CHAPTER 6 - STUNT WALLETS, CRASHES – WHAT THE FARC?

Friday March 06th 

START: 14120km

FROM: Chiclayo (PER)

TO: Piura (PER)

FINISH: 14334 km

Using our favourite navigation technique of giving a cabbie 2 bucks and asking him to guide us out of the city we leave the unremarkable Chiclayo and continue North toward Piura. Just a short 200 kilometre haul today with no outstanding landscape to hurtle through... so time to reflect on the other vehicles that make their way around on the national road system.

Cuba is well known by car lovers and travelers as being a mobile museum of some of the finest preserved automobilia from 1950's America. Due to the trade embargo imposed on them after the Cuban Missile Crisis that's pretty much about where car technology ends in Havana, and as a result the streets are choc a bloc full with some of the most curvaceous chromed creations ever to have been spawned from the golden age of motoring. Desotos, Packards, Cadillacs... they are rolling past almost every street corner.

Peru on the other hand is a motoring museum of different sorts. Containing a melange of  American automobile atrocities from the 1970's the collection is testament to just how wrong those boys in Detroit can get it when they really put their mind to it. Gigantic 2 door land yachts styled by your 4 year old nephew complete with nautical handling, lethargic performance and voracious appetites for gasoline.

As the US car industry knocks on Obama's door with begging bowl in hand, they can be thankful that the domestic examples of these behemoths were built shoddily enough to be pushed into an early death in the nation's wrecking yards. If this old dirty linen (oversized, inefficient, undesirable products) of the US car industry currently on display in Peru  draws reflection to the present day conundrum (the production of oversized, inefficient and undesirable cars) than only a short sighted fool would give unconditional bail-out cash to the big 3.

Arriving in Piura we check into a cheap hotel and track down two local girls (Mapi and Carmen) who we met in Valparaiso. They have offered to show us around their part of Peru and with a phone call we meet up for dinner and plan to spend a weekend at a friend's beach house an hour away.

Saturday March 07th and Sunday March 8th

REST DAYS: PIURA AND COLAN

Before heading out to Colan Playa, we bump into a Norwegian backpacker near our hotel looking a bit down on his luck. Turns out Eric was mugged last night at the bus stop getting into a taxi. 2 guys sandwiched him in the back seat and held his head down with a metal rod, relieving him of everything he had including his backpack with $5000 of photography equipment and the shoes he came in on. OUCH! We buy him breakfast and he is surprisingly mellow and philosophical about the whole ordeal. The local police have been a great help and even gave him 10 Soles out of their own pockets so he was not left completely skint. For every bad highway cop, there's a good one on the beat.

After this we jump in a local bus and head on out to the beach with Carmen - Mapi to join us later. This far northern coast of Peru has some wonderful beach spots, and the friends of friends whose place we are staying in welcome us into their waterfront beachhouse and thrust a cold beer in our hand before we have even dropped our bags. This kind of hospitality is frequent and amazing all throughout South America. Imagine a friend of your cousin rolled up on your suburban doorstep with 2 smelly bikers in tow..yes they would be welcomed with beer but likely an empty bottle of the stuff projected at the cranium. Vive la difference!

The house is built in white colonial plantation style - on wooden stilts with large verandahs for sitting in a chair or lazing in hammock while you drink in the view of the converging  Humboldt (cold) and Nino (warm) ocean currents. Thanks to a complete absence of any local planning regulations we are quite literally “on the beach”, just 5 metres away from the waterline. It's nudging 30 degrees so the temptation to jump in the water is too good to resist, but before we jump in our host gives us a warning about a fish that lives in the water with poisonous spikes. A 10 second mime conveys the general notion that stepping on said creature is not the brightest of ideas, but if we gently shuffle our feet in the water and stomp them when stationary the harbingers of pescal doom will steer clear.

A routine which worked well for my first swim, not so for the second. Wading and swimming out to 50 metres from the shore, all of a sudden I feel an electric barb lash the arch of my foot and a bolt of pain come up my leg. The net result of this is perhaps the fastest 50 metre freestyle never to be recorded and my foot dripping blood on our hosts balcony. “Tengo una problema” is all I need to say to be bustled into a car and taken to the local healer, who is amusingly a fisherman and not a doctor.

I have indeed been stung by the very creature we were warned of, which turns out to be a 'rai' or what we know as a sting ray. I would love to inflate my chest and tell you all that it was 5 feet in diameter with a tail like a bullwhip but in reality the little critters are not much bigger than your fist. Credit's due though, the little bastards punch well above their weight!

