Saturday Mar. 3, 2007
What a small world this really is. Long-time riding friends Herb and Reno Anderson who now operate a succesful motorcycle dealership (Grass Roots BMW Motorcycles in Cape Girardeau, MO, USA, www.grassrootsbmw.com) sent me an e-mail one day while I was in Costa Rica saying that I should contact a friend of theirs from Africa who was now living in Bogota. They thought he would be a good contact when I arrived in Colombia. I never imagined that Larry Kozy would be from Calgary (a small city - with a pitiful hockey team - about 322 km (200 mi) south of my home town in Canada).
I was now entering a country that most North Americans consider scary and unsafe, full of druglords and gorillas with machine guns. Yet those who've traveled here recently before me said not to missed it. So you can imagine what a relief it was to meet Larry and his beautiful family in person when I arrived. After traveling the world a bit themselves, Larry and his Ecuadorian wife Tannya settled into Bogota to work for a Canadian oil company. They invited me to live with them for as long as I needed while preparing to visit the Suzuki factory in Pereira. They immediately included me in every aspect of their busy lives and I enjoyed being part of a young family again - even if it wasn't mine. Larry and Tannya are great parents and it was incredible for me to see how smart and hard-working Domenica was and how much Andrés loved motos already.
As standard policy, their company provides them (and their guests) with bodyguards and bulletproof vehicles (and sometimes motorcycle support) anytime they leave the house. My first impression was that Colombia must be as dangerous as everyone was worried about, so I'd better get my business here done and get onto Ecuador as soon as possible. Having a bodyguard with me all the time took some getting used to, but after a little while I realized this was more of a perk that allowed employees to feel safe while working here than a necessity - at least in the last few years anyway. I've been told that things have quitened down allot in the last 5 years with changes made by the new government. All the bodyguards I had the pleasure of meeting were very professional and efficient. At first I was nervous around them, but after spending a little time with them I saw what good people they were with families of their own and they soon became my friends. It was nice having them around to help me find my way through this big city and communicate with the locals.
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My first stop before picking up Buzz would be to buy a vest with my license plate number on it and some decals of the same for my helmet. This was mandatory for all motorcyclists in Colombia and I soon saw them everywhere, along with license plate decals on all sides (including the roof) of every public transport vehicle. The guys took me to one of the very interesting (and new to me) motorcycle zones, which are typically a few blocks of small shops that specialize in one aspect of the moto industry. There were shops for lights, plastic body panel repairs and painting, clothing, machine shops, welding, decals, exhausts, tires, rims, and just about anything else you could possibly need for a small motorcycle - and most everything is a copy. I learned that these little shops were not to be confused with the moto dealerships found in another part of the city where you could buy OEM parts and the typically high-priced, brand-name products we see at all dealerships. I'll definitely be coming back to these moto-zones when I have more time.
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So off we go to the cargo terminal at the airport to get Buzz. Even though it had only been a day, I was anxious to get him back, and besides, what could go wrong? I prepared Buzz myself the day before, it was a short flight, and I even had two Spanish speaking bodyguards to lean on people if they gave me any trouble.
Well, almost as soon as I walked in the door I realized things were going to be different than what I was told they would be like in Panama the day before. I had a look at Buzz and found they had somehow broken the RH mirror mount, and the straps had been moved, but luckily nothing else appeared to be damaged. It seems that Colombia has their own way of doing things, and allot of it is a mystery to most people. The handling fee of $25 US was nearly double for some unexplainable and completely unnegotiable reason, and they didn't have a ramp to get Buzz down from the loading dock to ground level, but they should have that sorted out by the time I returned from visiting a few other offices to complete the paperwork. After a couple of hours running around to get the paperwork sorted out, still no ramp, so we decided to give them a little more time with a long lunch break. When we returned again later, nothing had changed. So after 5 hours of talking and waiting they finally admitted they had no ramp and no way to get Buzz down to ground level. At this point my patience pretty much disappeared and I became far more assertive. Their ears perked up when I told them I wanted my money back because they were not equipped to handle motorcycles. Their only solution was to use 3 planks of wood as a ramp with a bunch of guys holding Buzz, to which I nervously agreed to on the grounds that if anyting happened they would be responsible for all damages. But now there was another problem; they couldn't get the bike from the storage warehouse to the dock without going onto the runway, and they didn't have clearance to do that. I continued to pester them until they finally allowed me to push the bike about 100 ft along the edge of the runway behind a wall of men hiding me from sight of any officials. Finally, it was time to go down the ramp. What an uncomfortable feeling that was: Sitting on a few narrow boards on a 322 kg (710 lb) bike without being able to put my feet down while trusting a bunch of guys who don't understand a word of my instructions to actually get me down safely - which somehow they did. Riding away from the ramp Buzz felt squirmish so I checked the air pressure in the tires and found that someone had lowered the pressure even further than I already had in Panama and they were now at around 7 PSI. The word "imcompetent" kept running through my mind.
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A quick visit to the Suzuki dealer the next day for the broken $7 mirror part determined it wasn't worth wasting any more time with the air cargo company trying to get them to pay for it. And after months of barely seeing another big bike it was good to see a bunch of 650 V-Stroms at the dealer. Some were being setup to replace the 650 FreeWinds (an air-cooled cousin of the V-Strom not sold in North America) used heavily by the Police, but no longer being produced.
In Panama I was warned about the crazy red bus drivers (commonly referred to as "red devils" because they kill so many people each year) and the missing manhole covers, but I continued to see them here also. It seems that the poorest of people actually steal the manhole covers at night to sell them for scrap metal. The obvious danger to the many motorcyclists on the roads seems to only highlight the problems the government in these countries face and how poorly managed the roadways really are.
So after 5 nights and a long goodbye to my friends in Bogota I was off to Pereira for my new front wheel and first solo steps into Colombia. Do I really need bodyguards here?
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