November 22, 1997 San Agustin, Colombia - {Residencia Menezu} R80G/S 31885 I haven't been sick from food while travelling for over 7 years. After a bad bout in India that took me 10 weeks to recover from, I had figured I had developed a healthy friendly flora which gave me a good deal of resistance, plus a knowing of what forms of cooking to stay away from. When we started this trip in Mexico, we had only eaten cooked or fried food turning away delicious looking tomato salads, guacamole, lettuce, etc. No ice or unsealed bottled water despite the intense summer gulf coast heat. Nothing that has been touched by potentially contaminated water is consumed. With a napkin we hand dry our freshly washed wet restaurant eating utensils, and drink out of a bottle rather than a wet glass. We had been taking more chances as we were getting further South. Our guide books had said that in larger cities of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama, the water was safe to drink. While we still drank only bottled water. I figure the chances of getting sick from food when the water supply isn't safe is much higher. The water in San Agustin, is not safe to drink. Overconfident of my intestinal fortitude and being a big fan of guacamole, I took a chance and ate the uncooked food on my plate despite Sharon's reminding. I spent most of the night, and the next two days paying for it lying in bed sleeping with a mild fever. Sharon had wanted to move out of our previous hotel, and so that morning found a nice immaculately clean place. to move into called Rensidencia Menezu. The owner was a very friendly woman who takes pride in decorating her place, and obviously knows and cares about the little things of domestication that she enjoys. They kept a young (fortunately) lethargic rooster in the garden courtyard. At 4:00am, it sounds as if every other household in this town has a rooster. Sunrise is at 6:00am. Once one starts, they all go. "Can't see the sun, ...but chicken Bob thinks it's morning... Ok, I'll crow too...". Meanwhile, chicken Bob only crowed because farmer Jose turned on the bathroom light. I want to market one of those electric zapping collars that people use for invisible perimeter fences to keep dogs in. Only that this one would be sound activated, and made to fit a rooster's neck. Sharon still had the gothic era book "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett, on her computer which I read. A good choice for one sick in bed. Sharon hung out at the hotel with me. The next day we found a used book exchange, and we picked up Michael Chrichton's "Lost World", a Sci-Fi anthology put together by Ursula LeGuin, and an excellent Lonely Planet guide book to Ecuador. Sharon read Lost World in a day. Originally we had planned this side trip to Tierradentro to last 2-3 days. Later, we decided to go to San Agustin. With me immobilized for an unknown number of days, we were starting to run low on cash. So far we've found more ATM's in Colombia than any other country, both on Cirrus and Plus systems. However, San Agustin doesn't have any. Not only do they not have any, but the banks won't change money or travellers check. They will do a cash advance on a visa, but a stop at the bank showed it was similar to many in Central America where there is one teller, and about 30 people in line, making a cash advance on a visa an entire morning process. Several shops in the tourist area have signs posted claiming that they will exchange money. Yesterday, one of these shops had a sign posted for 950 pesos to the dollar. Two weeks ago, in Bogota, the posted rate was 1281 pesos to the dollar.... That's a 26% cut, the highest I've ever seen. Since the sign didn't look new, I asked her if she had a more current rate. Nope, that's her exchange. While I was in bed, Sharon went around the town. The best rate she could find was 1050 to the dollar, an 18% gouge. One would think that exchanging money here would be a prime business opportunity. I suspect that a successful money changer would end up laundering dollars in this country. A 10% cut would insure all the business in San Agustin. A low effort, low overhead business could make one rich in no time and would easily pay for the 10 hour trip to Bogota to exchange back if there wasn't anything closer. I must be missing something... Something we noticed here, is that even in the small shops, it's common to find a little black light lamp for reading ultra violet ink on bills. Apparently there is a problem with Colombian counterfeit bills. So much so, that at the Colombian border, there are warning pamphlets handed out to foreigners. Also in San Agustin, we saw notices of phony serial numbers and dates of counterfeit bills. In Panama, people use US currency, but only US$20 or smaller. Larger bills are not often accepted due to the prevalence of counterfeit $50's and $100's. November 25, 1997 San Agustin, Colombia - {Hotel Menezu} Checking out the ruins. We visited the archeological park and museum. Inhabitants believed to have lived in the area dating back to 3300BC. Many of the stone statues looked like the were drawn by a kid, and partially carved. Many of the tombs have unfriendly statues standing out guarding the entrance. Inside they have stone sarcophagi some with the stone lids still in place. Most of the tombs on display have been looted by tomb robbers. When a civilization collapses, and is replaced by new civilization, their is no one to protect the ancestor tombs pre-existing cultural relics. It's poorly preserved, and many of the statues have just been moved to more esthetic sights for tourists to view. Little of the culture is known. We drove the motorcycle to Los Idolos, another sight. The road is usually traversed by horses. Nothing like riding down a creek bed with flowing water when just a couple feet to the right is a sharp cliff dropping several hundred feet to the river valley bottom below. Incredibly