The remedy for this sting is pretty simple – just place the stung foot in a bucket of boiling hot salty water and pressure down the leg to squeeze out the toxins that have been injected. If the blood comes out red into the water then everything's OK – if it comes out black then its probably a good time to get on the phone and up your life insurance. The blood comes out red and the pain is localised to the area of the strike, so things seem OK. Even still I am handed the essential oral medication of a shot of whisky while the wound is being drained.

The concept of whisky in dire circumstances makes me laugh. There is a famous story about an old marathon rally driver in the 1960's who carried only a spare wheel, a jack and a bottle of single malt whisky in the back on those epic adventures. When all of his competitors were carrying half a spare car (CV joints, wheel bearings, gearshaft linkages, radiators etc.) someone asked him if he felt he was going into the events a little poorly equipped. His answer was an emphatic “No”.

“Sods law says the one bit that breaks on your car is the one you didn't pack and besides, I've never been caught in a situation that a bottle of scotch couldn't improve.”

Pure genius.

Hobbling back to the beach house my continuation on this earth is verified. Pierpaolo says he has been having the most interesting conversation with the father who owns the place. Ex Peruvian army pilot, retired at 42 he now presides over an organisation that investigates and explores for the ruins of Peru's previous civilisations, based on research from historical documents buried deep in Spanish archives. A modern day Indiana Jones then.

My foot meanwhile feels like someone is trying to hammer a rusty 6 inch nail into it, so Pierpaolo goes off to the local pharmacy / locksmith / veg store / heladeria to find some magic pills. Medicine down the hatch, a quick nap and by dinner time I'm dancing as badly as I ever did with an appetite that can only be annulled by large quantities of fresh seafood.

Minor amusement before we go to sleep that night as in our room we find a discarded card insert from an electric mosquito zapper. It could be the most effective mosquito repellent on earth, but with the brand name “COCK” it may be a little hard to market in Australia. I save the card in my wallet for future childish photo opportunities.

Sunday is spent sleeping in, eating at the local restaurants and playing cards on the verandah. We say goodbye to our beach hosts and head back to Piura on the bus with Carmen and Mapi. Our last full day in Peru and a great weekend that we could never have planned - one that just happened when we availed ourselves to the hospitality of strangers. Despite the muggings, despite the crooked police, despite the inescapable pan  pipe interpretation bands and despite the horrendous mountain weather Peru really is a cool country which the locals have been more than happy to show to us.

Monday March 09th 

START: 14334km

FROM: Piura (PER)

TO: Machala (ECU)

FINISH: 14722 km

A 2 dollar taxi to direct us out of town and then on the road North to Ecuador. Dull desert for the first stretch but then we run alongside the last stretch of Peruvian coast, past the posh beach resort of Mancora with its brick and concrete residences and further on to the banana leaf bungalows and talcum white sand of the far North. It's the first time on this trip  that we have seen turquoise waters, and already we get to thinking about what it might be like when we get to the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

Some amusement with the customs entry out of Peru, with this post of significant national  importance hidden between a kebab stall and fruit barrow in a predictable “filmmaker shoots crowded market scene in developing country” setup. Led through a curious maze of chickens and FC Barcelona knock off football shirts we are taken through to the Ecuadorian side of the fence, and while Pierpaolo is attending to the dull formalities inside I bide time munching on a tasty skewer of marinated chicken from a street stall. The one benefit of having a lesser command of the local lingo. Well at least I think he told me it was chicken...

Once off on our merry way, Ecuador is somewhat of a surprise. Expecting some kind of cute yet crumbling economy, we find new roads that are surfaced smooth as billiard tables with all manner of obese American SUV's belting along them. The irony being that this surprise wealth is from 2 opposing means. The tourism income from the most diverse and vibrant ecosystem in the world (The Galapagos Islands) and the revenues from recently exploited oil and natural gas reserves. One can't help but feel with these opposite forces funding the “progress”, the party will soon be over for the locals.

Machala is our chosen stop for the night, chosen for its proximity in the midst of a rapidly approacing dusk then by virtue of its tourism treasures, most of which are still unknown and undiscovered.

