Tim Notier's Blog, page 12

Oct. 13, 2018 - Stop, Drop, and Roll On

By Marisa

I often look at the pictures we take and think, “Wow! We really are having the adventure of our dreams!" For us, there is no greater lifestyle than traveling around the world on a motorcycle, and sometimes we stand next to our bike with a jaw-dropping vista in the background on some crazy winding dirt road in the middle of nowhere, and I just couldn't be prouder of how far we've come.

Unfortunately, this is not one of those moments.

Yesterday Tim and I found ourselves hobbling around the Peruvian town of Huaraz, me on crutches, him looking pale and sickly with four cotton-ball bandages on his arms where the nurses stuck him with needles and IV's, and I couldn't help but think that whatever superpowers we may have once thought we had, they're certainly gone now. Sometimes we look pretty bad-ass on this journey. But sometimes we don't. About two weeks ago, things were pretty much perfect for us. We were making our way south from the remote reaches of northern Peru, stopping by every grouping of ruins we could (there are tons in this region) and exploring the towns and gorgeous views of the countryside along the way.  The hill-top Pre-Incan ruins of Marcahuamachuco, Peru. Tim in the ruins of Marcahuamachuco, Peru. We met some incredible friends along the way, both Peruvian and international, got interviewed for a local news channel, and even attended a full-out rap battle that you had to see to believe. The Plaza de Armas in Huamachuco, Peru. Whoever thought the people of Huamachuco, Peru would be such good rappers? We were on top of the world, both figuratively and literally as we discovered many high-altitude roads through little mud villages perched precariously on the mountainsides. The Andean people we came across were living in ways that appeared unchanged for centuries, and it was a joy seeing how each region had its own style of hats and textiles. A beautiful local girl with a lamb near Huamachuco, Peru. We even got our bike decked out to look the part in a local sheep skin from a little woman who desperately wanted us to take one of her puppies as well. I told her we were traveling on a motorcycle and could not bring a puppy with us, but she insisted that they were small enough to fit in our backpacks. Then I explained that we would need to cross borders, and bringing animals was not allowed without the proper paperwork. She said she had a box we could hide the puppies in, and the guards would never know. After a long debate about this, we were able to purchase just the sheepskin and thankfully were not forced to leave with a puppy. A wolf in sheep's clothing? Our adventures in Peru were truly taking us to fantastic places. The roads in this country are cliffside, scary, and breathtaking, and are famous for zig-zagging with countless switchbacks. Sometimes you can spend an hour simply going down a narrow valley and then up the other side. But we were loving every second of it. One of the many winding roads between Angasmarca and Pallasca, Peru. A perfect picnic spot near Pallasca, Peru. And then our luck literally took a turn for the worse. We were making a turn on a dirt road with a concrete patch that was used for water drainage when the back tire slipped out from under us. Normally our falls are slow and you can sense yourself tilting farther and farther over. But this one was quick and sudden, out of nowhere. We skid for a good 10-15 feet along the concrete, and all was good, except that the ground had somehow pushed my right toe so that my foot ended up backwards and under the pannier.

I had to jump off to flip myself in the direction of my foot since I couldn't get it out right away, and from the pain and the angle that my leg had been forced in, I knew something was definitely wrong.  Soaking my foot at the campsite. Our plan had been to camp that night since it was a long way to the next town. So despite my injury, that's what we did. Needless to say, I wasn't much help at putting up the tent, but Tim was quite the gentleman, doing everything for me, and even brought some cold river water for me to soak my foot in, which helped a lot with the swelling.

That night I was in a lot of pain, and I probably wouldn't have gotten any sleep if it wasn't for taking a few pain pills which we always carry with us. But I had no idea whether I broke my foot or not, and knew that we needed to get to a hospital with an x-ray machine as soon as possible to find out.

So the next day we headed to the nearest town of Caraz, passing through gorgeous Cañon del Pato on the way. Once in Caraz, I went straight to the hospital and got an x-ray. The doctor told me there was a broken bone, unfortunately, she did not seem confident in her assessment. To add to the confusion, she kept trying to call the doctor who makes casts and he wouldn't answer, and nobody knew if he was on vacation or when he would ever come back to work. Me staring at a waterfall in Cañon del Pato, Peru. X-Rays of my right foot. Tim learned some interesting Spanish vocabulary while my x-rays were being taken. They made a temporary cast for me, and I had suspicions that they made it wrong, so Tim and I made an executive decision that night to go to a different hospital in the next town: Huaraz.

Not even two hours away, and backdropped by white-capped mountains, Huaraz's hospital seemed to be much better equipped than the one in Caraz. And after a new set of x-rays, the doctor in Huaraz confirmed that I did not have a broken bone, and it was just a pulled muscle. Even so, I would need to stay off my foot for at least 10 days. That was a lot better than a month or two in a cast, so I was very thankful for this second opinion, and after we found a comfortable hotel just down the street from the hospital, it seemed that everything was going to be alright. View of the stunning peaks from our hotel in Huaraz, Peru. We've been here in Huaraz for more than a week now, and I'm happy to say that my foot is on the mend. In fact, we'd planned on leaving yesterday to go check out the gorgeous mountains around here, but then Tim got sick two nights ago.

This was the fourth fever he's had this year, and it was a bad one. Without a wink of sleep, he spent the night mumbling incoherently and complaining of pain wracking his head, stomach, and back. So yesterday we spent the morning at the hospital conveniently down the street from us, and after many tests, we learned that it's not malaria (thank goodness!) but that he could have Typhoid Fever.

Typhoid Fever is actually what happens when you get salmonella. And although it can be quite miserable and severe if untreated, and it can even lead to death, it's also easily treated with a round of antibiotics. Tim sick in bed. So here we are still, and apparently Huaraz, Peru is our new home. We are luckily very comfortable and have all the amenities we could ever want, but we're definitely not feeling as bad-ass as usual, and our adventuring has been put on hold.

I'm not sure how much longer we'll stay here, surely until we are both fully recovered, but once we feel well-enough, we'll be headed into the mountains where we'll try to gain some of our superpowers back.

Sept. 26, 2018 - The Land of the Dead

By Marisa

Mummies of the Chachapoya people, Museo de Leymebamba, Peru. Nothing has come easy for us in Peru. From underdeveloped road conditions, to people just shrugging their shoulders when telling us that the road is closed, and then still others simply making things up when we ask for directions because they'd rather say something than nothing, this place has definitely tested our patience.

But alongside Peru's challenges come great rewards, and we firmly believe that despite the obstacles, this country and its incredible people are worth it. And the perfect example of that has been the sites and cultures we've seen here in the north, or as I like to call it, the Land of the Dead, for reasons which I will explain later.  An old bridge near Nuevo Tingo on the Utcubamba River, Peru. Peru may be poorer, more polluted, and has less-developed infrastructure than its neighbors to the north such as Ecuador and Colombia, but there is a reason why people from around the world flock here. There is something deeply special about this country. It's as if Peru is an experience to be felt.

Once crossing the border, we noticed that the music started to have a folkish rhythm to it that sounds more indigenous than latin, and the people have a gorgeously stoic look to them, as many of the Andean locals are finely dressed in alpaca ponchos and wide-brimmed hats.

There is also something majestic, ancient, and mysterious about the mountains and terraced fields of this country, as if every stone were placed there long ago by someone with a particular intention. And sometimes while riding around, I can smell incense burning in the villages, and I will forever associate that smell with the mystic aura of this place. Near Celendín, Cajamarca, Peru. The cultures here are old, and the Spanish may have left their mark, but it's just a scratch against the monuments and terraforming that the indigenous people have built. And our first experience with this strong indigenous presence was the fortified city of Kuélap.

