Marching Powder

 or White Coffee, Snow, or any number of other names...
Its Cocaine, and its about the first thing that comes to mind when anyone from my world starts making associations about Colombia.

Im told though that most of the good stuff these days comes from Bolivia.
But there is still plenty of it about down here for sure! Truth be told though, I think that cocaine has been the most common drug offered to me as I walk down the streets of Central and South American towns from about Costa Rica on South.
But, I gotta say that it is incredibly cheap here in Colombia!... You can get a gram of it off the street here for less than $5US!
Now Im sure thats pretty low grade (heavily "cut" or diluted) but still, its a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper than it is back in the Western cities Im from. (much like the cost of marijuana in northern Mexico from earlier in the trip).

The cocaine "industry" is certainly part of the history of Colombia and its still here to a large extent too. Ive personally met travellers here that have been on a "side tour" of a cocaine farm and processing centre (where they turn the green coca leaves into the white powder) while they were trekking to some ruins in the jungle...
Im sure its not the wisest thing to do, but I believe its done quite often so it cant be that dangerous ??... but for myself, I have no need to go "see how its done".

So, its here and available and plenty of people use it... And though Im sure it would increase the "quantity" of my dancing, Im afraid I just dont think its gonna improve the "quality" !...

And Im just not sure thats the gift that I want to give the world at the moment :)))

They Just Dance

Im in Cali... Self declared Salsa capital of Colombia... and therefore, likely the world too :)))

And they are not kidding either!
People here dont go out to a bar or a club to drink... They go to dance.
Actually, dancing is just about the ONLY thing to do in Cali :))
And the dancing is virtually never the old "stand around and shimmy" thing that most people do where I come from...
They dance Salsa, or Regeton, or Merenge etc (these are all very different styles!)... There are definite forms and everybody does them. And its neither restrictive and formal, nor elaborate and extravagant.... Its just people dancing in there own styles on a club dance floor.

Now, as Ive stated before, Im a hopeless dancer... and its all pretty intimidating for me... but its also inspiring :)
Trouble is though, that I tend to learn this type of physical skill in a bit of a strange way... At the start, I just dont make progress. I need to start REALLY slowly and repeat it many many times... And it seems like Im not learning anything, and I keep making the same stupid mistakes etc... But then after a while , it seems to get through to my "little lizard brain" (as opposed to the big "thinking brain") and I start to get it... Then the trick is to stop my thinking brain interfering with the lizard brain.... Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I make progress in stages rather than a smooth progression... But, It takes Time!
And, with dancing it REALLY helps if I have a consistent partner... and in all my experiences when Ive tried these things, The other person gets impatient and critical ... (And Ive tried a few times over the years... and always they "Are Not Patient!!") and then its "No fun for anyone!".... So I have learned not to impose myself on others... which is a damn shame... cos it would be fun.

... But Im not here to learn to Salsa... Im on a road trip.
So for the present Ill wait and ride on.
But if I make it to Buenos Aries then I plan to commit some time to taking some Tango lessons (say a week or so) and we will see how it goes... And if that goes well, then maybe on the ride back North, Ill stop in and take some more lessons here in Cali :)

But for now Ill just have a few more drinks and keep shimmying :)))

Damn Bats!

Ive moved South to "the other" "fancy modern city" in the middle of Colombia... Cali.
Im at a surprisingly quiet but popular hostel that is walking distance from the main bar district. There is a festival on here for the next week or so and it was not that easy to find accommodation.

It took me all day to ride to Cali from Medelline. It is beautiful country to ride through and the highways are a mixture of large and small, but the roads are always pretty good. When I got to Medelline, it was late (about 5pm - sunset 6ish) and just starting to rain. The city is not too complicated though and I found my own way to a hostel of choice... but it was full... as was the next one... but the third one had a space for a single night... pheeeew :)











So, I moved my bike inside and got some stuff off it to take into the dorm. That done, I settled in and checked email and had a beer on the balcony.

The balcony has a couple of humming bird feeders and Id noticed they were being used by the little birds when I arrived.
But it was dark now ... but the feeders were still being used??
... Yep, there are definitely flitting critters... quite a few of them...
A closer inspection revealed that the humming birds had gone to bed but that the feeders were now being used by bats!













Thats a new one on me!
Ive seen bats scooping water off ponds and lakes before, but in this case the little fellows were behaving just like humming birds... Hovering at the feeder and taking a drink for a second or two before flying off again... Very cool :)))

Its Not Official

Christmas morning in Colombia.

