Bogota 9: Villa de Leyva, Girardot, The End

Post date: Nov 25, 2010 6:39:02 PM

11-21-10

Recent Events.

I think that much of yesterday was spent reminding myself of all the things that I had forgotten as I walked 67 blocks to terminate loose ends due to a loss of organization in my mind. It started with keys locked my bedroom. My plan was to return an umbrella to my student, but I forgot the umbrella at the fishing shop and had to go 30 blocks out of my way to retrieve it. I eventually succeeded. Then I went to check on and potentially pick up my motorcycle, but I had forgotten my helmet, so even if it had been ready at that time, I wouldn’t have been able to drive it. I did get the bike later though. That story is ahead. Then I went to pick up the flashdrive I believed I left at the print shop last Saturday, but it wasn’t there. I still don’t know where I put it. And then, talking to Vicky, I realized that her father and I had different ideas about how and when to ship my motorcycle; I had forgotten to solidify the plans. Put that on the list for tomorrow.

I picked up my motorcycle. They did more than necessary, to my surprise and delight, but finished the last 2 hours of the repairs while I was there to watch. Earlier that day Vicente, the owner/Lead Mechanic, had said 2 hours left, that it would be ready by 4. When I arrived at my previously proposed probable time of arrival, 5, I found they had done no work in the last 3 hours. I think that may have been part of the plan, actually, for them. I was impressed by their cooperativeness and pace of work. It is a happy shop staffed by skilled guys passionate about the quality of their work. What a relief after the disaster that Auteco Dismerca turned out to be. Vicente cleaned and adjusted the fuel/air ratio in the carb, replaced the hose to the carb with a quicker and thicker hose (which I needed to tighten later because it popped off while I was driving), made repairs to the cracked fairing and skid plate, replaced the main light bulb, and corrected the headlight angle. The bike had been overrevving for several seconds after throttle-release and starting hesitantly in the cold, which called for the carb maintenance. The fairing and skid plate were repaired in Nicaragua following the insane truck driver incident, but they used a fiberglass material that does not flex like the original plastic, so their repairs had begun to fall apart. I literally had a flapping fairing on the way to Villa de Leyva. Vicente’s shop used a special hot iron and metal mesh to weld the pieces back together. They also sanded and painted all melded seams, which was more than my request; during the initial exam and cost negotiations, I had said, “It’s already ugly. I don’t care what it looks like.” They even washed and shined it with a rag. As I left, I handed Vicente a couple pieces of fresh bread in gratitude with the 180,000 pesos. He humbly accepted and invited me to visit upon my return north.

I also met an English-speaking Colombian by the name of Jake. His pony-tail, sleeveless t-shirt, and baseball cap reminded me of a trucker in Alabama, and true enough, the man loves Nascar. He spoke way outta my league about cars and bikes, and he had lots of questions for me about those things in the U.S. I was able to answer half the questions. He’s a nice guy and invited me to message him on Facebook. He’s a repairman from Medellin. I’d likely refer my Aussie moto pal, Tim, to Jake.

The bike is in good shape, then, for the ride to Girardot Resort tomorrow morning! It sounds better, which makes me feel better. In retrospect, I should have went to them instead of the Kawasaki “specialists” that Kawasaki referred me to.

With one week left, I still have no camera. Communication failed between my repairman here and Panasonic. I never identified the reference number for the broken camera part, so I just decided to let it be. I’ll fix it back home. No use doing that here. So, today, I’m shopping for a new camera to tide me over.

I am a little worried about my fishing gear. I have no pole. Bogota has 0 2-piece casting rods the size I need. This means I must gamble on Leticia and Tabatinga. I organized my tacklebox this week. I should by a couple extra large hooks for the big live baits I hope to use.

I quit work on Friday. The farewells were sweet and sad. One student, the self-proclaimed “metrosexual,” made me the famous Colombian soup Ajiaco. It consists of chicken, potatoes, and special spices. It was very good. We ate dinner with two of his friends, one of whom is married to a rich man and who spends her days shopping, and the other is an employee of the Ministry of Transportation passionate about the field of transportation. I told him the story of DIAN. He just shook his head.

Gabriel, the idiot but superfriendly boss at Smart Training, one of my English schools, invited me back to work with them in the future. That so won’t happen but it was nice for him to offer. No, English teaching was a fabulous way to get to learn the culture, but it’s not my cup of tea. Tests and grades and passive tenses and attendance reports… blah blah blah. I used to love playing school as a kid. I may enjoy teaching, but not in schools, and certainly not English.

I’ll close things off with my other, much more organized school, later this week.

On a side note, I’m happy to report that my adventure garb also doubles nicely as bedtime wear. At this moment, having recently awoken from a flea-less night, I am wearing Capilene, linen, ExoDri materials, sandals, and a knit hat given to me by Vicky. Very cozy.