The city is also known as the banana capital of the world, but compared to the Australian farming fraternity the Ecuadorians are a little shy when it comes to staking such a claim. Anyone who has traveled up the East Coast of Australia would be well aware of a fused national passion for bragging and kitsch fibreglass monuments such as the Big Pineapple (Nambour), The Big Prawn (Ballina) and yes, The Big Banana (Coffs Harbour). Ecuador quietly goes about producing a massive 28% of the worlds banana exports, in stark contrast to the tacky monumented bravado of their Australian colleagues who pitch in with a piffling 0.35% of the world demand for the funky fruit. Which just goes to prove it doesn't so much matter what you actually do, but if you shout very loud and give yourself a medal people will assume you are interesting and important.

Tuesday March 10th 

START: 14722km

FROM: Machala (ECU)

TO: Banos (ECU)

FINISH: 15144 km

Despite its importance in the world of bananas, Ecuador could have actually been the country invented by Apple.

Take a country with an impressive array of geographic landforms, such as the United States. As far as countries go, it's pretty much got the lot – dramatic coastline, verdant forests, cloud piercing mountains and stretches of desert. The only catch with all this diversity is that you need a lot of space to put it all in.

Well that was until Ecuador was invented. It's like God wanted all the features of a big country but needed them in a more portable format so he could show it off to his mates at work. And so iEcuador, or nano country came to be. All the features you want from continent compressed into a space only fractionally larger than a shopping mall.

Riding out of town and the first thing that hits us is just how green everything is. The landscape is exploding with life – all that humidity and volcanic soil sending anything vegetative into a kind of frenzy. Banana plantations flank us on each side of the road, and by 10AM we are finding the going muggy in greenhouse like conditions – humid and sweaty, punctuated by the occasional light tropical shower to offer some relief to the swelling heat.

After lunch – where suitable spots are harder to find than travel friendly Peru, we leave the warmth of the good tarmac and into the clouds that shroud the volcano en route to Riobamba. By the time we reach the summit somewhere close to 4000 metres, the bikes are coughing and spluttering and we are equally miserable, wearing the emptied contents of the heavy leaden sky. Another hard grind up the side of a mountain which has us both yearning for flat lands and beaches...Colombia you are so close I can almost kiss you!

Navigation is proving a challenge. Reminding us of Argentina's policy of “no maps shall leave this country” policy, Ecuador seem to have gone 1 step further and declared that no maps shall be allowed in. With literally nothing available at any bookstore or gas station, our highway atlas for this leg of the trip is the 2 inches poking over the edges of our $3 Peru tourism map.

These difficulties compound on our final run to Banos, as the main road disappeared off  any surviving maps due to a volcanic eruption in 2006. Taking much longer than expected, we get into town late on some very sketchy roads, getting overtaken by semi trailers on blind corners, weaving through the potholes with a paltry 15 metres advance notification from our amoebic headlights. There is some reward however...snowcapped Cotopaxi volcano appears under moonlight on the horizon. Silver topped and loaded, it basks above the towns below - a figure of threatening beauty.

Only 400 kilometres today but the variation in geography along the way has made it a journey of extremes. We are knackered, and fall into bed without so much as a whimper.

Wednesday March 10th 

REST DAY: Banos (ECU)

Banos should be a haven for university students and the unemployed. Where else on earth can you say with a straight face your great achievement for the day was having a bath and some lunch?

The town is famous for its thermal springs framed by spectacular waterfalls. Not wishing to exhaust all the wonders of the place too early on in the piece, we saunter on over to the thermal complex shortly before dinner and spend a good 2 hours soaking and uncricking all the muscles in our body that have fused themselves into the form of the various motorcycle components they have been sitting on or wrestling with over the last 2 months.

A beer after dinner is made more amusing as a young Argentine lad at our guest house comes up to Pierpaolo and I, convinced that I am Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise) from Forrest Gump! Rude not to pose for a photo, but I can't help but think that I have either missed my Hollywood calling or the weed in Ecuador is really good.

Thursday March 11th 

START: 15144 km

FROM: Banos (ECU)

TO: Ipiales (COL)

FINISH: 15597 km

One of the highlights of Ecuador is the Quilotoa loop, a circuit of high altitude towns in the middle of the country, connected by a scattering of rudimentary dirt roads and the chicken buses that run on them. In the planning of this trip, this was high on our list of things to do, but it's wet season right now and the thought of climbing up another bunch of mountains just to get pissed on with rain and run off the road by some cross eyed trucker has less appeal now than it did in my office cubicle in suburban Melbourne.