I got up and its not that early but there are very few people about - I guess they were drinking or something! :))

Anyway, that means that the kitchen is free - Great :)))
So I set about cutting up and eating the mangos I carefully selected at the little market yesterday (in a rare act of planning ahead).

There were three of them in total (the smaller ones) and I have to say that two out of the three were truly magnificent :)))
The third one is harder to describe, but after careful consideration I feel I must state it as it was... THE ABSOLUTELY BEST MANGO IN THE WORLD TODAY !!!

Yep, other people get "the best mango in the world" on other days and in other places, but today, I got it.... No other mango that will be had today will be that good.
Im sure of it!
It was that good!
I cant prove it of course, because I ate it all and there is none left.
But you cant just make that sort of claim up and publish it!
You know when its real;... And it was REAL!
No doubt what-so-ever!

So, Its not official, but I got the one for today :))))


I wish you all the best in your mango selections for the future...
...Keep at it, The search is worth it :))

Everything Hurts

Ive got some kind of a flu or bug at the moment.
Ive spent a good part of the last three days sleeping because Im just so tired. Yesterday, my entire body ached so much that my feet were in pain even before I got out of bed. Headache has been only slight, but today, GI issues began... I love the way these things do a slow steady "tour" of my body... Maximises the experience :))

In my half days of wakefulness Ive ridden South to Medelline but I think Im gonna rest up here for a couple of days to get better... And that means Ill be here for Christmas.
I was not sure about which road South to take since there are two main routes and its very difficult to change once you are started. Ive been down the road to Medelline before and I initially planned to go the other way (just for the variety). But the other road passes through Bogota and I didnt like the feel (not dangerous, just anoying) of it last time ... Though thats always so dependent on who you are around at the timer and the space you are in etc. But then I factored in Christmas and my current health issue and I decided to go with the road I know... I can do the other road on the way back North if I want.

So, here I am in Medelline; A thoroughly modern city up in the mountains in the middle of Colombia.

Locating a place to stay was very much like my Panama City experience... Using my "gut feel", I navigated to roughly where I thought the place I stayed last time was. But I recognised none of the roads or buildings I was on so I stopped by parking on the side-walk. I then got out the book and looked up two possible options (one was the place I stayed last time and another that sounded good). The plan was to get a taxi driver to choose the closer one and then follow him... But before I could do that, I was accosted by the police.!..

... "You cant park there Sir"...etc.

So, I deployed my most powerful defence mechanism against such officialdom...

... "Im lost and looking for this place... Can you please help me?" ...
To which the police man responded in good form with a smile and a "Follow me!" :))))

It turned out that I was within about one kilometre of the place :)))... And it was a good thing that I had a local to follow now too, since the roads in that area get very convoluted and one-way (to keep through traffic to a minimum I think). But with my police escort I was taken directly to my destination.... and that was a good thing too because my GI issues were starting to get... Volatile!...

So, it looks like Im here in Medelline for Christmas.... and Im fine with that because its the first hostel Iv stayed at in about a month with real hot water.... Ahhh the Blissssss

Rider Down

No, not me. But I rode past a fatal motorcycle accident today.

Its actually the first accident that Ive ridden past where the people involved were still there in all my recent motorbike travels... And in truth, the first time ever Ive ridden past a fatality with bodies visible...

I would have expected it to have happened much sooner in life but I guess Im glad it hasnt :)





Sorry for the details but there is a point...

In this case, the rider appears to have chosen a very large truck to tangle with and by the look of it, it was quick. There was a rather crumpled motorbike in the opposite lane and an "intact" though a bit distorted body on the road with a more or less useless helmet on and a significant pool of blood. The rider was a early twenties Colombian male (statistically he was probably very "normal" as far as motorbike accidents go). More than that I could not tell, and I rode by without gawking as that is never an appropriate thing to do.

But, Id rather have had some time to see how it affected me...
As it was, I have to say it was more or less as expected... I felt very little if anything other than a solid urge to pay more attention as I ride.
Lots of people Ive spoken with say they have strong emotional responses to this sort of situation. Others say they dont... I dont know what it means but I suspect it would affect me more if people were injured badly rather than dead....


But for the present at least, it appears that "Dead is Dead" and there is little more for me to do other than ride one carefully.