Fleas. Fleas suck. They bite and the bites itch. Upon return from Villa de Leyva, Carlos, the owner, said he’d treated the whole room. In the process, apparently, he or the cleaner had busted the cables in Vicky’s dvd player, but that’s another issue. I found no fleas for 1.5 days, but on Wednesday I once again found one of the dark brown little buggers on my naked ankle. I’ve killed a dozen over the last 4 days. Carlos says he will treat again while I’m away at Girardot. Apparently the parasites are only in my room, which makes me feel pretty dirty. He says he has nothing, which is strange since he sleeps with the dog. I know the dog has something though because the couch she always lounges on has little black balls on it- their poop or eggs I suppose. Plus she has those same black balls in her fur. He says he treated her this week. It might help if he’d shave her; her fur is all dredded up.

Last weekend Vicky and I sped out of town to the old Spanish colonial town of Villa de Leyva. It used to be the location where all Colombian soap operas needing a colonial setting would film. Now it is busied by the upper class and the occasional hippie festivals. Most important for me was just getting out of town on my bike! And oh my gosh… back in the mountain roads, hugging those turns, pushing 85mph on a and camping equipment loaded bike, with a girlie on my back… not too shabby. The views were spectacular. It was a bit nippy, but totally worth it. Things warmed as we descended the valley towards Villa de Leyva. We got a late start in large part due to the fact that I needed to make fake documents!

DIAN’s B.S., in summary: the bike can’t leave the country, the bike can’t stay in the country, but they won’t come and get it either. And for them to grant me an extension would be illegal. They just shrugged their shoulders. But that’s where Belgian motorcycle riding graphic artist friends come in handy, aside from their extensive knowledge of beer an foosball. Freakin’ foosball maniacs, those Belgians. They actually have team practices for foosball over there. Foosball drills- can you imagine? Anyways, Rob made me up a fraudulent registration and insurance using scanned copies of my originals. Just a modification to the dates, and VOILA! I’m legal! I was losing hair at the print shop as I waited 45 minutes to print the dang things. Would they deny me? No. They printed them, no questions asked, and I left them less than one $1 as I walked out the door with my new papers. Sadly, no police checked us on the Villa de Leyva trip, so I don’t know if they’ll pass. I think they will. Just a line too long at the top of the registration, a gray instead of green watermark on the registration, and signatures that are photocopy-looking. I’ll just say they are indeed photocopies. No problem with using photocopies here. I’m going to run them by Vicky’s dad, I think, since he’s an import-export expert.

Anyways, my translator-guide got us lost twice on the way. It was already dark, my main headlight was out, and my high beam was angled to the trees, not the road. The mountain roads were a bit treacherous with the occasional dirt patches and steep ledges, so the lack of sufficient light made the endeavor too risky. We got a room at the only hotel in this miniature village named Samaca. It was a terrific hotel, relatively. I paid $15 for the room. We strolled about a bit. Not much to see. The main street in “downtown” is 1.5 blocks long. The parking attendant for my motorcycle had the warmest smile on earth inspite of having three large gaps in his teeth. He was happy as a kid with down syndrome. He was exuberant to meet an American; he’d never met one before. He insisted that Vicky translate for him. He wanted me to know that I must visit his hometown of Boyaca, the most beautiful place on the planet, the last beautiful town in the Americas. They have great food and farms there, he said. It was a pleasure to meet him. He shook hands with a baby’s grip. He was so gentle and smiling you just wanted to hug him. His name is Serafin, or “Angel.”

The next day we rode out into the beautiful, clear, sunny, clean mountain air. In 35 minutes we arrived to Villa de Leyva, welcomed by massive cobble stones that gave us a good shaking. It was warm! Such a change from the dreary cold of Bogota. The toxic air of Bogota. I will never truly become a big-city guy, in spite of the fact I’ve been in such places for three years.

The architecture was nice. It reminded me of Antigua, Guatemala, with all its old designs, florestry, and high end cafes. It has a less romantic feel than Antigua, however, and this may be due to the overprevalence of shops. It felt less historic as it did touristy. It’s sad how historic jewels can be ruined by capitalistic greed.

We had coffee and coke, salpicon with ice cream, mushroom and cheese crepe, a fruit-popsicle as we strolled about. Then we headed to the campground at Periquera, a little adventure-ecotourism spot just outside of town. I fell in behind a pack of fat riders. Their club name was printed on the backs of their jean jackets- “Ayahuasca,” the hallucinogen popular to the native populations of the Amazon. A boy of 12 years directed me into my parking spot. We descended the slippery clay hill and set camp. There was only one other tent in the whole area, but many visitors were about. Periquera has a 300 yard zipline, 7 waterfalls, horseback riding, and hiking trails. The river runs right through the campground, and the roar of the waterfall filled the little valley.