Having criss-crossed the Andes 4 times, the lure of beaches and silly drinks with umbrellas poking out the top is too strong to resist. So we decide to ditch Quilotoa and bypass Quito (as recommended by many overland travelers) and set course for Colombia.

Retracing the road out of Banos is fantastic – amazing the difference a bit of daylight makes! Cut through the valley and following the course of the river, it's all a mix of sweeping open bends and closed corners walled by the sides of old volcanoes. The boy comes out in both of us and the throttles are opened on the straights with that big lumpy single piston providing engine braking on approach to the sharper bends.

Once out of the valley the morning is a climb seeing us rarely dip below 2500 metres. Ecuador being the Noahs Arc of landscapes, we cross everything from mountains to volcanoes to jungle to plains to forest all in the space of 200 kilometres. Somewhere en route we cross the equator, but with no signpost to signal it the golden photo opportunity is lost forever.

The outskirts of Quito confirm what we were led to believe – a very missable crime ridden dump. Don't get me wrong, I am happy for any of you who have managed to feast on the 5 blocks of old town anthropological bounty, but I would rather continue the journey to Cartagena with the motorbike I rode in on and not get donked for my PIN number and credit card by some armed amphetamined goon. Every traveler in South America has a “ my friend got mugged / shot / stabbed” story for Quito, not just the dumb ones.

By early afternoon we reach our last border for the trip. Where Argentina, Chile and Peru were all very casual - fill in this form and get waved through - going out of Ecuador is the first time anyone has bothered to check that our chassis numbers match the paperwork we are holding. While we are waiting for the inspector to come out and go over the bikes, Pierpaolo gets roped into giving some curious local girls an Italian lesson and for the rest of the afternoon Ecuadorian customs becomes little Italy with the girls running around yelling “como estai?” and “bongiorno!”.

Move 200 metres down the road to the Colombian entry and things look very different. A handful of paper shuffling administrators is replaced by a distinct military presence, with lots of fresh faced young brawn kitted up to the eyelids in modern combat gear. It's not a menacing presence in anyway – all the chaps are super friendly and happy to have the right kind of people come and visit their country. But the number of them and the level of equipment they are toting suggests that if someone undesirable kicks off then they are well covered.

The south of Colombia is of course the region where FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) has its stronghold. In the last 5 years there has been a concerted and coordinated effort by the government to break the back of this organization. This military presence at the borders is there to stop the flow of arms coming in, drugs going out and “combatant movement” in general.

Going up to the booth to get our passport entry stamped, there is a poster on the wall with about 40 people pictured on it, most with Che Guevara style army fatigues and natty styled beards and mustaches. Why is the need to take up arms so often irresistibly entwined with the urge to get a facial hair stylist? Whatever the reason, it's not of too much importance now to 12 of the chosen group. An ominous thick black “X” through their mugshot indicates that they are no longer required for further questioning.

After what seems an age, Pierpaolo coaxes all of the relevant paperwork for us and our bikes to enter Colombia and we head off in the dark to Ipiales, a typical border town where pizza, beer and a bed await us.

Friday March 12th 

START: 15597 km

FROM: Ipiales (COL)

TO: Popayan (COL)

FINISH: 15928 km

If I remember this day for one thing, it will be the road from Pasto to Popayan.

The landscape of Colombia in the south is as if someone took English Surrey in full bloom and put it in a vice. Green is absolutely everywhere in all different shades, rising up the ridges of the mountains and blending into the blues of the sky. Fluffy white clouds, the kinds that 6 year old kids draw - sit above the distant mountains. Not menacing, not accumulating, not stirring, just resting there as ornamental decoration to the landscape.

The ride today is magnificent – as much cornering as you would get riding for a long weekend in the Alps but all in a “just right” degree of tropical warmth. Wrists, thumbs, back and legs are all ruined from 8 hours of continual acceleration and deceleration on the roads, but it is a pain well worth suffering.

About an hour out of Popayan we team up with a local rider who is on the final length of his South American odyssey – 3 months and 25,000 kilometres around the continent on an old 1980's BMW. Popayan gets a good billing in both of our guidebooks, but with cranes and bulldozers tearing up the main square of a 2 street town it's hard not to feel that today it's been slightly oversold.

It's an interesting time to be traveling in South America. All of the natural wonders are as they were, the people still friendly and the rhythm of life pounding away in the streets. But there are some large political changes going on right now and each country is watching one another closely to see which way they swing.

