Thursday Jun. 26, 2008
It was hard to tell from the typically beautiful Colombian countryside in San Gil that there was extensive flooding happening only a few hundred kilometers away in Bogota and Medellin. But the raging muddy rivers I crossed on my way to Bogota told the story clearly, as did the mudslides on the roads.
I spent a night in a small city named Zipaquira which is famous for its cathedral carved in a mountain of salt. It was an amazing site to see and included fourteen small chapels representing the stations of the cross (illustrating the events of Jesus' last journey). Each station has a cross and several kneeling platforms carved into the salt structure. The temple at the bottom has three sections representing the birth, life, and death of Jesus. The entire project was beautifully designed with accent lighting skillfully used to define or distract certain features. There was even a huge circular ceiling dome that resembled a night sky.
The manager of the hotel where I stayed at that night had a scarf on because he was so cold. When I asked him how cold he thought it was he said 0 C (32 F) degrees, but when I showed him the thermometer on Buzz which read 15 C (59 F) degrees he didn't believe it.
The next morning I was awakened at 5:30 am by a rooster crowing......inside the hotel! After about 10 minutes of that I finally had enough and went out and told the staff that if they didn't shut that rooster up I would. Thankfully they did.
I looked forward to seeing my friends Larry, Tannya and their kids Andres and Domenica again, now a year later. They are such an amazingly active family to be around that it's impossible to visit them without catching some of their energy. But even this wasn't enough to convince me to do business with the poor shipping connections I found there.
Surprisingly, in this beautiful gated community with its luxury houses, golden retrievers and SUV wielding bodyguards, I could clearly hear gunshots from the military training area next door. Larry told me it's normal and you get used to it.
I felt great to be back in Colombia because I'd made so many friends here, and this time I knew my way around. I stopped in to say hi to my friends at the Suzuki dealership in Pereira for a few days and also to my number 1 contact at Suzuki Colombia: Javier at the factory just outside of Pereira. I needed to tell him know how much I appreciated his assistance while I was on the roads of South America.
One day while I was there the military and police were preparing for a visit from President Uribe. I heard that motos were not allowed to have two people aboard (the passenger could be a shooter) and saw a big increase in military presence, some wandering the streets with very big guns.
I continued my way back down to Cali where I got a little carried away with the festivities one night with my friends Santiago and Kike - whom I traveled to Cartagena with the previous year and obviously hadn't learned my lesson well enough as I woke up with another pounding hangover this year. These guys really know how to have a good time. And I don't mean that they only know how to drink, but they laugh and dance like I've never seen before in my life. They are happy people and it was great to be around them again, hopefully I absorbed some of that through my ultra-conservative, North American skin.
I also stopped in for a quick visit with my friend Randy and his mom Ester where I was introduced to the delicious taste of an unusual fruit named Zapote.
While telling my moto friends about the string-cutter-antennas I saw on motos in Brazil they startled me with a story about how thieves in Colombia would pour oil on the corner of a road and then rob their downed moto-victims. Sound familiar?
 |
 |
 |
 |
On my previous visit to Pereira a few days earlier I had spoken to a young orthodontist about straightening some of my teeth, but the previous options of veneers, root canals and bridges didn't appeal to me. Since I needed to pass through Pereira once more on my way north to Medellin anyway, I revisited him. I told him how I had studied dental laboratory technology for two years and then practiced for a year when I was younger and that I would rather go with braces, but I knew that braces required me to return to the orthodontist for regular adjustments - not possible here. I also knew that one orthodontist would not treat another orthodontists' patient - that was where the money came from, return visits. But I could see that he was an experienced and talented Dr. with progressive thinking and an open mind.
Then he shocked me by saying that with my knowledge of dentistry, special braces that didn't require elastics and using a treatment plan that he would define and I would follow, he could give me braces! His price: $750 US. This was a HUGE moment for me because throughout my life I've always felt I needed braces, and everytime I consulted with an orthodontist in Canada the cost was always too much for me ($5,000 US).
It seems like everyone I see in Colombia either has perfect teeth or braces, so I know these orthodontists know what they're doing. The only difference is that now I'm helping. I can't tell you how pleased I was to have met this Dr.
Medellin was a city I knew pretty well and while I was there I wanted to find a shipping solution to Miami, address a ticking sound in Buzz's engine, fix my helmet's pivoting chin bar once more and visit some friends.
Genny from San Gil (Eliana's cousin) lived in Medellin and was a real angel with all her help trying to find someone to transport Buzz to Miami. I'd been searching since Brazil, more than three months now, and it was becoming very clear that getting out of South America was going to be much more difficult and expensive than getting in. The inconsistencies of companies in these countries was incredible and I was getting nowhere except confused with what seemed to be a process of bureaucracy. I was told something totally different from each office I visited, even from the same company in two cities. The more I learned the more questions I had. It felt like the businesses model here was to wear you down with useless and frustrating processes until you didn't have any strength left to argue about it. It was one of the most frustrating feelings ever, but I wasn't ready to give in just yet. I kept telling myself I still had the option of taking a sailboat from Cartagena to Colon (near Panama city). Although I really wasn't very interested in that because I didn't fancy the idea of riding Buzz with a blown rear shock all the way to Miami through Central America again. Having to cross all those borders and ride all the way around the Gulf of Mexico really didn't make it any cheaper, just longer. So I still wanted to fly to Miami, but why was it so much more expensive than it was the previous year when I flew into Colombia? I kept hearing gas prices, but the reality was they knew I didn't have many options.
 |
 |
 |
 |
The ticking noise in Buzz's engine was caused by stretched timing chains. I was a little surprised because I had changed them before the trip at 75,000 km (46,603 mi). But then Buzz had put on allot of tough kilometers since the start of the trip and he now had 149,000 km (92,584 mi). So I decided to get the work done here in Colombia because not only are labor costs much less than in the US, the level of service is much better. The only problem here is getting parts for a big bike. But thanks to my super-helpful friend Daniel, the owner of the Suzuki Super Store in Medellin I was able to get the parts I needed.
Unfortunately, my friends Carlos and Hector at Moto Angel had sold the business and moved on with their lives, but the gang from Moto House did a great job. It took a total of three days, but they knew their stuff and I really appreciated being able to work on it with them. There was only one small problem: A small drive gear key fell into the engine during the final steps and the whole engine had to be removed to search for and find it.
In the end, Buzz sounded like a new moto again thanks to all my good moto friends in Medellin.
Then one day just before leaving Medellin I had a small spill in a wet parking lot of a shopping center. As is common in the design of buildings in tropical countries, the roof had sections that were open to the sky above. The problem is that this building happened to have some of those sections above the parkade which had some kind of ceramic or clay tile on the floor. These were very slippery when wet - and yup, you guessed it, it was raining again that day. I ended up with a scraped knee and Buzz with a bent footpeg, but Daniel saved the day again by having one in stock.
|