Most tourists don't come to the north of Peru. But if they do, they don't come without visiting Kuélap since it's considered to be Peru's “second Machu Picchu". Both are mountaintop pre-hispanic ruins, but really, the two cities are unrelated. A flower peaking out from the ruins of Kuélap, Peru. ​Built by the Chachapoyas (a.k.a. Cloud Warriors), not the Inca, Kuélap was mostly constructed from 600-1100 A.D., and is architecturally unique as nearly all of its 550 stone structures are circular. The city may have had at one point as many as 300,000 inhabitants, and was well fortified by a 10-20 meter high wall surrounding it (32 to 65 feet), which is absolutely enormous when seen in person. It shocks me that even these walls could not withstand the might of the Inca who conquered it in 1470, though the Inca would fall to the Spanish a mere 60 years later, abandoning the city. The outside walls of Kuélap, Peru. The beautiful stone designs of Kuélap, Peru. Although some of Kuélap's stonework is intricate, its walls and stone construction cannot compare to the perfect masonry that the Inca mastered. Still, Kuélap is uniquely impressive for several reasons: it has stunning views of the surrounding cloud-forested mountains (it's 1,000 ft. higher than Machu Picchu and much older), some of its structures are massive, such as its walls and Templo Mayor which is shaped like an inverted cone, and best of all, unlike Machu Picchu, almost no one visits Kuélap. If the newly-built cable car goes out, as it did when we went, you may even have the site all to yourself. The uniquely inverted conical shape of Templo Mayor, Kuélap, Peru. Kuélap was the first archeological site we visited in Peru, and it was also the first time that Tim and I realized how magical this country is. Kuélap, Peru. After Kuélap, we took a detour to an infrequently-visited region where we heard we might get the keys to the “Village of the Dead", or Pueblo de los Muertos. That just sounded too enticing for us to pass up, but as we made our way there, we came to a road block with a construction worker woman holding up a red sign that said PARE, the Spanish equivalent to STOP.

Stopping for construction is normal in Latin America, and as the woman held up a finger to show us to wait a moment, we patiently did so, as it usually only takes a few minutes before we're let through. But as the minutes dragged on, Tim turned to me and said, “Can you go ask that lady how long it will be? I just want to be sure she meant one minute as opposed to one hour."

So I did just that, but after conversing with the woman for quite some time, I came back to tell Tim the bad news. “She said the road is closed until 1:00 pm." It was 9:30. Peruvian roads are beautiful, though not always the safest. It turns out that construction in Peru runs on normal working hours, so that means all day long (there is a short lunch break between 1:00 and 2:00), seven days a week. And they don't tell you the road is closed until you get there, of course.

So Tim and I got out our camping chairs and made ourselves comfortable just as a busload of sixth graders on a field trip pulled up, also having to wait more than three hours for the workers to go on lunch break. This impromptu delay actually turned into an incredible experience in disguise, because as the children disembarked from their bus, they found that Tim and I were the most interesting thing around, and decided to interview us for three hours. It was the closest I've ever felt to a celebrity. They took hundreds of selfies with us and the bike, and filmed our answers to their questions on their phones. I'm sure their teachers are going to give them a test on our lives once they get back to school. I'm in there somewhere. Apparently, Tim and I are the only ones who get upset over road closures and things not going our way, as Peruvians seem to have an uncanny ability to just go with the flow. After the road opened up again, we said our goodbyes to the field trippers, and made our way to the Village of the Dead. Chachapoya wall carvings in the Pueblo de los Muertos, Lámud, Peru. The rumors were true: because the Pueblo de los Muertos is such a difficult site to get to, no one goes, and so you have to pick up the keys at the tourist office of the nearest village (Lámud) to get in. This also means you have the ruins completely to yourselves.

The Pueblo de los Muertos is made up of several cliffside walled structures built by the Chachapoya people between 1100 and 1350 A.D. It gets its name because it's where mummies and human bones have been found. This is also the reason why there are keys to get in, because looters have ransacked the site over the years, and so gates have been put up to keep people out. Despite the looters, there are still quite a few human remains to be seen there.  A human femur resting in the Pueblo de los Muertos, Lámud, Peru. This “Village of the Dead" was built on a cliff, and when I say built on a cliff, I mean at one point I stopped dead in my tracks and Tim turned back to me and said, “Come on. Aren't you going to see the rest?" I shook my head and sat down where I was, telling myself not to look over the edge for fear of getting vertigo, and then watched Tim climb along the cliff, surely to his imminent death.

Luckily, neither of us fell, and no new bones were added to the village's collection. We camped at the trail head with a gorgeous view of the Gocta Waterfall in the distance and slept under the stars (and rain) trying not to think about the dead people just down the trail from us. This picture proves that Tim is certainly braver than I. The next day we headed through some difficult roads to find the famous Sarcophagi of Karajía. Like at the Pueblo de los Muertos, the Chachapoya people had a tradition of mummifying the dead, usually in a sitting position, and wrapping them in cloths or placing them in clay urns. This was actually a tradition throughout Peru, including the Inca, and these mummies were sometimes kept in the house so that offerings and food could be given to the ancestors during meals or on special occasions. Other times, the mummies were protected by being buried or stored in a safe place such as on a cliff side. In fact, South Americans were mummifying their dead long before the ancient Egyptians.

And if the person was important, such as those at Karajía, they were placed in an elaborately-painted sarcophagus, some as large as 2.5 meters tall (over 8 feet), and placed on a cliff with an eternal view of the beautiful countryside. Los Sarcófagos de Karajía, Luya, Peru. What the Sarcófagos de Karajía may have once looked like. This is why I will always remember this area of Peru as the Land of the Dead. It seems that at every turn, there are more urns and more mummies. At the museum of Leymebamba, there were over a hundred mummies, some of which had faces sewn onto their cloth wrappings. There were even mummies of babies, dogs, and wild cats. Clearly, remembrance and respect of the dead was very important to these cultures. I prefer the sewn-on faces to the real ones. Museo de Leymebamba, Peru. Today we are in Cajamarca, and yesterday we visited a series of mountain-side carvings here that have been used as a mausoleum for mummies and urns for more than 2,000 years. It's known as the Ventanillas de Otuzco.

Tomorrow we will slowly make our way south, out of this archeologically-rich region, and into the high-altitude Andes where we will hopefully come across glaciers. Though we are in no way leaving the Land of the Dead yet, we will be setting our sights on more natural wonders as opposed to cultural ones in the coming weeks. As always, stay tuned, and we'll keep you posted. The funerary tombs of Ventanillas de Otuzco, Cajamarca, Peru.

Sept. 18, 2018 - The Cursed Road to Peru

By Marisa

As many of you know, we were on the road to Peru two weeks ago when our monoshock broke and we were forced to haul the bike back to Cuenca, Ecuador, to get it fixed. What we didn't realize at the time was that the particular stretch of road between Cuenca, Ecuador and Jaén, Peru is cursed. The cursed road to Peru. Lovely, but cursed. The good news is we have now made it to Peru, but not without first falling victims to a few misfortunate events.

Below is a map of our journey, and it's pretty much a straight line through the mountains from Cuenca, Ecuador, through Loja, down to the Peruvian border (straight is a relative term since it actually zig-zags through the mountains). On our first round, we made it all the way past Loja, past Vilcabamba, until we came into Podocarpus National Park, where both the road and weather turned for the worse and the rain and mud made the going quite difficult. But we were able to get through a good part of it until we heard a snap from underneath us, and knew that something had gone wrong with the bike. We had broken the monoshock (the rear suspension system), and it was a break that the KTM dealership said they had only seen with motocross riders doing massive jumps. I'm still not sure how we managed that, but it was definitely broken.

We were able to still ride the bike to the next village, somehow get it into a truck bed, and paid the kind driver to take us all the way back to Cuenca where there was a KTM dealership. It was a five hour journey, but we safely got the bike and ourselves to a place where things could be fixed. And for a moment, we thought our troubles were behind us. It's a sad day to see your bike being transported by a truck. The new monoshock only took a week to arrive from Austria, and although our electronic suspension system was stuck in the two-up, fully-loaded mode (no problem for us since that's what we need), we figured that just fixing the monoshock would be fine. So in one week, and thanks to the wonderful people at KTM Cuenca, we had the monoshock installed and were packed and ready to leave Cuenca and get to Peru. Thank you KTM Cuenca, Ecuador! But after just one day of riding, we arrived in Vilcabamba to see that we were running low on coolant. Easy fix I thought, right? Everyone has coolant, but there are several different types, and the small town of Vilcabamba did not have a wide variety of coolants. Also, after digging around online on different forums, it was clear that mixing coolants is definitely not recommended.