Hugo Chavas, Venezuela's resurrection of Boris Yeltsin gone calypso is stealing most of the headlines – our guesthouse owner tonight informs us that Venezuela's relations with Colombia are faltering over the import of chicken eggs of all things. Chavas has stopped importing eggs from Colombia and is now importing them from Bolivia at three times the price to register his disapproval at increasing levels of US involvement in the country (more of that later). Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face on the international stage.

Saturday March 13th 

START: 15928 km

FROM: Popayan (COL)

TO: Cali (COL)

FINISH: 16067 km

It all looked pretty simple on paper...jump on the bikes, and in just 150 kilometres we will arrive in Cali, the salsa capital of the universe ready for a Saturday night out.

And it started out so well! Jumping back on the PanAmerican Highway it is another session of fun twisty roads through incredibly lush valleys and mountains. All good, all smiles. Then a simple merge onto a 4 lane freeway for the 20 km trundle into the big town.

All going well, traveling along at a sensible 90km/ h overtaking the slower larger vehicles in the right hand lane. Pierpaolo is about 100 yards behind me, when suddenly the truck 20 yards in front carrying 5 tonnes of bricks blows a tyre, jack knifes on 2 wheels out of control across my path, spills its load and crosses in front of oncoming traffic, careering off the highway into a ditch. Talk about having your life flash before your eyes! Nothing quite like the oncoming silhouette of an out of control truck to focus your attention .

Trying to scrub off 90 kays in 20 metres and navigate my way through an obstacle course of bricks is too much to ask of this man...I grab as much of the brakes as I can and seeing that I am not going to stop before the path of the truck in front I end up sliding the bike down in the middle of the road and bolting off to the side, out of the way of oncoming vehicles. Amazing how survival instincts work.

Pierpaolo having seen and heard the whole thing from behind has left a giant stripe of licorice down his section of the road, locking up his brakes with enough space to prevent him from becoming truck spaghetti or turning me into pet food. All the vehicles behind us and in the oncoming lane come to a stop and the scene is total chaos. Upside down truck in a ditch, wheels still spinning in the air, 2000 bricks thrown across the road and a motorbike on its side in the middle of it all. Pierpaolo helps me pick up the bike and wheel it off to the side of the road – initial panic as there is clear fluid pissing from it all over the road near the hot exhausts... turns out to be an exploded water bottle stored in my panniers since Ruta 40 in Argentina! 1 dollar of water providing $6000 of airbag protection, in hindsight that was money well spent.

Knowing what shock and adrenaline do to the body, we sit down and chill out by the side of the road for a bit and assess our physical and mechanical injuries. Pierpaolo is all in one piece having stayed upright on his bike the whole time. I have no pain whatsoever anywhere, just a small graze on my leg and some slight gravel rash on one of my motorcycle panniers. Incredible to think after such a dramatic crash the worst we walk out with is a small hole in my trousers and a tatty looking bag. Hooray for modern motorcycle equipment!

Arriving on the outskirts of Cali we quickly realise we have absolutely no idea of how to get around the city, so pull over a taxi and pay him $5 to take us to a hostel. Bikes parked and gear off, there is time to go and grab some lunch and have a look around the city in daylight.

It's a good thing they have dancing in Cali as there sure isn't a hell of a lot else to keep your interest. There was however one amusing observation in one of the department stores.

Men pretty much the world over can be reduced to blithering idiots in the presence of a large set of female knockers. Nothing new added to the global pool of knowledge there. But if you have been to the Caribbean or know some people from this part of the world, then you may know that guys here also have a thing for ladies carrying “junk in the trunk”, or girls with large shapely asses.

Well just as the Wonderbra helped millions of women around the world instantly acquire larger boobies, in Colombia you can actually find Wonderbum knickers! The sight of dainty womens underwear packed with shaped silicon for each butt cheek was enough to bring us close to tears. This could be one of the few places where if your girlfriend asks that most horrendous of questions - “does my bum look big in this?” - then it may be wise just to say yes.

It's all about the nightlife here, and with our new found hostel mates, including 2 Irish girls Aideen and Pamela, as well as Aussie Chris and Jan from Belgium we head out to a local pub with some live music and then onto the superbly named “Samba Caramba” to see how the locals get down and do their thang. After lashings of local rum followed by bottles of Aguadiente - a local tipple / nail varnish substitute - it's kind of hard to piece together any cogniscent thoughts about this passage of time. Suffice to say that Colombian girls really know how to move on a dance floor, Colombian guys can hold their own with them, but a pair of innocent looking Irish girls will bury everyone when it comes to holding your liquor.

