The legendary sanctuary church and crossing the border into Ecuador

 We left Pasto and headed for the border.  Anica, met a guy online through couch surfing and he owns three restaurants, a young 41-year-old entrepreneur who has a nice prime location restaurant right across from the church in Ipiales.

You  get the idea.

Next we had to cross the border into Ecuador.  It really wasn't as bad as I thought.  Of course I had issues with Spanish but with the translator I got through with minimal hassle.  I think it took about an hour.  

I changed some Colombian money for Ecuador money and it's US currency. Haha. I think the Western Union place ripped me off but what else is new. 🤪

We headed off south into Ecuador.  The roads was very nice and we had a lot of steep mountains to climb up and down. Since my bike is half the size of Anicas I was ringing the poor thing out trying to keep up with her. And she humored me by holding back.

Today the final destination was Ibarra, Ecuador 

Will Bubblebeeto survive the Trampoline of Death?

Is the Trampoline of Death a myth or legond? In today's episode, we'll see.

Today I wanted to get out early and head towards the town of Mocoa and stop at the Hostal de la Montana, ecotourism to meet up with Anica, my friend I meet more than 6 months ago in the US.  I zipped down to meet her and we rode to Macoa for coffee.

We found a nice little coffee shop and chatted a bit to catch up and then we started to head over the trampoline of death to the city of Pasto.

I think they call it that because there were a number of deaths on the road there's a lot of cliff type areas and the guardrails are sometimes they are sometimes they're not.  And from all the reports I've read online just the very top is dirt road well those are false claims if you ask me because we spent about 4 hours on a muddy dirty rocky road It certainly wasn't paved and we were standing on our pegs most of the time It was raining and off and on but on the way up was raining pretty hard and there was mud coming down everywhere. 

The first stream crossing from the East was really the hardest and the deepest and it really wasn't that bad in my opinion we got there we got to this big crossing and there was another scooter there with I think two people on it or a small motorcycle.  They were surveying the situation and trying to figure out how to go across Annika was first on the scene and she stopped and was looking and I pulled up did a quick assessment and just started blasting through the water to the other side and Annika followed me shortly thereafter and we almost gave each other a high five after we were on the other side and then kept on going. 

There must have been about five crossings with the majority of them being concrete with water flowing over the concrete so those were not really crossings in my mind but certainly we had to go through water the last one was was not very difficult at all there was mud there were ruts they were guardrails missing but overall it was a fairly simple straightforward ride It did get very cold at the top I'm not sure what the altitude was but it was quite cold and cold all the way down to Pasto.  It was also quite late when we got there and we spent the last probably 45 minutes or an hour in the dark which neither of us really wanted to do.

Heading to the tourist destination of San Agustin

Did I mention that is it HOT in Neiva? Sheesh! I had a hard time sleeping because I was so hot and sticky even after a cold shower and sitting in front of the fan for a long time. 

 My host Andres was a great young man, we used broken English, Spanish and the translater app to communicate which seems to be the norm and everyone is ok with it. He has a beautiful fun Husky puppy.

 I have noticed that there are MANY people in Colombia that have these huge dogs that are really out of place. I've seen many Husky's, large retrievers, and other big dogs but also many have the super tiny dust mops. Some have little backpacks with a clear bubble on the back so the tiny dog can see out. Today's destination is the Small touristy town of San Agustin.

Today was a partial rain day.   When it rains, it comes down, none of this little drizzly crap like we get in the Pacific Northwest.  I got to try out my rain boots and they did well with all the tape on them.

A few shots of the ride today.

So I was on a Facebook group about Columbia and Columbia's help Colombians helping people coming to visit and met a guy named Francois.  Francois lives in the town of San Agustin, and has lived in Colombia for 31 years and since this is my next destination I was excited to see him.  He owns a restaurant and nice hotel with bungalows and the grounds were incredible.

Unfortunately, Francois came down with a cold of some sort and was very ill.  He wrote to me that night and said he was sick and that he would be down in the lobby at 7:00 in the morning so I agreed to come visit with him.  He shouldn't have come down, he could hardly nod his head, so I graciously thank him for telling me about his lovely restaurant and hotel.  I then went to get ready for my next destination.

Is Colombia made of Cheese? So many tunnels

I had a nice stay in Armenia and even got a nice breakfast at the hotel. Around 9:30 was the departing time again... I had to get the bike out of the lobby and then load everything back up. Day 2 of loading the saddlebags went much better as I learned some things from the yesterday.

