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.