Sunday March 14th 

REST DAY: Cali

Some times you choose your rest days, others you have them thrust upon you. This one falls into the latter category.

Perspiring overproof rum and nursing partly disassembled heads we confine ourselves to within a 400 metre radius of the hostel. With all the reputation this country has for its involvement in the world of narcotics, one can only applaud the national television station for choosing to show “Scarface” today – perhaps the greatest story of one man's rise and fall in the cocaine business. The perfect solution to a hangover day.

There is an American lad in the hostel who seems to be pretty clued up about the country, and he explains what is going on with the big military presence we have noticed at the borders and on the roads.

Around 6 years ago, the USA signed an agreement with Colombia that would see the Americans supplying money and personnel to help bring the drug and FARC guerrilla situation under control. And supply they do, to the tune of 5 billion dollars a year. The 5 billion comes across in the form of lots of toys that go bang and some burly looking infantry guys happy to be training young dudes and chasing unveiled girls in the tropics as opposed to getting shot at and blown up in a Middle Eastern desert.

In one of those rare moments in history, and perhaps a first for the US, the intervention here has actually had the desired effects. The flow of cocaine out of Colombia to the US has been massively interrupted, FARC leaders have been giving themselves up faster than they can have their details taken down, and perhaps subversively, the US has a foothold and some leverage in the country next door to everyone's favourite nut bag - Hugo Chavaz - and his wacky brand of contagious philosophy called socialism.

It all sounds so good, but as always there are subtexts to the main plot. Police checkpoints on all of the roads we travel are no bad thing – getting stopped and waved on by some young keen soldiers every 20 kilometres is entirely preferable to being abducted by FARC and doing the “I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here” thing for the rest of your life. According to some people in the know, FARC will in the next few years fall apart from the inside with all of the defections, but likely leave behind smaller and even more extreme splinter groups in the harder to access areas.

As for the drug trade, well I guess if you are a trader on the New York stock exchange or a model then you are pretty cheesed off about coke prices going up due to supply problems, but it's hard not to  look at the escalation of the drug wars along the Mexican border and think that this is not connected to the “success” of operations down here. If you push hard in one area, then  the force you are trying to overcome will usually back away and find another way in. The backfire here appears that the trouble has landed with more casualties closer to the US's doorstep than was the case originally.

Colombia still has its fair share of problems, the most obvious being the massive divide that separates the rich from the poor. Visually it is always there, but nothing as threatening as had been billed. Whenever we eat at cheap restaurants, someone from the street will always come up and ask for something from us. The standard arrangement being to notify the guy before the waiters whisk the plates away so that they can empty the remains into a cup, say thanks and walk off with some dinner for their bellies. Without exception they are always polite and an arrangement that no one can have any real arguments with.

Monday March 15th 

START: 16067 km

FROM: Cali (COL)

TO: Salento – Zona Cafetera (COL)

FINISH: 16278 km

If you don't have any intentions of bringing back a suitcase full of marching powder, then the only other export of note to get acquainted with here is the coffee. The cool mountain climates inland are perfect for growing some of the world's best, so with this in mind we set off today for the old town of Salento, in the heart of the Zona Cafetera.

Just a short ride today, but the roads are great fun. Real TV commercial stuff, with early morning mists being pulled up the mountain sides like a blanket by the sun. The imagery reminds me of the romanticism needed in order to market your early morning cuppa. 15 years ago my brother filmed a ridiculously expensive commercial – 55 seconds of Tom Selleck sipping tea, shot against a backdrop of the Himalayas with all cast and crew flown out for 10 days from Australia to Nepal to do it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth. Nowadays it would all be done in a studio against a blue screen for a fraction of that, and probably not with Tom Selleck. Don't worry Tom, I remember how cool you were in Magnum PI. But I never quite figured out what that Higgins chap was all about.

Salento is a gorgeous little town – a grand total of 4 cars bumbling around the square, with every house painted differently with technicolour wooden shutters and verandahs looking out onto the square. There's not that much to do here but that's precisely the point...just sit back, have some food and while away the afternoon in a cosy cafe. Ironically here in the centre of arabica bean mecca it is impossible to find a good coffee anywhere! If ever there was a place in need of Italian immigration then this is it.

