D-Day in Bogota

Day 9 (0 km)

       Woke up sore again and it was drizzling outside.  It felt like I was back in Amsterdam again, miserable weather, anyway I thought lets go on their holiday to the cargo terminal, instead of Tuesday as they told us to do on Saturday! 

To see, if the moto's were actually in Bogota and start pressing them a little bit. 

     Streets were empty again and we took a local city bus to the airport and presented ourselves by Girag. Surprisingly in the empty office, there was only one guy sitting from Girag and we asked him, if he knew where our bikes are. He looked at our papers and said they right outside here, just sign these papers and go with them across the road to customs and show us the acte, customs will give you and then you on your way. You could say at the least, we were stunned and went hopeful to customs, where only 2 people were chatting in the building and they were very helpful in processing our papers and in an half an hour, we returned to Girag with the stamped papers. 

     they already had the bikes parked outside and after repacking , checking things over, we started the bikes and of course I had the bad luck she didn't want to start and after getting an empty battery, I had to swap batteries with Scotty and an hour later, I had her going, but running irregular and couldn't get her to idle properly.

Anyway we decided to make it to the hotel and look there if we get it to run better, maybe there was water in the carburetor or the altitude took affect, also filling her up with gas might help! So we were looking for a gas station as well, but there are none sofar, can not believe yet that in a city with a couple of million people, I can not find any gas station. 

     Reached the hotel and the owner said just park the moto's inside, to do that you had to go 5 steps high and through a door smaller as the width of the handle bars, but we managed and I tried to repair all sort of things in the parlor of the hotel. 

  I figured already out, that it is not water, because I drained the carburetor, so will see what the engine does tomorrow......... beer time now.

Scotty has to buy a new helmet, his strap broke and he wants a special one, it is going to be probably a number 8 ball helmet, old fashion style and I will try to get insurance for the bikes, so we plan to hit the road tomorrow around noon and then, we are back on schedule again!

The waiting game in Bogota started, where are the moto's!

Day 8 (0 km)

     After I had slept on a cement bed, I woke up around 8 in the morning with some serious back problems and was still dizzy of all the noise in the hotel from last night. Went for breakfast and their were no cars on the road, only pedestrians and bicycles were allowed on Sunday, what made it eerie quiet.

     The whole city is crowded with walking police in yellow jacket and I think they are outnumbered by the rest of the people on the street as well you can see their is a very great difference between rich and poor, even me living in Honduras and should be used to this, it was shocking to see the poverty and sometimes a gang of them (20), crowded a bus of all ages and it look liked a whole tribe took over and were loud in their indigenous language, which wasn't Spanish.

     The streets were covered with hobo's and beggars  and it did not picture  Bogota, as being a prosperous city or atleast not the old town centre of Calderia.

     After we had a coffee, we went to visit the "Museo de Oro", which was very interested and all explanations was in Spanish and English and on Sunday nobody had to pay entry fee for museums in Colombia, and that is probably why a lot of Colombians visits museums on these days.

 The main attractions in the museum were the gold displays from up to 4000 years ago from this part of the world and was displayed in a entertaining and educative way.
after 2 hours in the building, it was enough for us and left.

      In the early part of the afternoon, we walked to the funicular railway, that brought us to the top of "Cerro de Montserat" which has a monastry on top of the mountain 3200 meters high and from where you had a pretty good view over the city and there must have been thousands of people, doing the same thing, down we went with the cable car and that was enough for me playing a tourist for the day!

COPA flight Panama-Colombia, not Columbia

Day 7 (767 km flying miles)

     Shuttle brought us back 8:30 to the airport again and after having some breakfast in another overpriced snack-bar in the departure hall ($ 27.00 for coffee and 2 donuts each) we boarded our 90 minutes flight to Bogota and on arrival after passing immigration, we changed some money and went looking for our bikes at the cargo terminal which was close with a free shuttle bus and looked for the Girag office.

     It was easy to find and spoke to some one who said that the bikes are not in Colombia yet and still in Panama and to come back on Tuesday  so I was already pissed off after Girag promised me to send the bikes this Saturday and I should have know better and blame myself for believing this was going to happen all so smooth and reality set in immediately, that it was not going to happen soon, so that meant 3 days in Bogota and I actually didn't mind it, 

because I never been here before and soon found out the place to be is the Candeleria in the old centre of town, we looked for a hotel with good internet and this area was buzzling with activities, bars and restaurants, so I think we will manage for 3 days!  maybe even play the gringo tourist and visit the "Museo del Oro", which should be very interested according all guidebooks

Saying goodbye to the motorcycles in Panama

Day 6 (394 km)