I set my courses for the town of Neiva on the eastern side of the mountains. Along the way I would go through the Tatacoa desert. First stop was gas for the bike just outside of town. 

 There are many traffic circles everywhere in Colombia and NO TRAFFIC rules. Lines on the roads are suggestions, Speed limits are suggestions. It is mass chaos but seems to work. After gasing up (the attendant fills your tank by the way at EVERY station, you do NOT touch the pumps), 

I started heading out and the GPS says go to the right at the traffic circle so I do and then it says to reroute... Eyeroll, back to the traffic circle and go to the next exit and head off. The weather was nice. Great temperature, overcast but it didn't look like any kind of rain so I was happy. The area is like jungle and one thing I have noticed EVERYWHERE in Colombia are teams of workers with weed whackers clearing the sides of the roads of vegitation. Grasses, brush, tree limbs, you name it, there are 5-10 guys with these machines working daily to keep the road areas nice. 

 So... the road started heading up the mountain is highway 40 or route 40, it goes up and up and up. I was passing huge transport trucks that keep the country alive. There were bikes and cars of course coming up and down the mountain but this particular road was like a US interstate. 2 lanes going up the mountain and 2 lanes coming down, at least on the north or west side of the mountain range. 

 About 3/4 way up the mountain I came across the first of MANY tunnels. All of the tunnels have themes, like the tucan, bear, all sorts of differnt animals which was kind of fun. At or near the top of the mountain I think was a sign talking about Colombias longest tunnel or highest. I think the sign said longest. Before the tunnel was a military checkpoint where they seem to stop all trucks and cars. Motorcycles are free to go through but I slow down and wait until I get waved through anyway.  Military checkpoints and police checkpoints are very common here. I don't know what they are looking for but will ask the next time I get pulled over. 

 Another thing is all the tolls. There are tolls everywhere, even random spots where folks have to pay at the toll plaza or they can purchase some sort of electronic pass that allows them to go through faster. Motorcycles have a free pass and go to the right of the plaza with a few speed bumps so we aren't going through at Mach 2.

I think the second or third tunnel was the longest tunnel and it just seemed like I kept going on for kilometer after kilometer after kilometer I wish I would have checked the speedometer to know or check the clock to see how long it took me to go through but it was just like forever.  When I went in the tunnel it was all cloudy and overcast and when I came out the other side it was bright sunshine and blue skies it was like night and day.  The blue skies didn't last long because there was another tunnel and then another and another it was like Swiss cheese. 

After I got quite a ways down the the mountainside I came across backed up traffic so I knew there must be some construction area ahead.  Again, I passed hundreds of cars and trucks and finally got to a spot where traffic was backing up and moving around because large trucks were coming from the other side and couldn't make the tight curve so everyone was jockeying for position to allow these big trucks to come through. 

When I finally got through the construction area and was heading down the mountain the traffic that was waiting to go up when on for what seemed like a few miles and I just can't imagine driving in this atmosphere having to sit and wait like hours for all these road construction police stops and everything in a car it's just insane. 

After getting through the town of Ibague the terrain flattened out and got HOT.   I forgot to mention that it was freezing cold at the top of the mountain.

When I got on highway 45 going south I stopped under and overpass to get some water and just relax for a few minutes before continuing on to the tericoa desert.  It was so hot I couldn't believe it but I pressed on and found this little turn off to go to the Tatacoa desert.  The turn off was not marked very well, but I managed to find the sign and take it.  This was a dirt road and not a nice dirt road, all sorts of bumps and potholes and you name it. 

 After a while I came to a tunnel which was just basically a black hole in the wall like you'd see in the Road Runner-Wilie Coyote cartoons. 

oh well, you get the idea...

 It was a little spooky going into one and I kept riding and riding and finally I saw a light at the end of the tunnel and breathed the sigh of relief.  Then a couple hundred yards further there was another tunnel and so I went through that and came out to a long bridge and I'm not sure what river it was but it was quite a sight.

The road was bone jarring and after a while my bags were pushing on my back.  After a while I stopped to take a photo and getting off the bike lost my footing and slammed into my back.  Good thing I had all my gear on.  No major issue.  Then I noticed my SUPER NICE motorcycle cover had gone missing.  Dang it, that could have been a nice shelter fyom the elements as it was huge.  