In the plaza we meet a lad from Ecuador on possibly the only bike so far that is less comfortable than ours...a very focused off road KTM, the type people use for 1 hour at the weekends before running out of petrol and losing the nerve endings in their bum. This guy has just done 24,000 kilometres around South America on it and loves it to bits... he must be mad! Give me a big gas tank and a large comfy seat any day.

Mountain rivers here are brimming with trout so it is THE dish to eat here. A slap up meal and an afternoon spent trawling around the town with camera in hand is a great way to finish the day. We both think this town is hugely under rated, the type of place you could easily come 1, stay 5 and struggle to remember exactly what you did while you were there.

Tuesday March 15th 

START: 16278 km

FROM: Salento – Zona Cafetera (COL)

TO: Don Matias (COL)

FINISH: 16598 km

Medellin was another target town for us in Colombia, but the reality has dawned on us that  it is going to take a while to get our bikes out of the country and we have loose bookings for early April to fly back to Europe. So our plan changes to get to Cartagena ASAP and either leave Medellin as a reward for despatching the bikes or as a little something for our next visit. But both of us are anxious to get to Cartagena and get our dose of Caribbean fun.

The morning is arduous – these little mountain roads are tough going, especially with the road diversions in place and a continual conga train of trucks to pass. On one of the corners a semi trailer lies freshly flipped by the side of the road (I like my trucks done over easy thanks), testament to the gaping chasm between Colombian drivers' ambition and their skill level.

After the mountains, the road North then takes us alongside a raging river, through some pretty dense and humid jungle. The corners are all open and flowing, turning the ride into an Apocalypse Now meets Isle of Man TT boys dream. Looking at the vast expanse of inaccessible countryside out there you realise what a hard job it will be to flush out and control all of the rebel forces out there. With the means to generate large amounts of money by the production of contraband, and the ability to remain out of reach of the authorities you have the same ingredients here as have defeated every invading force in Afghanistan since time began.

Heavy rain and fading light sees us calling it a night at the unremarkable town of Don Matias. Only 320 kilometres covered today despite over 10 hours on the bikes... hard work  but sunshine and coastline are now a day closer.

Wednesday March 16th 

START: 16598 km

FROM: Don Matias (COL)

TO: San Julian (COL)

FINISH: 17115 km

Riding the bike each day for 500km on all manner of roads really is the easiest part of the trip. The hardest thing about it is organising the logistics to get your stuff moved from country to country. Through Horizons Unlimited we have found a guy in Cartagena who can help us ship the bikes back home. A boat sails from Cartagena at the end of the month to England, so he recommends that we try and meet up with him this week so we can get ourselves sufficiently prepared to meet this date. Pierpaolo can only keep his bike in the country until April 10th – if it hasn't left the country by then it becomes property of the Colombian government, so incentive to get our act together is pretty high.

With 650 odd kilometres to Cartagena, today could just be the day when we reach our final destination. There are mixed feelings about finishing the riding so soon. Together we have ridden through some of the most amazing scenery in the last 10 weeks, almost to the point of overload. Having crossed so many mountain passes, traveled through endless stretches of desert and enduring all kinds of weather imaginable (-7 to +40) we can't really feel cheated if the bikes were taken away from us tomorrow. They have taken us through so much so admirably, yet there is a certain appeal in boxing them up, sending them away and spending the rest of our days in Colombia with little more than a pair of board shorts and our passports. So our mission for the day is to try and make Cartagena before nightfall.

Another day of thirds, with a terrible morning in the wake of diesel belching trucks and yet another truck flipped on the roads (3 in 4 days!). Then more jungle racer stuff in the afternoon as we follow the path of the river through the dense green landscape. And then hard driving rain to finish off the day, with a slight gap before sundown so we can dry off.

A few police checks have stolen an hour of our time leaving us 100 kilometres short of Cartagena, but we cannot bare any grudges. All the highway patrol guys here in Colombia are doing a wonderful public service in terms of domestic and tourist security. They are all young, enthusiastic, keen to chat about our trip and share a joke, and never at any point is there even the faintest suggestion of a small bribe or backhander. Peru take note!

And it's our second night in a row where we stay at a real middle of nowhere town with nothing, not even running water and a working toilet in our hotel to warrant it being placed on a map. This truckers stop is the best we could do in the dark, and perhaps regains  some of the tough points we lost by spending only 1 night in the tent this whole trip.