Sticky Lollipop Head

What the heck is " Sticky Lollipop Head" ?
Its a condition that is all too prevalent here on the tropical coasts of Latin America.
It can only be truly appreciated by people like me who have no hair on their heads (through mechanical or natural means).

Its so humid and hot down here that you are constantly sweating during the day. The moisture from the sweating does evaporate (albeit slowly), but the body oils that the skin pores emit do not. The result is that after a couple of hours you find that you are covered with a layer of slime... and it stays there and collects the dust etc till you have a wash.
Im currently staying in a very basic hostel here in Santa Marta and the dorm rooms are cooled during the nights with a single ceiling fan... This is a bit inadequate, and the nights are quite stuffy if there are a few people in the dorm...

And so, this morning as people woke up and discovered that the water was also not working (for one reason or another), an Irish guy called Glen declared ..." I need to go have a swim to get rid of this sticky Lollipop head"... So thats what I will call this condition from now on :)))

Actually Glen is a really great guy and is half of (along with Lee) an Irish musical documentary team. They are travelling around with their guitars through South America for a few months connecting with local musicians and making some sort of a documentary... It gives them a reason to go places, see people and do things, so I think its great :)
They are great guys and have added to the atmosphere here a lot for the last couple of days... They are however hard on their guitars!... They have only been on the road a couple of weeks, and one guitar has a big hole in it from a Coconut being lobbed (in a friendly way) at the player, and last night the other guitar got beaten up by one of those afore mentioned ceiling fans... Its now got a couple of sizeable notches and cracks in the front!... I hope the guitars survive the journey or the closing stages of their documentary will have to just be them Humming along to other musicians instruments :))

The hostel Im at has a bit of a "Hotel California"aspect too it... There are several people who seem to have been here for weeks if not months, and there is a real crowd of characters around. So despite it being a bit dingy, I have stayed here four days with no real reason at all...

"...you can check out any time you like; but you can never leave..."

The dingy old hostel has been running a very long time though... It was a built as a hotel around 1930 and the current owner changed it into a "backpacker" style hostel about 30 years ago! Thats impressive!
But, tomorrow I will head back south. Ive had a look at the coast up here and seen:

The big town (well actually a smallish city, of Santa Marta - lively port town with very high concentration of bars and prostitutes and assorted drugs in the backpacker hostel district - but I like it anyway. It also seems quite safe despite its seedy nature 'cos there is a massive police presence with two or three police standing about on almost every corner during the day and motorbike patrols passing every couple of minutes during the night.

The small fishing village of Taganga which is rapidly becoming a little tourist spot with lots of Scuba diving shops and lots of public works to pave the frontage road. A bunch of rich foreign owned houses on the hillsides and some hostels and restaurants and bars etc. Its grown enough already for the fishing to have more or less stopped... Locals are changing over to work the more lucrative Tourist type jobs and the only fishing going on is "fishing" another beer out of the cooler :)... Ahh.. Its a light beer!... No good for eating, Better chuck it back! :)

The coast here reminds me strongly of Northern Mexico. It has very steep hills "plunging" down to the coast. The beaches are either white or light beige sand. The vegetation varies dramatically from arid and cactus dominated, to tropical jungle in the space of 10Km or so. But as yet it has only minimally been developed... Yep, you can still buy yourself a bit of Caribbean beach hear if you want to (but only for a few more years though!). They also have a very nice and quite pristine coastal national park here that everyone raves about... I had a look and Im afraid Im not super impressed though... Guess Ive been spoiled coming from Australia. But I have to say the national park is quite clean... It seems that the north of Colombia is quite poor and the garbage problems that I didnt see last time in the centre/south of the country are alive and well up here... Plastic drink bottles and shopping bags EVERYWHERE! So the nice clean
park is a huge achievement and a welcome relief for the eyes.


But, now Ive seen a bit of the north, its time to head south again... Apparently Christmas is soon so I should figure out where Im going to spend it!

Bowels of Christ

Now that Im across the water, Ive spent some time working a few more wrinkles out of my bike.

What wrinkles could be left after all the work I did in Guatemala I hear you ask?

Well, there were several things...
First issue was to get the salt out of the electrical bits and pieces on the handlebars. - Easy fixed.