We rode around the area after I pitched the tent, but we found none of the spots we aimed for. It was nice riding, nonetheless. As evening fell, many frogs greeted us with thei r mating calls. That night we got dumped on by the rain. I had left my pot outside after cooking, and by morning it looked like a full inch had hit us over the night.

In the morning, we breakfasted on apples and pb, peaches, and crackers. Crazy Vicky took a bath in the racing, cold river. She loves the wake up it gives you. Yeah, not for me. I’ll stick to taking photos of the waterfalls, which were quite nice. Vicky has some severe diabetes, and exercise seems to aggravate her sugar levels, so at one point on the trail to view the waterfalls, she held back while I went ahead and checked out the waterfall. When I returned, she had disappeared. Where did she go? I went up and down the trail, looking. Nowhere. I shouted her name- nothing. I was confused, at first, but the more I looked around, the more the panic took over me. Before long, I was fully absorbed by the idea that she had been kidnapped, raped, murdered, and thrown into the river. It is the perfect ambush spot for a predator. All manner of fears, regrets, anger, and more filled me. I honestly thought my friend had been snatched and killed. I finally hustled up the trail towards the tent, thinking there was a long shot that she had returned for some reason. There I found her on the trail. Lesson learned.

The ride home was nice. We checked out Puente Bolivar where Simon Bolivar fought in a famous battle that led to Colombia’s independence from Spain. It reminded me of Kennedy’s grave and Arlington Cemetary.

11-25-10

The ride to and from Girardot was nothing special. Lots of traffic around Bogota. Nothing that a seasoned Intercontinental Motorcycle Enthusiast can’t handle.

Hot. It was hot there. And sunny. What a change from Bogota.

Vicky and I won the resort trip from a mall raffle 6 weeks ago. We were walking out of the mall supermarket, Exito, when we passed one of those kiosks. I passed it on instinct, having never one from one before. But she’s like, “But you’re with me! I’m lucky!” So, we drew our tickets. I picked the bottom one. I used the magic I used to use when I really needed a 20 playing DnD. And lo and behold, my magic ensues! I picked the right one. 2.5 hours of bureaucracy later, we had our trip secured.

In Girardot I ate a catfish lunch. It came out in full catfish form, whiskers, fins, eyes and all. Minus the guts (that was nice). It was boiled in a sauce with taters, yucca, and platano. Quite tasty but expensive. Vicky’s mom eats everything but the bones on such a plate. I ate the skin, but I didn’t touch the whiskers. It looked like a small flathead catfish, but they don’t have those down here.

5 Stars? Maybe by Colombian standards. It was okay. The catch was that we paid $150 for the meal package. Our first meal terrified us. “I just paid $12.50 for that???” But the nice thing was that we had the whole place to ourselves, almost. Just one other family. I taught Vicky how to shoot pool. Her diabetes was routinely bad. She couldn’t walk sometimes. But it was fun to do absolutely nothing productive for 2 whole days and nights. I was duped into buying a rather yummy ice cream cone from the bar there, and as we checked out, they asked for $3! I handed them a $25, but they didn’t have change for it. 5 stars, huh? At least we got free refills on coffee and lemonade!

Later, once we arrived back in Bogota, Vicky had another episode. This one had her speechless and incoherent. Her father called the medics to their house. She ended up okay, but I’d never seen anything like that, and I was afraid she was going to die. Her poor parents… poor Vicky…

We were lucky to have no rain in Girardot. It had rained 7 days straight before we arrived. In fact, Colombia is facing a national natural disaster problem from all the flooding. They are requesting international aid. So many homes are being lost! Especially ones in the poorer neighborhoods. Some blame the government’s inappropriate allocation of tax dollars that have resulted in poorly designed drainage systems. But all agree that this is the most rain Colombia has seen. The global warming is probably evaporating more water on the oceans, which is subsequently dumped on the country.

I have made my plans to package and fly my motorcycle this Saturday. On Sunday I will fly and pick up the bike at the airport. Should be a simple process that shouldn’t require a valid registration. From there, I’ll stay in a hostel or a friend’s friend’s place. On Monday I’ll talk to SIA, the export/import experts to get advice on what to do about getting my bike outta the country.

My room was treated again for fleas by the owner. No signs yet. I’d love to be itch-free awhile before I fly out to mosquito ridden Leticia. In Girardot we were violently attacked by millimeter long blood sucking gnats. I must have had over 50 red spots on my body after 30 minutes. Soon as the sun went down, they came out. Bug spray worked the next time around, but I’m still itching from those initial bites two days ago. They fumigated the property while we were there. Kinda sad, what with all the birds and frogs and lizards at the resort. We even had a bird come to our table and chat with us after taking some bread crumbs from the plate.

I’m hosting a Thanksgiving dinner this Saturday. It is doubling as a going away party. Vicky is getting us all into a club afterwards for free. Then Sunday morning I fly to the jungle.