So the next day we headed back up north to a large town called Loja, hoping they would have some of the right coolant in one of their many motorcycle and mechanic shops. We searched the whole of Loja, and finally learned that they don't. Luckily, we called the KTM dealership in Cuenca and they had some that they used for their large bikes, such as ours, but of course that was back in Cuenca. The streets of Cuenca, Ecuador. At this point we thought we may never get out of Ecuador. It's such a lovely country, but to be stuck there unable to get out, really dampened our mood. Under no circumstances did we want to go all the way back to Cuenca for the third time for bike repairs. Because we had the front shocks repaired in Quito, all in all I think we spent a month total in Ecuador simply waiting to get our bike fixed. It has required a lot of money, a lot of hotel rooms, and a lot of patience.

Fortunately, someone in Loja knew someone else who was coming back from Cuenca the next day, and he would be able to bring us the special coolant that we needed. We thanked our lucky stars, and knew that we would only have to wait another day before we could be on the road again. The magic stuff. The old coolant in the bike was four years old, which is well past its expiration. So Tim had a mechanic help him bleed the whole system so he could fill it up with new coolant. We were so excited once the job was done, that we started the bike up with big smiles on our faces, until the engine simply died. Something else was wrong.

The bike wouldn't start again, and Tim quickly realized that our young mechanic friend had not properly hooked up the gas line to the tank. A simple fix, and soon we were on our way, back to the hotel, when Tim was trying to pass a truck and the bike died again.

Once again, we found ourselves on the side of the road, sadly standing beside a dead bike, and I couldn't help but think, “This is a curse. We're never going to get past this point." Tim thankfully did not share my doom and gloom philosophy, as he reattached the gas line to the tank, this time getting it connected just right with a reassuring “click". The road from Vilcabamba, Ecuador to the Peruvian border. At last we were on the road to Peru again, and got past the section in Podocarpus National Park that destroyed us the first time. At the same point that the monoshock had broken, we got off the bike, did a little dance, and headed on, feeling like we had finally shaken off the curse of the road. Tim did “the robot" as I celebrated traditionally.  We're happy to be past the section of road that did us in last time. I am jumping for joy, and Tim is doing the robot. The border did not take terribly long, and at last we entered Peru. But the ghosts of the road were not yet done with us, as we were just an hour away from our first Peruvian destination of Jaén when we hit a large screw and punctured our rear tire.

And so once again we were standing on the side of the road, this time watching the air hiss out of our new back tire. But again, due to Tim's skills, he plugged the hole like an expert, and within ten minutes we were on our way. Plugging a hole in a new tire is never fun. So we have made it to Peru, but we can only hope that our luck will turn for the better. Today we will head farther into the mountains where we will encounter our first real set of Peruvian ruins.

It was tough going, but we've made it through what has been perhaps the most difficult section of our trip so far. In all honesty, despite curses and road demons, we have been very lucky.

Colombia - ¡Que Chevere!

By Marisa

If you hear the name Colombia and you think “Narcos" or “cocaine", then I have to let you in on a little secret: throw those preconceptions out the window and come to Colombia where you will have the time of your life, but don't tell anyone else. Let them have their suspicions about this gem of a country, because if everyone knew how great it was, then the whole world would descend upon Colombia and never leave.

If you can't tell yet, Colombia is our absolute favorite country that we have visited so far (we are currently in Ecuador, so we haven't gotten much farther). This is not to say that all the other countries we have been to are awful. To the contrary, we've loved our time in every place, and each one is unique and enjoyable in its own way. At the moment of writing this, we have driven from the US through every country in Central America and into South America, and it has been amazing. But Tim and I both agree that there was something particularly magical about Colombia.

One of the greatest things about Colombia is a bit ironic. Because of its turbulent recent past, Colombia has not had the onslaught of tourism and modernization that other countries have. In fact, most tourists avoided Colombia for a very long time, and it wasn't until recently, as in the past ten years, that it really started to open up. Tim and the bike with the peaks of Fura y Tena in the background, Boyaca, Colombia. This means that there is a certain friendliness and hospitality that comes with the Colombian people, whereas elsewhere in South America, locals may have become jaded by the constant presence of Americans, Canadians, and Europeans who come to buy up their beach-front property or overcrowd their beautiful sites.

Things of course may change, but for the moment at least, Colombia is authentic and pristine, and Colombians seem happier than the average Latin American, which is hard to do since Latin Americans are in general very happy, optimistic people. But in my opinion, Colombians were the pinnacle of joyous, and they loved to have a good time more than most. Maybe this is because it's the first time in recent history that things have been good for them. But whatever the reason, their exuberance for life was contagious. The clean, safe, and perfectly quaint streets of Guadalupe, Santander, Colombia. Though the police presence is very apparent in Colombia, again, even the police were super friendly. And in comparison to the police in Nicaragua or Guatemala for example, they did not look very militaristic (i.e. dressed in camo with AK-47's slung over their shoulders). No, Colombian police were mostly young men (and even a few young women) who dressed in bright neon green, they often did not carry weapons, and would give you a thumbs up as you drove by. At first we thought it was because they liked our awesome giant motorcycle. And sometimes they gave us a smile, shout, or wave, which does suggest they think we're awesome (motorcycle travelers usually are), but actually the thumbs up simply means the road is clear ahead. Oh well.

Colombia is also a very clean country. As far as trash on the streets and even diesel fumes, I feel it's way ahead of most Central American countries. And from what we've heard from other travelers, it is the cleanest country of South America, especially compared to Peru and Bolivia. Just another perfect view in Colombia, near Chita, Boyaca, Colombia. Ah, but wait, I haven't even mentioned yet the natural wonders, biodiversity, and the incredible year-round climate that Colombia has. But perhaps one of my ultimate favorite things about Colombia is the free motorcycle lane at toll booths where all motorcycles can simply pass by the rest of the traffic as they line up and pay. At every toll, a huge smile would spread across my face and I'd think to myself, “Whoever thought of this is the best!".

So below I've described a few of the highlights of our time in Colombia. They are not in chronological order, but are in order of our favorites first. And because I'm sure you're going to want to pack your bags by the time you finish this, if you want any further advice on what to see and do in Colombia, feel free to contact us. Off-Road in Santander If you can't see the above video, click here. Just north of Bogotá, the capital, you will find a region of Colombia called Santander. I have no idea if this is the prettiest province since we did not visit them all, but I think we spent nearly a month total going from one little town to the next in Santander, and this is really what made us fall in love with Colombia.

Santander's most famous colonial town is Barichara, and it is probably the cutest town on the planet. Every building it constructed in a historically colonial style using the beige stone quarried in the region, and everything has been restored to perfection. Tim, the bike, and I on one of the gorgeous village roads of Barichara, Santander, Colombia. But Barichara is definitely not the only noteworthy colonial town in the region. Guane, Guadalupe, Onzaga, Cepita, there are countless others. And though many of the roads we took to these villages were unpaved or had muddy landslides covering sections due to it being the end of the rainy season, I think this all added to the mystery and seclusion. It felt like once we arrived, that these towns tucked into the mountain valleys with their church bells ringing were left untouched for hundreds of years until we came and discovered them. El Cocuy You may have thought that Colombia is all a hot sweltering jungle near the equator where you would need to bring shorts and bug spray. And though that is true for some parts, much of Colombia is at a very high altitude and can get quite cold, and the perfect example of this is El Cocuy.

El Cocuy one of Colombia's many national parks, but it is very special in that the mountains of El Cocuy are so tall, they have glaciers atop them and are always covered in snow. It is also home to the world's largest flying bird, the Andean Condor. We had quite an adventure traversing some backroads near El Cocuy, all backdropped by glaciers. If you can't see the above video, click here. El Cocuy National Park is massive and majestic, a truly wild place that feels untouched and pure. You will of course come across sparse villages in the highlands populated by poncho-wearing Andean people, and you will certainly be the only foreigner there. It's an incredible experience, and one that I will never forget. Coffee Country If you can't see the above video, click here. Oh yes, and if you like coffee, then Colombia is a coffee-lover's paradise. I personally don't like coffee, but Tim drank ten cups a day.

