{"id":2779,"date":"2013-10-09T03:51:08","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T02:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/j-ontheroad.at\/?p=2779"},"modified":"2025-07-02T13:48:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T13:48:13","slug":"bones-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/en\/2013\/10\/09\/bones-break\/","title":{"rendered":"bones break"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Album<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ha! Got ya! Mum, sorry for the scare. The last posts were maybe a bit boring for reading. So I had to come with a lurid headline. Personally, I had a lot of fun during the last 2 1\/2 weeks, but it is difficult to transport the feelings in a written style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, from San Jose to Bogota I have been driving only about 1,000 km.
It was time to move on again, time for more exciting things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

04.10.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It takes a while to get out of Bogota. The city seems endless. The traffic is dense. To Armenia I drive through steep mountains and valleys. Many trucks slowly drag down the narrow winding roads. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is staff in the blind corners, I do not know whether they are paid or not. They wave to the truck drivers, who have to veer, if the road is free. With the bike I am doing better. A quick turn on the throttle and I pass the cars and trucks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a few miles there is free ride before I am behind trucks again. Such trips are very tiring to drive, dense traffic, narrow curves, always taking care. In Armenia, I go to bed tired soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of people driving motorcycles in Colombia. From scooters up to larger bikes you can find everything on the road. At a red light they all move to the front. Sometimes there are 15, 20 or more motorcycles at the front. When the traffic light changes to green, they start like bees, all at the same time, I am often right between them. It is always funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Motorcycles don’t pay a toll in Colombia. On toll booths there is a bike lane where you can just drive through. I had to learn that, when I arrived at a toll booth the first time, the lady jumped out of the toll booth and waved with her hands to the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had no contact yet with the police, and so far I was not stopped. I have got a „tactic“. In the city in dense traffic on multi-lane roads I choose the second or third track. This makes it harder to be stopped. You can also hide behind larger vehicles. It seems to me the police does not really notice me. Or maybe it is simply different than in Central America, where we were constantly stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bridges and (probably) other strategic points are almost always guarded by the military. Sometimes there are checkpoints on the road. So far I have not been stopped there too. There are sometimes three or four soldiers stationed at a distance of about 50m. Sometimes there are these bunkers of sandbags. When I pass, every single one of the soldiers is giving thumbs up sign. I do the same. I have no idea what it means. Maybe they shoot when one of them is giving a thumbs down sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I will be on Google Street View. Somewhere along the road I passed one of the vehicles with the camera on the roof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

05.10.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Armenia to Popay\u00e1n I drive partially on highways, partly I ride on country roads.
The GPS is sometimes kind of funny. So it happens that roads are sometimes 100m off the current position. Is it the continental drift? Some of the well marked roads turn out to be dirt roads. Some new roads are not listed, but larger cities are well signed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the region between Armenia and Popay\u00e1n are many sugar cane plantations. The population is predominantly black. I later read they are descendants of slaves who were brought here a long time ago.
It’s harvest time. In the plantations workers are with their machetes at work. Road trains, with four to five trailers, transport the cane to be processed in one of the factories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have I mentioned that I could eat the whole day here? On every street corner is a small shack or a bakery that offers something to eat. Lot’s of things I want to taste. It’s hard to keep the weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

06.10.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day 2 in Popay\u00e1n. It’s Sunday, the sun is shining. I take my panniers off the bike and would like to visit a village about forty to fifty km away. It is recommended as an open air museum, and the locals are wearing colorful costumes.
No chance to find the village. I have no map and the roads in the GPS are poor too. I somehow got to the backcountry. Miles and miles on stony gravel roads. There are always houses or clusters of houses along the street. I’m not sure if there has been a foreigner before. Without all the ballast it is much easier to drive the bike off-road. 20, 30, 40 km\/h, you can’t go faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point it happened. A stone hit hard on the bottom of the bike. The engine stopped, the oil light lit up. Damn, what happened? I’m about 25 km away from the city, in the middle of nowhere, on crappy roads. I stop immediately. The side stand is hanging loose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was looking at what happened. Ok, I was „lucky“. The stone has destroyed the suspension for the side stand. If the side stand is going down, the engine stops automatically – a protective function. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I go back a few meters and find the springs and the suspension on the street. I fix the side stand with the springs temporarily and drive a few miles further in hope to find a junction, which leads to a road back to Popay\u00e1n.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get through a village. Everyone seems to be on the street. Slowly I meander through the throngs of people, horses and motorcycles. With my motorcycle clothes I must look like an alien. Everyone is staring at me. I ask for directions. Popay\u00e1n? I have to go back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhere I lose my gloves too. I had them in the mesh on my top bag. I buy new ones in a motorcycle shop for 10 EUR. The people are smaller here. Size XL just fits.
I arrive dusty – me and my motorcycle – in Popay\u00e1n. Back at the hostel I try to analyze what exactly was broken. It seems the bolt, holding the plate and the spring, was bent. I must have hit the stone very hard. Hopefully it can be replaced simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think about how I can solve the problem temporarily. I need a rubber band. Where can I get a rubber band?  … I have a rubber band that I can cut to the desired length, in my pannier. Excellent! A few days ago I thought to myself: Another thing you carry around needlessly. The rubber band will do it. The stand folds up and goes back down. At least until Quito, the rubber band must do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today I had a little bad luck, but it was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

07.10.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I continue to Pasto. The landscape changes from green hills more towards brown. The mountain slopes are steep, the streets are nestled in the mountains. I don’t like these roads very much. Pasto is not really worth a visit, but that’s just my opinion. The center is clogged with cars. Exhaust gases are in the air. A large square in the center, a few old churches. Just a stopover on the way to Ecuador.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

08.10.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s cold. The border is not far away. I move at altitudes between 1,500 and 3,500m. The ride is extremely fun. The road conditions are excellent, just a few cars on the road. The landscape is fantastic. It is only, you do not really know what clothes to wear. Either you freeze at above 3,000 m, because you don’t wear enough, or you sweat at 1,500 to 2,000m, because you wear too much. Within a few minutes you go from 3,000 to 1,500 or the other way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got stopped by traffic police today. But I just had to show the vehicle documents. A few civilians joined them. I think they just wanted to chat and view the bike. Where are you from, where do you go, … the usual questions.
The border crossing takes some time as usual, but is far more comfortable at about 20C, than in the sweltering heat in Central America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for reading, J\u00fcrgen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Album Ha! Got ya! Mum, sorry for the scare. The last posts were maybe a bit boring for reading. So I had to come with a lurid headline. Personally, I had a lot of fun during the last 2 1\/2 weeks, but it is difficult to transport the feelings in a written style. Also, from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,37],"tags":[153,241,785],"class_list":["post-2779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-201314-america","category-colombia","tag-bogota-en","tag-colombia-en","tag-popayan-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5160,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions\/5160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_america2013\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}