Another thing that I wanted to fix was the rear suspension... again :)
Yep, I did a full service in Guate, but I also decided in Guate that I wanted to change the seat height on the bike again!
Id raised it by 50mm back in Vancouver... But after riding it for a long way, I have found that I went too far... I need to lower it by about 20mm.
This requires making some simple metal bars with a couple of precisely spaced holes in them for bolts. Back in Guate, Indy didnt want to touch the problem. He felt the forces involved were too great and the geometry was very sensitive and Id be setting myself up for trouble... And hes a very good motorbike mechanic, so I should listen to him... and I do about the forces, but Im not so worried about the geometry issues.
So I changed it anyway :)

I took the old linkage plates off and measured carefully how much longer I wanted them.
Then I wandered around town looking in windows of workshops till I found one with big metal lathes and machine tools
Then I told them what I wanted and negotiated a price and one hour later I had the replacement parts in hand :) I had them made out of steel instead of 6060 Aluminium so that they would be good and strong though.

Then I bolted it back together and "voilla" the bike is 20mm lower at the seat :)))



And, last on the list was to deal with a couple of deeper/'harder to get at' electrical connectors for the same "salt ingress" problem. I knew I had to service this from the big "tear down" in Guate' when Indy had noted a bit of a problem with my brake light (not turning on when the front brake was engaged...not good!). But since then, the bike had also developed another problem with the fuel gauge no longer working. This happened as a result of the tear-down in Guate' and since we (Indy and I) could not solve it at the time, Id assumed that it was something to do with the bike computer reset (or something like that) and that it would probably "come good" after a day or two of riding... But it didnt... Ive been using mileage to decide when to fuel up since I left Guate'

So at my hotel in Cartegena I did another tear-down of the electrical... I serviced those connectors and cleaned it all up OK, but the fuel gauge still wouldnt work. Now Indy and I had both looked at this problem in Guate', and I could swear to you that we used a multimeter and checked the wire connectivity in each section (there are four plugs in the line) and of the whole circuit as well... And we were sure it was connected! ... so we figured it was an issue in the dashboard and was "too hard' to deal with.

But, now that the bike was apart, I decided to have another look at it all.
Again I checked things with the multimeter... and what I found was that one of those connectors was not working... Not just connected badly, but not connected at all!... I took it apart and looked closer and you know what I found...
The wire on each side of the connector were in different slots (the connector has places for about 20-30 wires but not all are used... there are some gaps in places) ...
This can only possibly have happened when I serviced the connector last time (Indy didnt do the connector service)... But I swear that I was very careful when I serviced each wire , And, that both Indy and I checked the circuit after I did the service!

Clearly that can not have been the case in reality!!!

Clearly one of two things happened... I either remember the service sequence incorrectly, or Indy and I somehow managed to check a different wire...
Whatever the case, when I put the wire in the right slot, the fuel gauge worked perfectly...

It remindes me of one of my favourite quotes (I believe its form Oliver Cromwell)
"By the bowels of Christ, I beseech you, consider the possibility that you could be mistaken!"

For me at least, it really seems to make you stop and think :)))
Which is of course the point.

Ive made these sorts of mistakes before of course (My friend Janine has a REALLY good story about my own memories fallibility that is always good to "re-live :)) ) and so these days its easier to accept my own limitations :)
And actually I believe that most people have this same sort of problem (to a greater or lesser extent), but that very few people have the "acceptance" part at all (I of course also still have a long way to go) :))

Ive worked in Hi-Tech engineering for a living for more than 20 years and its a very rigorous environment... And you get very good at setting up "self checking" procedures to catch these sorts of "bugs"... But things still manage to get through for most people (just attend any of the regular "what went wrong and cost us lots of time and money" meetings at a Hi-Tech engineering company!)...
In fact, I can safely say that I have only met two or three people in my life so far (in work or otherwise) who I truly didnt ever see make this sort of mistake - Where they swear that something is "so" because they looked it up or they did it or some such... And when it comes down to it, it turns out not to be "so"... Then there are excuses and sometimes acknowledgement but they almost always swear that they dont make those sorts of mistakes, and that this is a unique experience etc.... But I dont think it is... I think we deceive our selves as to the reliability of our own memories!
And Im guessing that even for those one or two people (Jason T for one :) ) that they too make these mistakes (though at a lower rate than most people) and I have just not been there to witness it.

Occasionally I come across situations (in general life) where I meet people who are "oh so sure" of something that I think is "not so". When it happens, I usually try to suggest that I think its otherwise but I usually dont push the point these days. Some times thats because Im not sure of my own position, but its also quite often because I dont actually mind them being sure of them selves... But I remember, and sometimes, the issue will clear its self up when Im around the person in question, and I will get to know the fact of who was right and who was wrong (though I think its usually counter productive to confront the person with the new fact... seriously threatens egos!)....