Thursday March 17th 

START: 17115 km

FROM: San Julian (COL)

TO: Cartagena (COL)

FINISH: 17223 km

We could say it was the nerves and excitement of finishing our epic trip that kept us up all night, but in reality it was more the thunder of the trucks hurtling their way down the highway just 10 metres from a space in our wall where a window used to be. Pack up the bags for the last time and get on the bikes – just 100 kilometres until the finish line, the historic walled city of Cartagena.

No talk of sweeping bends or gun barrel straights or weaving traffic, the aim of the game now is just to get the bikes there in one piece, so it's a very subdued and uneventful run into town from our little highway truck stop.  Our crude map leads us to a gigantic market where the leftover fish catch, crates of strange looking fruit and old car parts combine to make an aroma that is surely not conducive to commerce. With the dirt roads, the colour of the people and the clothing they are wearing it feels more like Africa than anything of the South America we have seen previously

2 dollar taxi GPS is employed to take us to a decent guest house in Getsemani, just on the outside of the walls surrounding the old town. Pierpaolo parks up and  goes into our chosen guesthouse, leaving me in the plaza watching our 2 bikes and realising that this is the end of the line – we have just finished what we set out to do. A real anti climax – no finish lines, no beautiful girls waving pom poms and cheering us in – just an old lady selling fruit in the corner and one very chilled out dog sleeping spread eagle in the morning sun. A smile crosses my face, both with the sense of achievement and with the knowledge that I will never have to don my rancid boots and cumbersome bike gear again.

PACKING UP AND GOING HOME

Cartagena is a delightful city – a place where music plays from every street corner and the people seem to move subconsciously to its rhythm. When we are not out on the streets, drinking exotic juices and smoothies from the street vendor stands we are either floating about in the pool at our wonderful guesthouse (Casa Relax) or down with our shipping agents organising and finalising the paperwork in order to send the bikes out of the country.

With the excellent help of Luis Ernesto and his entire family at Enlace Caribe, we end up getting the bikes crated up and put in their own sea container back to Australia. It is a good thing we left out Medellin and sped our way to Cartagena as this process took 10 days with us having to be somewhere or sign something on every day of our stay. A massive thankyou to Luis's family for being such champions.

Due to the increased border security (courtesy of the Americans), exporting anything from the country now takes forever and a day involving hundreds of government departments at each step in the process. Honestly it would be easier sending a barrel of enriched plutonium addressed to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran then sending anything out of Colombia.

But if you are going to be chained to a town for 10 days in South America, then Cartagena is the one place I would want to be. With our English friend Nikki also staying at our guest house, we manage to spend the most relaxing time any of us have had in years. Waking up to custom made juices from fruits I have never seen (guanaba, nispero), drinking cold beers by the pool, gorging ourselves in the $3 restaurants in our street every lunchtime, hanging out with the resident parrots at the guest house or whiling away the evenings drinking rum and watching the locals dance the night away, the concept of stress becomes entirely foreign.

It's all so relaxing I don't know how the Spanish managed to get a single thing done here back in the 17th and  18th century. But they were an industrious mob, choosing Cartagena as their principal port in South America to warehouse all of their stolen loot from the various indigenous empires pillaged during their reign. The walls around the centre of town are pretty serious bits of engineering, designed to keep out any easily tempted pirates from taking any of the accumulated ill gotten booty. All treasures were stored in vaults and cellars around the town, and once every 6 months or so a boat would come into port and get loaded up with as much as it could safely carry back to Spain.

The centre of town is stunning, with some of the best preserved Spanish colonial architecture in the world. Cafes and restaurants spill out onto the cobblestone streets, but as with any tourist destination there are touts and spruikers by the hundreds who are relentless in their attempts to drag you into them. One night is enough for us in the heart of it all – we end up spending the rest of our time in the quieter suburbs behind the walls, where kids play football in the street, grandparents sit outside in wicker chairs and the doors to all houses are left open for anyone that may care to drop in.

After 10 days and enough rum between us to power an armada, it's time for Pierpaolo to head back to Italy and me to go back to the UK. We say goodbye to each other at Cartagena airport, thanking each other for being such fun and tolerant company for the last 3 months. Time to return to normal lives and then when the dull reality of office work sets in after a few months, then maybe we will start hatching our next adventure. But for now, a decent mug of tea back in Ol' Blighty is the thing I am looking forward to most.