Anyway, I kept on riding and bouncing along and thought geez I'm surely in the Tatacoa desert by now, but everything was so lush and green. 

I passed a large sign and turned around and took that dirt road for a while.  There was a turn off for someones restaurant and I'm not sure the other.  After about 15 minutes of writing on this little lame dirt road I decided that I wasn't really going to see anything more than what I had already seen so I turned around and headed back to the main dirt road and started heading south to the town of. Villavieja.  I didn't get down to the river for a canoe transport ferry but took the road south to the town of Neiva.  The road was awesome and I was flying to see if I could get to town and to the Suzuki dealer for my 1000 km oil change and check up. 

I somehow made it to the Suzuki dealer and talk to the mechanic. He said bring It on in we can do it before we close at 6:00 so I did.  I'm sure they ripped me off because they charged me about $40 for 2 quarts of oil. I was only supposed to pay for consumables but I think I paid for quite a bit more.  It was blistering Hot 🥵.  I checked my phone and it was 91° so no wonder I was roasting while waiting for the bike to get serviced I found a place to stay and afterwards zipped over to it.

Let the games begin

Finally time to leave Medellin. 

 After trying to figure out how to install the dry saddlebags for the first time (it took me about an hour to get them hooked up) how I wanted and of course it still wasn't that good a job. I took a photo, said goodbye to my host and fired up the bike. 

 Since I had no real place I was going except south, I set the Map GPS in the phone to the city of Ibague and see how far I can go. Left about 10 AM I think and things were looking good through the downtown area of Medellin and then when I got south of Poblado the traffic came to a stand still. Being me and follow the locals, I did the lane split thing with the bags on and had no issues. I was quite a bit more tame because of the bags though. The crazy traffic lasted for at least an hour or two before I got past the town of Caldas and on to highway or route 25. Then I could start enjoying the countryside and twisty roads.

One thing about Columbia is there are mountains everywhere you're always going up, you're always going down, there are hardly any real flat areas.  I was constantly downshifting and upshifting and downshifting and upshifting going up the different passes and none of the roads are really straight either, most of the time it's really tight curves that are fun on a bike but terrible for the truckers.

I came over this pass or mountain and straight ahead was this mountain that looked like it was drawn by a kid you know straight up and down almost with a real nice peak. Later, I ended up driving right around that mountain which was quite interesting and the engineering is incredible for the roads here some of the bridges are just incredible. 

So you're just zipping along on the bike having fun in the curves and passing a few cars here and there, then all of a sudden you come to a mass of cars all stopped.  Now here's the best part, on a motorcycle, every motorcycle just passes all the cars, they either go on the right side or they pass on the line on the left side all the way to the very front of the line.  I must have passed hundreds of cars. Then when the construction area said we could go the motorcycles zipped off and down the road to the next construction area which seems to be all over the countryside. 

After riding for quite a number of hours and really not making a whole lot of progress because of all these mountain roads and the sleeping police which are humongous speed bumps I decided to stop for the night in the city of Armenia.  I finally found a place to pull over and broke out the phone and started looking for looking on booking.com for a place to stay after filtering through and trying to find one that had parking or secure parking for my motorcycle I finally found one and with the directions zipped over to it and checked in.  Lidia, the charming receptionist sowed me the room which was very nice.  They had me pull the bike into the lobby for safety.  I went to the large mall in the next block for dinner.

My first of probably many crashes........ 1/11/26

Today's destination is the beautiful monolth of Guadape.  It started raining as soon as I got on the road which was a bummer but I thought I'd keep going and hopefully it would go away. The carplay unit I purchased in the US was finally starting to make sense and I learned that I did not have to take my gloves off all the time, I just had to press harder to make the screen bigger or smaller and move the car around so I could see where I am. 

Today, I got routed all over the place and onto other roads that were shut down so people could rollerblade, walk, etc. The next thing I knew I was headed up some Bario streets in the small town of El Cabuyal which is Northeast of Medellin. 

Specifically El Presidio area trying to get to the highway 60. The barrios are neighborhoods way up the mountainside and the roads and sidewalks are SUPER STEEP.  Also, to make matters worse it raining quite well and each roads was a fast moving river. 