But, thats how I know that most people do this "denial" thing over the unreliability of our memories :))

That Gilded Cage

I rode north from Cartegena today to a town called Santa Marta.
Dont know much about the place yet, but there was an interesting little "happening" on the street where Im staying this afternoon...

I was out for a walk and I noticed a man standing directly in the path of traffic (though there was not a lot at the time) with a small empty bird cage in his hand. He was staring up at a tree and making a few little noises.
My initial reaction was "Thats a novel way to try to catch wild birds!"... But pretty quickly it dawned on me that his pet bird had escaped :))
I looked into the tree and after a minute or so I saw a budgerigar up there sitting quietly - By the way, budgies are native to the deserts of Australia where flocks of thousands of them can be seen in the evenings at watering holes :)

So, now I see whats going on and I decided to stay and see what happens and take a few pictures.

The bird sits quietly while the man makes noises and drops some fruit and gets tooted at by a few cars.
Then the bird flies down to the pavement but wont let the man near... It flies a short distance when he comes closer.
The man makes more noises and offers fruit and water and seed...
The bird lets him get closer but now only walks away when approached...
After a minute or so more, the bird lets the man offer seeds from the feeding cup and starts to eat from it
Then the man gently picks the bird up and transfers him back to his cage... The little bird seems quite happy with his renewed captivity

Turns out that the man has had the little bird for twelve years!!






















But I wondered about the metaphor here...

... Am I the little bird who has escaped the captivity of a "normal life"?... Am I doing anything with my freedom?... Do I really want my freedom at all?... Or would I be just as happy back in my "gilded cage" having tasted some freedom but not really done anything with it?... Is the "gilded cage that bad"?... What is freedom and what is captivity? How many of us deceive ourselves that we are free?... How many of us deceive ourselves that we are held captive?
I certainly have a long term relationship of "co dependence" with my "captor" (call that the western life style....
Answer is "I just dont know"... Time will tell I guess...

How do you feel about the man and the little bird?
Are you free or trapped?

...We must all decide for or selves I guess :)

The Fat Chick

There is a prominent sculpture in one of the city squares here.

The sculpture is by Fernando Botero and hes famous for his paintings and sculptures of "fat" Colonial gentry... To me it implies the gross excess of wealth in the colonial Spaniards... but thats just me, I have no idea what the artist may be trying to imply or not...


and this sculpture "The Gertrudis" is no exception...
Well, lets just say that there's plenty of material to work with...I couldnt resist having a bit of a play around with my camera :)

Lively Town

Cartegena is truly a lively little town.
Last time I was here, I think most of my post and pictures was about the old historic walled town. Its the same... beautiful old restored buildings and street cafes and wealthy foreign and Colombian tourists, massive stone walls and iron cannon, monuments to colonials, pirates, slaves, revolutionaries etc... very nice indeed :)

But there is also a far less sophisticated side of town, and its less tidy and less hygienic, and far noisier etc... The district where most of the budget accommodation (where I am staying) is a veritable "labyrinth of life". Absolutely everything is going on here... There are beggars and prostitutes and drunks and peddlers of fruit and ice and shoe repairers and deep fried street meet and walk by coffee vendors and taxis and trolleys and dogs and business men and police and paramilitaries and hostals and hotels and laundries and internet and restaurants and builders and hardware shops and.... The list is in fact without end.
It seems like in support of Darwins theory, "Commercial Selection"is in full force, and just like the natural version in these hot humid climates, the concentration and ferocity of the selective forces here are amplified way beyond what we "Westerners" usually encounter.
Ill post some pictures of stuff, but pictures really dont do it justice . They can capture a visual moment here and there but they just cant capture the continuous dynamic melee! Neither can they capture the constant variety of smells of sewerage from a street grating, and choking exhaust, and the sickly sweet rotting vegetables/fruit. Or the subtler smells of wet dog and deep fried chicken or the "fresh" meat in a butcher shop etc... Its an olfactory feast :)

Or the sounds of it all... Every street hawker has a unique cry that they repeat constantly at full volume... and the taxis and motorbikes are constantly using their horns... or the rattle of another street trolley as it moves slowly along (they use large wheel bearings directly as wheels here) or jack hammers or just every imaginable conversation under the sun from all the people...

Its "humanity with intensity!"... and a little surprisingly, I quite like it :)))