Coffee country in Colombia (a.k.a. eje cafetero, just west of Bogotá) is also known for its chocolate farms. Coffee is not an endemic crop to the region of South America, but chocolate is, and Colombia certainly does it right. Many of Europe's chocolatiers purchase their pure cocoa from Colombia, so we thought why not go straight to the source? We did, and to see what we thought of eating the white slime around raw chocolate beans, check out our video above. Two baby chocolate pods, Finca San Luis Borbur, Boyaca, Colombia. Cartagena and the Caribbean Coast Cartagena is Colombia's colonial Atlantic seaside city, and was the first place in Colombia we visited since our sailboat from Panama docked us there. As we pulled into port, I couldn't help but gawk at the beautiful glass high-rise skyline of Cartagena's beachside apartments and cosmopolitan areas, and realized that this was not what I expected from a Colombian city at all.

But its not all sleek and modern. We unloaded the bike, did our paperwork at customs, and then spent the next few days exploring the city's other side: the historic quarter. Quaint and colorful Spanish-style buildings line streets with horses and buggies that can take you around, but the place doesn't really come to life until night, when restaurants turn into hopping bars and clubs, and the music pumping perfectly blends into the energy of Cartagena after sunset. The colonial streets of the old city in Cartagena, Bolivar, Colombia. Cartagena is a secret no longer as it is full of people from around the world who are enjoying the heat of its dance-filled nights, its photogenic streets, and its perfect beaches. Yet it's never too late to enjoy this fun-loving coastal city at the crossroads of history and modernity. Sunset on the Caribbean near Santa Verónica, Atlántico, Colombia. If you were to drive east from Cartagena along the coast as we did, you'll come to an area around the city of Santa Marta that is known to have the tallest coastal mountains in the world. The beaches here are stunning with huge waves (a surfing hotspot), and are backdropped by the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevadas.

Unfortunately while we were there, a small cold I had turned into pneumonia, and I spent our days on the beach laying on my hammock barely aware of my surroundings. So if it wasn't for that, I probably would have enjoyed our amazing surroundings more. Don't worry, I took some strong pills and successfully treated my pneumonia. If you can't see the above video, click here. Things We Missed Because we were to give presentations at a Horizon's Unlimited event in Ecuador, we had to leave Colombia earlier than expected (though if we didn't have a deadline we may have never left). But unfortunately, that means we missed many places that we heard were great.

Here's a short list:San Agustín - An archeological site with incredibly-carved statues and faces.Tatacoa Desert - Desert in Colombia? Apparently yes, and it looks stunning.El Trampolín de la Muerte - Death Road. Sounds enticing.The Amazon Region - Only accessible by plane, so definitely hard to do by motorcycle, the Colombian Amazon is opening up to tourism for the first time ever.Medellín - Pablo Escobar's old stomping grounds, but nowadays people absolutely love the beauty and friendly vibe of this city.Cali - Colombia's Pacific port city, with 90% of its population having African heritage, and so it's a place where these African roots blend with Latino culture.
Well, I guess it's always good to save some things for next time. Our Colombia Travel Tips 1) Don't be afraid to go off the beaten path. I know Colombia sounds scary, we had a whole slew of wrong ideas about the place perpetrated by the news and media before we went, but actually we did not feel unsafe at any point during our time in Colombia.

2) If you're looking to eat local, order bandeja, which means “platter" (usually consists of meat, rice, a small salad, lentils or beans, and possibly a fried plantain or a couple of arepas). It's Colombia's typical dish, and Bandeja Paisa, or bandeja from the Paisa region, has sausage and a fried egg on top. But I'm going to be honest and say that after eating this dish every day for lunch and dinner for nearly three months, we got tired of it. But try the ajiaco soup as well, since Colombians can definitely make a mean soup. A typical Colombian meal called bandeja. 3) Take the teleféricos. These are cable cars and they are everywhere. Because Colombia is so mountainous, nearly every major city has them, and people in the cities use these cable cars as public transportation to and from work on a daily basis. They offer great views of the city, and are a fun experience. Our personal favorite was not in a city: the teleférico of Chicamocha Canyon.
View from the teleférico that crosses Chicamocha Canyon, Santander, Colombia. 4) Bring a coat. That's right, Colombia's capital, Bogotá, is 8,629 ft. above sea level (2,630 meters). So if you plan on taking any roads that crest mountains, of which there are plenty, be prepared for winter temperatures. In one day of riding, we would start off in the morning at 100 degrees F (38 C) and a few hours later, once up in the mountains, it would drop into the 30's (2 C). The weather of Colombia completely depends on altitude. In Conclusion For Tim and I, Colombia was amazing, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great place to visit. For motorcycle travelers, it's perfection, and can offer every type of road and adventure you want. And for all other travelers, whether you're into history, culture, nightlife, or nature in all its forms, from some of the world's best beaches, to rainforests, to glaciers, Colombia has it all. It's incredibly cheap, and you will be living and eating in luxury for very little money. Plus, if you live in North America and plan on flying in, you don't have to worry about jet-lag because Colombia is in the Central Time zone, depending on daylight savings.

So all in all, I have one phrase to sum up our time in Colombia, a phrase that you hear from Colombians all the time, “How wonderful!" or “¡Qué chévere!" We will miss you, Colombia!

Sept. 4, 2018 - Shock and Aww-ful

By Marisa

The worst has happened. Well, getting into an accident and injuring ourselves or rendering the bike permanently useless would be the worst. So then I guess I should say the second to worst has happened: our rear shock has broken and now we are stuck in Ecuador without a motorcycle until it can be fixed.

But let me start at the beginning.

After our brief venture into the Amazon, we took a route through southern Ecuador to get to Peru, a route that would pass through some recommended towns. And the first of which was Baños. View from the road just before Baños, Ecuador. I know you're thinking the town is named after bathrooms, but actually it's called Baños because of all the hot springs around the area. This geological activity is due to the nearby active volcano called Tungarahua which is said to actually protect the sacred town of Baños where multiple miracles have allegedly happened, mostly revolving around the Virgin Mary. And it's not just hot springs that the place is famous for. In fact, water is extremely abundant in Baños in all its forms, as it rained every day we were there, and there are waterfalls cascading down the green mountainsides in nearly every direction you look. Mmm, roasted Guinea Pig. This is known as Cuy and was once a South American staple. Of course I had to eat some when I found this restaurant in Baños. It was pretty good (like a tiny chicken with thick pig skin). Baños sounds idyllic or course, and in some ways it is. But the problem that Tim and I had with Baños was the massive amount of tourists that descend upon this tiny village every day, driving the prices up, and making the whole place feel like an Ecuadorian version of Disney World. Baños is small, and despite that fact, it is the second most visited site in all of Ecuador, second only to the Galapagos Islands! And after all the incredibly stunning and peaceful places we'd already visited in Ecuador, seeing a waterfall for $20 surrounded by hundreds of people, or finding a corner in a concrete hot tub with dozens of screaming children around, just did not impress us.

Baños has also made a name for itself in the extreme sports world, as it has many bridges to bungee jump off of, lots of trails for hiking, biking, horse-back riding, there's white-water rafting, and it even has these extreme “Swings at the End of the World" where you can be pushed out on a swing overhanging a cliff. All that is fantastic stuff, and I can see why backpackers who are looking to meet fellow travelers while having a thrilling time love Banõs. But for Tim and I, we get plenty of excitement riding along gorgeous cliff edges all the time, and we did not feel the need to do any of these adrenaline-inducing activities.

So after a few wet and cold days of camping, we left Baños and headed south, slowly making our way to Peru. The river that runs through Vilcabamba, Ecuador. After a night spent in the colonial city of Cuenca, our last stop in Ecuador would be Vilcabamba, a tiny village with warm weather where we were able to camp in a lovely mountainside park. A river ran beside our campsite, so clean you could drink the water, and we had fires every night while conversing with travelers from all over the world.