It was so  crazy and I couldn't believe I was riding almost straight up, the hill was soooo steep. I tried to keep the Revs up and even in first gear I started slowing down and down and it got to the point where it was going to stall. I gave it gas and the rear wheel started spinning and that was all she wrote. The bike went over on the left and I fell down and started sliding down the road and picking up speed. The bike stayed because the kickstand gouged into the road and it held it. I on the other hand was surfing down the street. I must have gone at least 30-40' before I stopped. 

 I could hardly stand up and trying to walk up was very difficult, but I managed to claw myself back to the bike and try to assess the situation.  I'm looking at the bike wondering how the heck am I'm going to get UP or DOWN the hill. It took me about 3 times to get the bike upright and a bicyclist was pushing his bike up the hill and he  stopped to help me. 

 I had managed to get the bike up on one side of the center stand and didn't want to let it over to the other foot as I thought it would continue to fall and make matters worse. He helped keep it upright as I moved the bike so it was pointing uphill and on both feet of the center stand. 

Cars were coming up and down and I was semi blocking the single lane road.  Using the Google translator he said let's try to get it to a spot where cars can get by. So the plan was to fire it up. Keep it in 1st and we'd push it off the stand and I'd try to walk/run it up the hill until I could find a place to pull over. I tell you I couldn't even breath because of the altitude. I went a little and stop, a little more and stop and continued until I found a semi level spot where I stopped to catch my breath. My head was throbbing and my leg was killing me.  and I thought I should find a medical place to get checked out. 

 The bicyclist told me to turn around and go back down. I looked at the map and was like, shit dude, I'm super close to highway 60. He said he would follow me and that the road would get even MORE steep and then NO ROAD and just muddy, swampy and it was nasty rocky as well with huge dips and muddy river flowing down with all the rain but I managed to get through all the way to the 60 road. 

The photos are of a tame area of the muddy part. At times it was a muddy river.  I'm so mad that I did not get a photo with him. I will remember his face forever though.    

Where I entered 60 it was like a freeway, vehicles were ripping up and down and I had to get across and head up.  The rain was terrible and finally I got to the cut off to Guadape.  I had a MASSIVE headache, my leg was killing me from something that happened during the fall and traffic was horrendous. Backed up on the highway for days. I followed a motorcyclist for a while and we weaved though and around the cars for many kilometers before I just pulled over and stopped to check my helmet to see if I had scratches on it and it was totally fine. 

 I just wasn't feeling the love so I turned around and headed towards the town of RioNegro

then on to Llano Grande and Don Diego before heading back to Medellin. Traffic was horrendous this entire trip and rain as well. I was in the clouds coming into Medellin and got turned around a few times. I looked up the Teknik shop and they were closed so I just headed for the barn. What a day. I have 304 Km on the bike now and have only used half a tank of gas, that's amazing . That's a good total for 2 days. 

First ride of the Bumblebeeto 1/10/26

Time to take the little bike out for a spin and see what it is really all about. My friend Andy gave a few suggestions and I took one of them. If you look at a map... (you aren't going to do it ya slacker).

Of course I waited until late in the day to start.... Not really, my first priority wa to get a global plan set up for my phone and get it working. For me that means having to get to the customer service and speak to an actual human that can help because the lame self help directions never seem to work and I always have questions. 

 A couple hours later... I can go. I started out probabaly 2-3 in the afternoon and traffic is crazy as usual so Combat riding, weaving in and out of cars, splitting lanes, filtering to the front, coming inches from big trucks and mirrors of cars, it's like everyone is a MotoGP racer and is trying to be up front in a monster frienzy. 

 Now I would think that by the time I hit the major freeway heading out of Medellin things would chill but NO, I kept enjoying this loco traffic for Kilometer after Km after Km. It thinned out a bit when I started to cut north to Don Matias and that was going up and up and up the mountains. 

 A few of the locals thought they were Jorge Martin from Spain (famous MotoGP motorcycle racer) and were passing everyone on the line and blind curves, you name it. I couldn't let these yahoos leave me in truck diesel smoke so took the liberty of catching and spanking them badly on my little 160. I'm sure if I took my helmet off they would be flabergasted that some old fart just put them to shame. 

 I have a 7" carplay screen I purchased in the US for the trip and it mirrors my phone so I can have my phone in my pocket and can see the map . This is a learning experience for me but by day 2 I've kinda got it figured out. 

