words, we missed a volcano even when it was sitting right in front of us. The consolation prize was El Encano on La Cocha Lake with its wooden chalets and houseboats, just like Northern Europe. Ipiales, the last stop was a rough and ready border town with lots of Ecuador license plates outside the overpriced but mediocre supermarket, a sign of prices to come. Our arrival in Colombia seemed an age ago. We’d landed in a muddy field at the dubious edge of the Darien jungle but said goodbye in the Gothic Revival church of Las Lajas Sanctuary. I could waffle on about the diversity of both these bookends and everywhere in-between but still never find the right words to sum-up this magical country. Instead I’ll leave it in the hands of the experts, those poets at the tourist board, for they know their product well when they say: "Colombia: The only risk is wanting to stay."