​Feeling refreshed and having ended our tour of Ecuador on a good note, we were ready to head to Peru. And that is of course when disaster struck. The road through Podocarpus National Park, Ecuador. The road from Vilcabamba to the Peruvian border ran through a National Park called Podocarpus. At first it was gorgeous, when we could see, that is. Because soon the fog set in, and it started to bucket water over us. We climbed in altitude quickly, and could feel the bite of the cold eating through our jackets, along with the rain. It seemed pretty remote up there in the mountains, as there were signs everywhere to watch out for Speckled Bears crossing the road. And then the pavement ended, and the road turned into a muddy gravel mess pretty quickly.

But that was all fine, and we were going over the bumps and ridges as they appeared out of the fog with ease, until I heard a pop, and it sounded like we had run over a large branch, breaking it in half with a crunch as we rode over it. Actually, this was the rear shock failing beneath us, and we immediately pulled over, knowing that something was majorly wrong. As you can see, the inner shock is broken and bending incorrectly. Sure enough, on closer inspection, the inner “monoshock" was broken, though the coil spring around the suspension looked alright. But his basically meant that the bike should no longer be ridden to prevent further damage.

Well, that put us in a bit of a situation as we stood in the middle of nowhere with the cold rain pouring over us like the heavens were laughing at us. All I could do was curse over and over again and stand there shivering, wondering why we were the most unlucky two people in the world. But Tim did not go into freak-out mode as I had, and instead sprang into action.

He said we have two options, either get someone to tow us out from there, or somehow get the bike to a place where we could find someone to tow us. Once on a tow truck, we would need to get the bike to a KTM repair shop, which the only one we knew of was way back in Quito, nearly 15 hours away. But I took a deep breath and told myself to take this one step at a time. First we needed to get ourselves and the bike out of the remote mountains before a Speckled Bear ate us. The church at the village of Valladolid, Ecuador. By checking the GPS, we noticed that there was a village about 12 miles ahead of us. And after inspecting the shock, Tim decided that we could most likely ride the bike 12 miles without causing too much damage.

And so that's what we did, and we arrived in Valladolid, so small a village that it didn't even have a hotel or restaurant. It was still raining, so we pulled over at the only place that looked like it was open, a little store that sold chips and toilet paper. The guy inside shook his head at me when I asked about a tow truck, saying it was Saturday afternoon, and the nearest truck might come from over 3 hours away in Loja, though they're probably closed. And the next day was Sunday, so they'd be closed then too.

And then the man looked down the street and said, “Or you could put it in that guy's truck." Getting our 500 lb. motorcycle into the bed of this truck was no easy task. By the grace of God and whatever saint has patronage over that church and village, the guy with a truck seemed to think this was possible, and he pointed to the church as a perfect set of ramps to drive the bike up and get it into the truck bed. I still cannot believe how lucky we were to have the church ramp right there next to us.

And so after some ropes were securely attached to the bike frame, our great 5 hour ride to Cuenca began. We ended up paying the truck man $130 to get us there (as far as he would go), and I still have no idea whether we overpaid him or got the deal of the century, but after another stroke of luck of finding a park hill that we could use as a ramp to get the bike out, we safely got ourselves and the bike to Cuenca. Me keeping an eye on the bike in the back of the truck as we ride to Cuenca, Ecuador. So we are either two incredibly unlucky people, or perhaps the luckiest. Because once we got internet at our hotel in Cuenca, we realized that there is a KTM dealership in Cuenca! By mere chance we ended up in the perfect spot, and there's no need to tow the bike 10 hours away to Quito!

We left the bike at the dealership yesterday, have ordered the Monoshock part that we need, and now all we have to do is wait ten days or so for it to arrive and be installed. So no more adventures for at least a week from now, but truth be told, I think I could take a break from adventures for a little while.

As always, we'll keep you posted.

August 26, 2018 - The Amazon

By Marisa

After staying with our friends Court and Sylvain at Ecuador Freedom Bike Rental to get our bike fixed (now it has new fork seals / bushings and is as good as new), we wanted to take a quick detour into the Amazon before leaving Ecuador and going to Peru.

The thing about the Amazon rainforest is that rivers have always been its main artery for transportation, and they are a much better way to get around than roads which can destroy the forest itself. This makes getting to the Amazon on a motorcycle a bit of a challenge, but there is a town in Ecuador that is the last outpost for land-bound vehicles and the beginning of the true Amazon, a place called El Coca. Since we knew we wanted to go there, we plugged El Coca into our GPS, and headed out of Quito. Misahuallí, Ecuador To get to Coca, we first made a stop in Misahuallí, a town situated at the end of the Andes Mountains and the beginning of the rainforest. We rented a cabin overlooking the Napo river and had a good night's rest to the nocturnal symphony of insects and frogs to prepare ourselves for our next adventure: getting to Coca along the road less taken. We opted for this off-road route along the river instead of going on the main highway because we wanted to see the local villages and get a sense of our natural surroundings even if it took us longer. Plus, Tim is also always excited to go off-road. Dug-out canoe between Misahuallí and Coca, Ecuador. The road was pure perfection for the majority of it: thatched huts on stilts interspersed within the jungle terrain. We even snapped the above picture at a place where we stopped to have a picnic of crackers and cheese. But then the last stretch near Coca had some rough sections of loose gravel, and there was one hill in particular which was under construction that was a real challenge. A worker and myself had to push Tim and the bike up the entire way as the back tire kept slipping in the loose terrain. But we finally made it through, and arrived in Coca exhausted and drenched in sweat (the rainforest is hot, for sure). Our route to El Coca (aka Puerto Francisco de Orellana) and back to Tena before heading south. Coca is a bit of a strange town in that the entire center of it is a landing strip for airplanes. We could even see a plane from our hotel room. This is because lots of tourists book Amazon tours through local agencies for hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars per day, and fly into Coca straight from Quito, get picked up at the airport, and then shuttled over to a little boat that will take them down the Napo River to an eco lodge. From there they do rainforest hikes, learn about the Amazonian flora and fauna, eat traditional meals of local food, can swim in the river, and often get to see or meet some of the Warani indigenous people who live in the area.

These tours sounded and looked fantastic, but they are expensive. Tim and I thought by simply arriving in Coca we could possibly get a better deal, and that was true to an extent, but nothing was going to be less than $150 per day for us. It was simply out of our budget. So how were we going to experience at least a little taste of the local wildlife and culture without spending a fortune on a tour? Well, we went to a zoo and a museum, of course. And that traditional meal that everyone else gets to eat? I just bought some grilled grubs from a local vendor in downtown Coca, and yes, the woman skewered the worms and grilled them alive, and I ate them. They tasted like scrambled eggs with a hint of bacon, but not as good in my opinion mostly because I could see their innards spilling out as I ate them. Maybe blindfolded would have been the best way. Me (Marisa) chowing down on some grubs in Coca, Ecuador. The Coca Zoo was free and although I have learned from experience not to go to zoos in developing nations, this one seemed to be pretty good, and is supposedly more of a local wildlife rehabilitation center than a zoo. And not only were there tons of animals that got right up-close to us, but wild animals, like Squirrel Monkeys, showed up as well, mostly trying to steal food from the pens. By the end of it, I felt very satisfied with our free wildlife tour. Tigrillo Squirrel Monkey Tapir Next was the museum. The MACCO Museum in Coca houses artifacts left behind by the Omagua people of the Napo River. Though their culture dispersed in the 1700's as settlers pushed them away from their river cities, they left behind lots of pottery which is beautiful and refined. It also reflects their ideal beauty of a “moon face" or a flattened head which they would do to infants while their skulls were still soft. The Omagua burial urns were gorgeously made and reminded me of Egyptian sarcophagi as the bones of the deceased would be placed inside and kept in the house for about a year before finally being buried.  One of the “moon faces" of the Omagua burial urns, MACCO Museum, Coca, Ecuador. As we left Coca, we made a stop at a waterfall called Carachupa Packcha, which is an interesting name because in Spanish Carachupa means “suck face". But the name is not Spanish and comes from Quichua, so I'm not sure what it actually means. The waterfall was pure paradise as we found ourselves to be the only people there swimming amongst colorful butterflies and the sounds of parrots. We couldn't even find this place on Google maps, so if it wasn't for a local sending us to it, we would have never known it existed.
Carachupa Packcha Waterfalls, Loreto, Ecuador. After all this, Tim and I felt content with our glimpse into the Amazon, but we had one last surprise waiting for us in a town called Tena. While searching for a place to camp, we came across an American/Ecuadorian couple who owned land on the river and offered us to stay there. Not only were they very friendly and hospitable, and their land was gorgeous, but the Ecuadorian man was named Timoteo (Spanish for Tim!) and he had walked all 5,000 miles of the Amazon river basin! He was of the Quichua people, and had stories about how his father would take the canoe to go find salt from neighboring tribes when he was young. We felt very honored to meet and stay with these people and hear their stories and learn about their surroundings. Me walking past a bridge that looks like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie, Tena, Ecuador. It's been an incredible adventure into the Amazon, but now we must start heading south and out of Ecuador. We are currently in Baños enjoying the green scenery and picturesque waterfalls, and will head out to Cuenca tomorrow. Stay tuned...