 Anyway, up and up I go and the scenery is lush and green everywhere, farms everywhere too.

The little bike just kept chugging along not missing a beat. It certainly isn't a power house but gets the job done, The bike sits perfect for me ergo wise. I'm not leaning forward or hands in a strange contortion, legs are just right. I'm super happy with how it fits me. 5'8" 30" inseam if you want to know if it will fit you. 

 It handles very well, I can lean it over in curves and it feels quite solid, even in the rain. When I get on the gas it doesn't really start moving until you hit about 5k RPM and then it starts to move. I'm not supposed to take it over 7K but did it a couple of times on accident. 7k RPM buy the way is about 95 Kph so almost 60 mph and it can do it easily, even at the high altitude I was riding at. 

 Between Don Matias and Santa Rosa it started to sprinkle and get worse and worse. I pulled over to put on my gortex wind pants to keep my legs somewhat dry since I'm wearing mesh armor pants. The temps started to get a bit chilly up there as well. While there along side the road a guy on a bike probably in his 40's-50's stopped. This guy started speaking to me in a somewhat excited voice. I'm sure he was talking about the rain and then I slowed him way down by telling him I wasn't understanding him. In my broken Spanish I told him I had just purchased the bike and was going to ride to Ushuaia and he almost gave me a hug. He was so happy and said he wanted to do it sometime as well. He was a lot of fun. I never got his name but here he is.

We said our goodbyes and I headed off to Santa Rosa. 

 When I got into Santa Rosa the town square was a fun little square with Christmas displays still up and a super beautiful church on one side. I wanted to pull over to take a photo of it but the parking was all full of tall vehicles and there was no place to park period as there were so many people. I ended up going around to the front of the church where I stopped and got a lousy shot of it.

It was starting to come down a little harder now and the road I was getting ready to go down had different colored umbrellas hanging across the street and it was beautiful. I pulled up and stopped to get a nice photo.

This road had every shop you could think of on both sides and I wish I had gotten here earlier as it was probably about 5:30 and I was starving but wanted to get back before dark. The street turned to the right and there were MORE umbrellas for blocks and then it switched back to normal but it sure was fun. At the edge of town was another fun more modern church and a beautiful shrine. There was no place to stop and cars behind me so I did a circle of the area and did a couple of shots behind my back.

Then it was time to stop taking photos and make some time. I started blasting along the ridge of the mountain and since it was almost dark there wasn't much traffic so I was scooting right along and the bike was humming with glee. I was having a lot of fun scrubbing in the tires and they did an excellent job of keeping me glued to the road. About 6 it started to get dark and by the time I hit San Pedro it was pitch black and I still had quite a bit of time to go. Now going fast on these roads is going 60-70 Kph. That doesn't sound like much but it is on these twisty roads. 

 

Also, there were stops in the middle of nowhere for TOLLS! I'm not sure what that is all about but here is a string of cars, trucks, busses, etc so you just ride right past everyone, get in the far right and there is a small lane just for motorcycles. It has monster speed bumps so you have to go very slowly over them and you don't have to pay. Super cool that we don't have to pay. 

 Also in the middle of nowhere and almost random are these huge speed bumps that are about 3-4 feet wide. Mostly they are around schools and towns but there can be many of these so you have to pay attention and slow WAY down or you'll be playing Evil Kenevil. 

 As I started down the mountainside on the west I finally got under the clouds and could see the lights of the city of Medellin. I was so high up that I couldn't believe it. It was very pretty and I wanted to stop but thre was no place to pull over and traffic started getting super thick. The road started getting quite bad as well with pot holes, speed bumps, areas where the road was washed away and big cracks.

 I was having a tough time seeing as my car play unit was blasting a brite light in my face like I was being interigated. At one point I think I went into a huge pot hole and thought I had blown my tire as I couldn't see it, was in horrendous traffic and it was pitch black when BAMB! I almost flew over the handlebars it was such a jolt and I wasn't even going 10 kph. 

 There were parties and going on all over since it was Saturday night and the road was very steep. It took probably another half hour before I got down to the neighborhood and found the parking garage. What a ride. It was 160 Km (about 100 miles). The bike ran flawlessly, it fits me great, I'm figuring out the powerband and I think I used 1 bar of fuel on the fuel guage so it is sipping fuel which is awesome. I think it will be a great bike for the trip.