     Woke up early, to see if we could make the freight terminal in Panama city, to drop off our bikes for Bogota, Colombia and after a fried goat meat as breakfast with flitters and something looked like coffee, we were hauling ass and not much later the motor police pulled as over, he was standing strategically in a curve behind the bushes with his not working laser speed device , it was set almost burned into a magic speed of 111km, in a not existing 80km zone, after arguing back and forward with the usual threats on his side, we agreed I would pay a toll fee of using his stretch of road for $ 15.00 each, shook hands wished each other luck and I knew he needed that. From that moment, we obeyed the speed limit much more closely and the whole road to Panama City was full of motor police, standing behind trees, so we stayed behind one of these direct busses from David to Panama and decided let the bus driver do the work of us obeying the speed limit.

     

Anyway around 1pm we rolled into the city with very heavy traffic and after some lucky road decisions ended up on the toll road to the airport and reached Girag freight terminal in Tolcumen International airport, parked the bikes and went in their office. Asked them if they still had a flight tomorrow to Bogota and could carry 2 bikes. The young guy said no problem, just pay $ 902.00 next door by the cashier, bring a few copies of the bikes and the bike will be Saturday midday in Bogota, but being the weekend we only good pick it up Monday morning.

     We could leave as much luggage on the bike as we needed; even left the gas and battery connected and told me carry the key, because they didn’t need it. After we repacked and put some clean clothes on (finally), we took a taxi @ 4 to the main airport, to see if we could get a flight out to Bogota that night.

     After we talked @ the counter from  COPA  and Avianca/TACA, it seems none of them were cooperative or even interested in our one way ticket request and said they were overbooked and later in the week it would be $ 472.00 one way, we walked away to see if I could find a decent internet connection, to do my own research!  Soon a guy from the Airport customer service desk approached us and I mentioned that the free internet from the airport is too slow and he said, you can use my office upstairs and use our fast internet and we followed him. He opened the door, set up his computer and in no-while was able to purchase 2 tickets through my frequent flyer mile program from United for $131.00 in fees and taxes plus turning in 10000 miles for each ticket and was able to book it for next day Saturday at 11 am.

Went back to COPA to piss them off about their lies of being overbooked and showed them the tickets and felt much better already!

Then he introduced  us to a friend, which was in charge of reservations around town for hotels and after mentioning to him our budget and wanted to be close as possible to the airport a shuttle bus showed up and  $35.00 and  2 minutes later we checked in, took a shower  and returned back to the airport to have dinner in their overpriced restaurant and drank a few beers to celebrate all went so smooth today and that we will be in Bogota 2600 meter high, tomorrow and was looking forward to the cooler air it should have or at least in the night.

     So to think about the trip so far, we drove almost 1700 km from Tegucigalpa in 72 hours to Panama City with only a $ 15.00 fine for speeding, no really mayor break downs, every night a good rest and were ahead one day of our schedule as planned!

Costa Rica pacific coast route

Day 5 ( 542 km)

After a great breakfast buffet from the hotel, we left 7:30 am for the trip to the Panamanian border on a nice fast paved road through the rolling hills toward Punterenas on the pacific coast.  Close to it, I made a wrong turn and ended up on small mountain roads, which had  incredible scenery and finally hit the right road towards Quepos, a beach town further south on the pacific. By doing this, you avoid the capital San Jose and before we realized,  we were  only 200 km from  the Panamanian border  “Paso Canoas” and then the flood started, and we were soaking wet and drove over 2 hours in a downpour.

We could see hardly anything and it felt like hail and then Scotty’s motorcycle quit running on top off this with similar problems I had.

I just found out earlier today what my fuel problem was and as Doug suggested….Take the fuel filter out…..and that solved my problem and Scotty’s as well.

We bought some fuel hose and in no-while we were on our way again in the rain.

At Paso Canoas, what is actually the only commercial land border, Panama has, there must have been a thousand trucks and everybody trying to get paperwork done, so after pushing, shouting, playing ignorant, they took care of ours, because they felt pity with us seeing us soaking wet and just before dark, we left the border and hoping to find an hotel, which didn’t show up for almost 2 hours till we reach a little place called San Felix,  about an 100km from the border and we called it the day around 8pm, worn out and still wet! Threw  all our luggage in our  small A/C room, went quick to get a meal on the highway, where we asked directions for the hotel, before all was shut down and after this returned to the room, to take care of all the wet stuff.

A small a/c was in the room and out of experience all the wet clothes will be dry by tomorrow and it was!

No internet, so this update will be done hopefully tomorrow in Panama City.