August 9, 2018 - Whales and Friends

By Marisa

Tim and I often find ourselves alone on the road with only each other to talk to, but for the past two weeks we have had the pleasure of traveling with fellow motorcyclists. After leaving Quito, Ecuador, we have now spent half a month coming full circle, going in a great loop around the coast and mountains of Ecuador. And we were able to experience it all while being in the company of other travelers, which is a real treat for us.

We left the Horizon's Unlimited Event in tow of two other motorcycle couples, all of them coincidentally from Melbourne, Australia, and also riding two-up on their bikes like us. It was somehow fateful and perfect that we had all met up at in the same country and at the same time. Em and Dave on the left with their BMW 1200, Tim and I in the middle (on our KTM 1190), and Michelle and Craig with their BMW 800 on the right. We went to Mindo, Ecuador which is known as the heart of the cloud forest, and spent our time camping, cooking incredible meals on our little gasoline-run stoves, and hiking to the beautiful waterfalls of the rainforest. Dave and Em took the lead as they led us through the cloud forest of Ecuador. Nambillo Waterfall, Ecuador Unfortunately after Mindo, we had to part ways with Dave and Em who were headed north into Colombia, but we continued on with Craig and Michelle to the Pacific coast where we had the opportunity to see humpback whales cresting the waves and slapping their tails and fins against the water. It was a magical experience to see these gentle giants so up close, majestically blowing their breath into the air like grumbling geysers spurting hot mist into the salty breeze. The boat tour also took us to see Blue-Footed Boobies and Frigatebirds who roost near Puerto Lopez, which is known as the “poor man's Galapagos". Not a bad marine wildlife tour for $20 a person. Blue-Footed Boobies near Puerto Lopez, Ecuador. Sunset over the Pacific Ocean, Ecuador. After spending a few days exploring the seashore, and even seeing a leatherback turtle prepare to lay her eggs on the beach, we said our goodbyes to the Pacific, and headed into the mountains. Still traveling with Craig and Michelle, we rose in thousands of feet in altitude in a single day, and soon found ourselves in the cold highlands of Ecuador.

Tim and I bought some alpaca sweaters because we realized that after traveling through the sweltering regions of Central America and Colombia, we were now going to be exchanging the heat for the cold, and needed some warmer gear. And it seems that in the Andes, alpaca wool is the way to go for warmth. The market at the Andean town of Zumbahua, Ecuador. Me at Quilotoa Crater, Ecuador After stopping by the volcanic crater of Quilotoa, we headed toward the snow-capped volcano of Cotopaxi, one of the most picturesque conical volcanoes in the world. But motorcyclists face a hurdle there because Cotopaxi National Park does not allow motorcycles to enter (supposedly due to the noise, though other vehicles are allowed). So we tried to get to the mountain from its southern side which is accessible to motorcycles, but that side is often clouded over because of the moisture coming in daily from the Amazon.

​Yet we were determined to get a close-up view of the great Cotopaxi. So after spending an evening wild camping in a local farmer's grassy field, we took every back-road on Google in the area and were able to snap this partially clouded shot of the snowy peak of Cotopaxi: Can you see the snow-capped peak of Volcán Cotopaxi? And while we were stopped taking pictures, a van pulled up, and as fortune would have it, these people were local guides of the Cotopaxi park and wondered if we wanted to follow them inside! We told them that we had heard that motorcycles could not enter, and they said it was true, but that we would be alright with them.

Though Cotopaxi remained covered in clouds from that moment onward, for the rest of the day we followed this van on an incredible adventure down the backroads of Cotopaxi National Park, and found ourselves in canyons where condors fly and in flowering fields where wild horses roam. We even ended up in an old Spanish Hacienda which had Incan ruins and temples on its property, which was the first time Tim and I had seen Incan ruins. Michelle, Craig, Tim, and me somewhere in Cotopaxi National Park, Ecuador. A Spanish church made out of the perfectly-laid stones of the old Incan temple, Hacienda San Agustín, Ecuador The loop of our past two weeks in Ecuador. It was a fantastic two weeks, but after all that adventuring and dirt roads, Tim and I knew the bike needed a quick check-up before we headed on. So now we are back with our friends Court and Sylvain at Ecuador Freedom Bike Rental in Quito catching up on blogs and bike repairs. So we're back where we started, and have sadly parted ways with Michelle and Craig who are soon headed to Colombia to finish their trip around South America, whereas we are going south. It has been such a wonderful time shared with friends, and we suddenly find ourselves feeling a bit lonely on our own again. Luckily we have Court and Sylvain and all the lovely people here at Ecuador Freedom to keep us company, and we hope to meet up again with some of our other motorcycle friends heading south, such as Phil and Sapna.

Next we'll be facing our wheels towards Ecuador's Amazonia region before heading south toward Peru. Stay tuned. We will miss you all!

July 25, 2018 - Dengue and Pickpockets

By Marisa

We left Ibarra, Ecuador and headed toward the country's capital of Quito, knowing that we would have a few days to explore the city before our Horizon's Unlimited meeting was to take place. This HU event would be a group of fellow motorcycle travelers meeting up just outside of Quito for three days, and we had been preparing two speeches to give at the conference (we were extremely excited). What we didn't know was that Tim was harboring some nasty tropical disease within him, and this sickness was going to change everything.

Once arriving in Quito, we found it's pretty nice for a big capital city. Sitting almost exactly at the equator and at 9,000 ft. above sea level (3,000 meters), it has a pleasant year-round climate with warm days and cool nights, and is surrounded by green mountains. But what I liked best about Quito was its historic center, a massive Spanish colonial construction that is a UNESCO Heritage Site and the largest colonial city in South America. The historic center of Ecuador's capital city, Quito. We booked a gorgeous place right in the old city with parking for the bike, but it didn't take long before Tim came down with a fever. And this was no ordinary fever. He started mumbling incoherently and saying he felt like he was in a giant's body, and had a lot of pain, especially in his back, stomach, and a killer headache to top it all off.

The next day (my birthday by chance), I knew we had to see a doctor. We had a feeling that this could be Dengue Fever, which is a virus caused by a mosquito bite and takes about a week to a month to incubate in the body before the notoriously horrific fever starts. We had been bit by more than a few mosquitoes in Colombia, and figured there was a good chance it could be Dengue. If it was, there's no official treatment for it, and the fever usually passes on its own in a few days to a couple weeks. Unfortunately, the symptoms were also similar to Malaria, a much more serious mosquito-born tropical disease, so we wanted to know for sure.

A simple blood test at the doctor's gave us results the next morning, and thankfully, it was not Malaria. But it was too soon to test for Dengue, so we're still not sure what it was exactly: either Dengue Fever or a tropical gastro-intestinal parasite. After two days of fever, Tim remained sick (mostly with intestinal issues), and the day we were to leave for the HU conference crept up on us, until suddenly we realized that we may not be able to make it.  Tim not feeling so well as we try to see the sights of Quito, Ecuador. We agreed that if Tim had a fever or felt dizzy at all, we weren't going to get on the bike. The event was taking place on a farm only 45 minutes away, but still, it just was too much of a risk for us to take. It doesn't do any good to go to a motorcycle conference if we crash our bike along the way.

But luckily, Tim was feeling well enough to go, and he hadn't taken any strong medicine since the night before. So we headed out of Quito and miraculously arrived at the event all in one piece. Big bikes and wonderful people at the Horizon's Unlimited event in Ecuador. We had two speeches planned, and one was supposed to take place that night. But Tim had already used all his wellness energy getting us there, and was not feeling up to giving a speech. So we canceled it, which was alright, since we had another one to give the next day.

I have to graciously thank Raúl, owner of the Hotel Sierra Alisos and coordinator of the event, for being so generous with us and offering us a hotel room while Tim was feeling sick so that we didn't have to camp in the cold. I think that the wood stove in the room really did the trick, and the next day Tim felt great, we made our speech, and everything went wonderfully. You can't go wrong with a room like this. Hotel Sierra Alisos, Ecuador. The morning of the speech there was an option to go on a motorcycle tour of the mountains, or see a local parade at the town of Tambillo. Since Tim wasn't feeling 100%, we opted for the parade, which turned out to be very interesting, but extremely crowded, and Tim's phone got stolen right out of his pocket, along with our friend David's phone.

This was the first time on our journey that we had been robbed, but it wasn't the end of the world for us because it was an old phone, and we immediately shut it down and bought Tim a new one (which he likes very much). Good thing it wasn't his wallet! And we've definitely learned a lesson in keeping our possessions more secure while walking into crowds. This picture was taken moments before Tim's phone was stolen, Tambillo, Ecuador. So despite the setback of Dengue and pickpockets, the Horizon's Unlimited event was a huge success. We met plenty of fellow motorcycle travelers from all over the world, and have made lots of friends. Now that we're back in Quito, we've been getting to know the amazing American/French duo of Court and Sylvain at Ecuador Freedom Bike Rental, and are now planning our next adventures into Ecuador. Hopefully we'll be traversing some of it with our new friends.

Next up: seeing the actual equator, and maybe the cloud forests of Mindo. Then we'll head into the mountains, possibly camp along a volcano crater, and go to the Amazon rainforest. Stay tuned, and we'll keep you posted.

July 14 2018 - Entering Ecuador

By Marisa

The peaks of Fura y Tena in central Colombia. This blog post is something new that we're trying out as we start combining our updates with shorter posts every week or so. We will also be doing our much larger country profile blogs with videos, and those will be named after the country without a date in the title. So I hope you enjoy the first of our mini-blog/updates.

Yesterday we crossed from Colombia into Ecuador. It was hard saying goodbye to Colombia, a country that we have grown to love over the past two and a half months. The colorful villages, the green mountains, the welcoming smiles, the typical platter of rice, fried plantains, and meat that we've come to enjoy called bandeja, oh and the free motorcycle lane to skip right through tolls... we will certainly miss Colombia.

But we must head on, especially since we will be presenting at the Horizon's Unlimited event in Quito, Ecuador on July 20-22, which we are very excited for.  Goodbye gorgeous Colombia. Until next time... But before leaving Colombia, we knew we had to visit coffee country, and what better place to stay than the Steel Horse Finca, a motorcycle adventurer's paradise run by a British couple who did their own motorcycle tour of South America a few years back. They have since purchased land right outside of the colonial town of Filandia, and now have a cozy and welcoming guesthouse, along with chickens, horses, and a pig.

Unfortunately, we had a hard time finding the farm since our Google maps let us down. Plus, the roads we kept turning down were rutted and muddy, and then it started to rain, and by rain I mean pour. We had just decided to give up and pulled under the roof of a gas station when fate stepped in and out of the bucketing rain came another adventure rider on a huge BMW. He immediately pulled up beside us, and it turned out that this fellow traveler, a man from France named Victor, was just leaving the Steel Horse farm. We were absolutely overjoyed, not just to meet another motorcycle traveler, but also that he could point us in the right direction. Tim and Victor at the gas station near Filandia, Colombia. The farm turned out to be quite close, and we were soon sipping tea and coffee while chatting with the Steel Horse owners, Paul and Yvette. They also had a Workaway couple staying there, Suzanne and Jaimie who were Dutch, and all six of us spent our evenings talking over incredible home-cooked dinners. We had a bonfire, a barbecue, a horse ride, and we even played Tejo, a Colombian version of Bags where instead of throwing a bean bag into a hole, you throw a lead puck against packets of gunpowder, which give the game an exciting explosion every time you get a point. I'm not sure this game would be legal in the States, but it was certainly fun.

The original plan was to stay a day, but it was so nice at the farm, we ended up being there for four days. But since we had a deadline to meet in Quito, we had to say our goodbyes to the Steel Horse Finca, and made our way as quickly as we could to the border with Ecuador. Tim and I riding our other trusty steeds (besides the bike of course). The three non-steel horses at the Steel Horse Finca, Filandia, Colombia. Tim, me, Jaimie, Suzanne, Paul, Yvette, and two local horsemen. I really shouldn't have chosen to stand between the two tallest people. Sunset at the Steel Horse Finca, Filandia, Colombia. Tim and I had heard that the Colombia/Ecuador border had become tediously difficult to cross in recent months due to the massive influx of Venezuelan refugees trying to find a home in Ecuador or beyond. But these warnings could not prepare us for the lines of men, women, and children sleeping on the side of the road, the sight of which just broke my heart.

On both the Colombian side and the Ecuadorian side, we got to go through customs via the faster “foreigner" line, while the Venezuelans were kept to the side. The more I cross borders, the more I feel that there is an internationally accepted discrimination that is the rule of law when it comes to visas, and it all depends on what passport you hold. As Americans, we flash our passports and we can get ahead in many lines (though we did end up waiting in lines for hours at this border anyway). But it really all depends on which passport you carry, and how much money you are perceived to possess. It just seems ironic that we all agree that apartheid was bad, or racism is bad. But judging someone based on the words at the front of their passport is entirely accepted. In fact, it's how the world runs. Road from the border to Ibarra, Ecuador. Well, now that the border is behind us, we have the beautiful country of Ecuador to look ahead to. Yesterday it was an incredible drive through stark mountainous landscapes to get to the Spanish colonial city of Ibarra, Ecuador. This town seems to be a great introduction to the country as it has plenty of beautiful old churches with tree-lined plazas. Though there is a bit of a run-down feel to everything here, you can really get a sense of the history of this place as well.

Tomorrow we'll be headed to Ecuador's capital, Quito, and we're excited to for the HU event to get started. Stay tuned for our next update (and to see how our speeches went).

Panama: The End of the Funnel

By Marisa

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If you can't see the video, you can find it here. Since Panama was our last stop in Central America before heading into South America, and because Tim and I were so excited for the vast stretches of pure nature that South America had to offer, we may have not experienced Panama for what it’s worth. We rode through pretty quickly on the Pan-American highway and spent much of our time doing customs paperwork to get the bike into Colombia. In many ways, we were mentally checked out of Central America and already thinking about what was to come, and so for those reasons we did not take our time to appreciate Panama as we could have. The bike overlooking the hills of Boquete, Panama. There is another problem with Panama. Tim and I are from the Great Plains, an area of the world that is flat and open, and once outside of the city of Chicago, there is nothing but corn fields for as far as you can see in any direction. We are used to wide open spaces and we love them. Our favorite places to go in the States are National Parks out west: true wilderness. Even though we’re from Chicago, we’re not big fans of cities and prefer nature where people are few and far between.
 
But once you go south through Mexico and Central America, you find that the land is shaped like a funnel. Populations and nature are squeezed together closer and closer, all until you get to Panama which is the ultimate culmination of the funnel: long and narrow and squished. Your options for exploration on a motorcycle are even more hindered by the fact that the northern side of Panama is fairly road-less, poverty-stricken, and neglected by the government for services and infrastructure. Besides Bocas Del Toro, most of what people go to see in Panama is along the Pacific, and its main thoroughfare is the Pan-American highway. Everyone who travels to Panama takes this one road to get around. Some travelers take side tours to the coast and mountains like we did, but eventually everyone all ends up in the urban center of Panama City. It felt restrictive, and for Tim and I, we wanted nothing more than to get to South America where the vast open spaces begin again. We wanted to take back-roads into the unknown whenever we felt the whim, and so we spent much of our time in Panama rushing through, just dreaming of Colombia. Boquete A beautiful flower in Boquete, Panama. But that is not to say that we didn’t enjoy a few incredible locations in Panama. The first place of interest was the mountainous village escape from the heat: Boquete. It is beautifully rainy, misty, and chilly in this region, and has a lot to offer the thrill-seeking traveler as far as white-water rapids, canyoning, and rappelling (which we did not do). There is even a volcano that if you climb to the top of it, and the weather is in your favor, then you can see both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the only place in the world to do so. Unfortunately, Boquete is also extremely popular with American tourists, as we heard more English spoken there than Spanish. But overall, it is a lovely region of Panama that has all the amenities you could want, though we discovered it does generally come at a high price. Las Lajas Beach It was overcast, but Las Lajas Beach is like your own private beach. This is a Pacific Coast beach town that is known to be laid-back and a great place to rent a little cabin right on the oceanfront. Unfortunately for the days that we were there, it rained and was overcast the entire time. But we did check out the beach and found it to be wide, pristine, and with nobody else there. Definitely a big difference from the crowded beaches of Playa Del Carmen in the Yucatan, so I could see how when the sun was out, it would be a perfect beach.
The Panama Canal The Panama Canal is the first thing I think of when I think of Panama, and there are no shortage of expensive tours and boat trips you can take to see this historic engineering marvel. But Tim and I decided to do the cheap version, and see the Canal from atop its bridges. It is impressive, and though it isn’t the actual dividing line between Central and South America, it does feel like a bit of an important accomplishment to drive over it.
Panama City The country's financial and urban epicenter, Panama City is a true metropolis, the type of which we had not seen since the States. Beautiful glittering highrises, huge upscale malls, and metro subway stations dot the landscape. They are even constructing a monorail. Though we are not city people, Panama City is a great place to get your urban fix of things you couldn’t find on the road (such as new quality jeans for Tim), as well as new gear or bike repairs.
 
There is one major problem with Panama City for the foreign vehicle rider, and it’s the tolls. Because unless you have gotten the special Panapass from a government office before running into one of these tolls, then you are out of luck, as we found ourselves to be on several occasions. These toll booths are unmanned and even when we did find a police officer and tried to give them the right amount of money, they would laugh and say you can’t pay in cash. It’s impossible. So you just have to wait there and pray for the bar to go up as everyone waits behind you, and when it does raise from some malfunction, you rush through as fast as you can (because the bar comes back down like a guillotine), and hope that the government doesn’t figure out how to bill you the fine. We asked lawyers and officials what a foreigner is supposed to do about this, and they all told us to simply avoid the highways in Panama City. Great.
 
But besides that, Panama City was a nice and essential stop-off point, especially to organize ourselves for our next nerve-wracking, yet amazing leg of our adventure: crossing the Darien Gap. The route we took around the Darian Gap between Panama and Colombia. Crossing the Darien Gap It is possible to drive all the way from the most northern tip of Alaska down to the southern tip of South America, except for the Darien Gap. This stretch of road-less rainforest between Panama and Colombia is known for its thick jungle and as the hideout of the Colombia's FARC armed rebels. Though people claim the area is becoming less lawless as infrastructure slowly pushes in, Tim and I were not excited to test our luck at getting our the bike through the wild jungle. So in order to get from Panama to Colombia, we knew we’d either have to fly the bike or take a boat.
 
Both options are similar in price, though the boat is the more romantic of the two. Also, I've always had a desire to do an extended boat trip for days on end over the open sea. So that’s what we went with: five days aboard a sailboat that can house about 20 people along with our motorcycle tied to the front. Unfortunately, I did get seasick a fair amount, and my romantic vision of pirating along the Caribbean with the wind in my hair turned into me laying in my bed in the cabin trying not to feel nauseous. Thank goodness for Dramamine. But it was an experience I wouldn’t exchange for anything.
Boarding the Boat with a Bike Tim keeping his cool despite being in a weird situation. The bike securely tied down to the ship's deck. Getting our 500 lb. motorcycle on and off a sailboat is no easy task, and was one of the more worrisome things we’ve done on our trip. Because one false move could mean the bike falls into the sea, which would be the end of everything for us.
 
With the help of some strong local sailors, and through sheer muscle power, we got the bike off the dock and into a small wooden boat called a lancha. With Tim on top of the bike to keep it steady, we then steadily made our way over to the main sailboat anchored off shore. Then by using the motorized hoist of the ship’s halyard line securely wrapped around the bike’s midsection, we were able to lift it on deck and then fasten it to the ship itself.
 
It was stressful! And then for the entire boat ride we knew we’d just have to repeat the process again at the end to get the bike off. Meanwhile, the waves and salt air were splashing the motorcycle every second of every day it was onboard. We could literally watch it rust in front of our eyes, but the captain said she’d seen people try to cover their bikes, even wrap them in plastic, but the salt still got in. Best thing was to just wash it thoroughly once on land, which we did. Twice. If you can't see the photo gallery, you can find it here. Sailing the San Blas Islands ​From Colón, Panama to Cartagena, Colombia, we sailed along the Caribbean’s San Blas island archipelago, which is actually its own autonomous region owned by the Kuna Yala indigenous people. There are 378 islands in total, but when I say islands, I mean that some of them may just be a ten foot stretch of sand rising a few inches above the water. I would say most are no more than 70 ft. across, and plant life really only consists of coconut trees. But it’s the ocean life that people go there for, and snorkeling the reefs was a truly unforgettable experience, not to mention the ship’s chef cooked up some of the freshest, most delicious fish I’ve ever eaten.
 
The islands are absolutely idyllic. But there was something that struck me as sad about them. Though most are uninhabited, the Kuna people of the inhabited islands have set up shop to supply the steady stream of drunken tourists with beer and rum. These indigenous people certainly make money from the tourists (I am one as well I realize), and charge the boats that come per person too, but their peaceful way of life has been completely overrun by the daily onslaught of party-goers, who for the most part, are using this as their one vacation in the year to get away from the daily grind. But the Kuna people must live with cleaning up our trash every single day. Most days, more than one boat will dock at their island, and many will stay the night anchored right off shore. It’s a bit like living in a 24/7 bar, as there is no escape from the pumping music and screams of people throughout the night. I can’t imagine what the Kuna people must think of the outside world, and I also don’t want to imagine how they must feel about how their island life has changed in just a single generation.
 
So if you come to the islands to experience the beauty and serenity of the ocean glittered in stars at night, as I had, then this is certainly not the place to do so as these islands are more like Ibiza at spring break than a peaceful getaway. One of the hundreds of San Blas islands in the bike's side mirror, San Blas, Panama. One Last Note about Sailing a Motorcycle Across the Darien Gap Not long after we arrived in Cartagena, the Colombian government passed a new law prohibiting the import of motorcycles via boat. That meant that all of our traveling friends who had reserved spaces on boats to bring their bikes over from Panama to Colombia (some of them reserving six months in advance), now had to all fly their bikes. Supposedly the company we used, Wildcard Sailing, is still able to bring motorcycles in, but the most famous motorcycle transport boat, the Stahlratte, had to cancel all motorcycle reservations.
 
So for any future motorcycle adventure riders out there looking to overland the Americas, check on this with the companies before assuming you will be able to do what we did. And please contact us if you have questions on flying versus boating. Also, be aware that shipping your bike in reverse from Colombia to Panama has been prohibited for quite some time.
Perfectly Panama So although we did not experience all of Panama as we possibly should have, what we got to see was pretty special, especially our boating experience around the Darien Gap. And now that we have safely arrived in Colombia, bike and all, the funnel has opened up again, and we can start to enjoy the vast wilderness once more.