beautiful! The scenery made the rough trip worth it. It took an hour and twenty minutes to drive the 29km, 19 miles. At the archeological park, we met Sebastian and Lieneke (Lienelu?), two Dutch cyclists who live in New Zealand, and have been bicycling around the world the past 4 years. We decided to meet for dinner where we talked for a while about travelling and exchanged traveller information. They had spent the last year in South America coming up the way we were headed. The year before they had cycled from Kenya to South Africa. Before that SE asia. Sebastian told me he flew from Cape Town to Buenos Aires on Malaysia airlines for about US$500 one way. which was good news for us, as this is the route in the opposite direction we're planning to make. For income now, Sebastian writes articles for magazines. He says he's doing pretty well financially if he gets three published each year. Greg Frazier was also saying that outdoors magazine such as bicycling magazines pay well.... We exchanged e-mail addresses to keep in touch as we travel. November 26, 1997 Popayan, Colombia - {Hotel Casa Grande} After breakfast, and prepping the bike for all the rattling it was about to get again, we got a late start at 10:30 Missed the turn off for the 2nd highest waterfalls in all of South America. It's amazing how under hyped the falls are. They are the second tallest in all of South America at somewhere around 400 meters (1320 feet)! We were in Isnos less than 5 miles away, and the local we asked didn't know which way to go and we didn't see any signs.. Tourists we met said, yeah it's nice. but it certainly didn't get a reaction like Niagra, Iguazu, or Angel Falls. We were really short on time given the distance we planned to travel that day anyway... I'm sure they sucked and weren't worth the effort... sour grapes. Much of the distance we drove was through Purace National Park which is a cloud forest. There was a misty rain almost the whole way until the last two hours where it turned into a real rain. The road climbs up to 9,880 feet where it gets a bit chilly. The road from San Agustin to Popayan is 134km (82 miles) dirt gravel mud road. While the mud wasn't as bad as we expected, the gravel was worse. The road has been kept in passable condition and is used primarily by trucks that pass about one every ten minutes. gravel the size of baseballs and softballs get pushed down into the mud and compacted dirt as trucks drive over. The volley ball size gravel usually gets pushed aside. This makes for a rough ride on a motorcycle that in some places is similar to driving down a stream bed. It took us approximately 6 of driving. We passed by Volcano Purace however couldn't see it due to the rain and clouds. This is the volcano that heats up the hot springs in the area. and created the local sulfur mines. Our guide book mentions that some roads in the area around a telecommunication antenna near the volcano may have land mines as a defense against the local guerrilla attacks. We stuck to the main road. Between Purace (the pueblo) and Coconuco we passed through beautiful green valleys where the mountains side stretch upward for over a thousand feet. The road ran along the beautiful river at the bottom. Cows dotted the tops of the valleys along the steep cliff. Cow tipping here I'm sure would result in a boulder size giant meatball at the bottom. On this remote road, the bike ran out of gas... The gas mileage we had gotten turned out to be much worse than estimated. What I considered the most reliable of the distance estimates I had to Popayan told me we had 20 miles still to go which given the half gallon of reserve, *might* get us there. As it had been the last couple hours, it was still raining with no end in sight, and about two hours left of light. Fortunately we were high in altitude, and so while in neutral I turned off the engine to coast down the mountain turning it on again when we had a slight uphill incline to go over. This saved us a couple of miles of gas. On the outskirts of Coconuco we passed a woman's house who advertised gas for sale. We pulled in, and told her we wanted to buy a gallon. She disappeared for two minutes, and came back with a Clorox bleach gallon jug full of ?gas? and a dirty home made plastic funnel. I chanced my pouring skill, and didn't use the funnel. I paid her for the gas which she rightfully sold at an 80% mark up. A couple miles down the road after the carburetor bowls had flushed through the old gas and were now filling with the new stuff, the engine idle ran unusually high. The engine could no longer be used as a break. Pulling in the clutch, the engine would rev up. Not good. For all I know she sold me a gallon of kerosene mixed with diesel. Fortunately, other than the unusually high idle, the bike drove fine, and we didn't have far to go. We checked into the same hotel we had previously stayed in in Popayan, and where we left our luggage. At the grocery store, we picked up some Gouda cheese,a bottle of cabernet, and at the bakery a sesame covered baguette and a bag of croissants. We went back to our hotel room, and watched the movie channel while we ate our second meal of the day. Note: Throughout Colombia there are quite a few old vehicles still on the road. 40's- 70's classic looking American cars and trucks are driven for their functional value, not as classics. On that rough road, we saw a 50's vintage Dodge van, and a 50's vintage Ford truck. November 27,1997 Pasto, Colombia - {Hotel Koala-Inn} R100GS 22160 R80G/S 32012 Beggar's canyon. beggars, actually mostly well dressed bored kids hold toll ropes across the road. This infuriates me to no end as I imagine the difficult to see rope climbing over the wind screen catching on Sharon's neck as she drives by at 60 miles per hour. This was common practice along the road in Honduras with young kids too. 85km-35km North of Pasto beautiful valley mountains driving along the edge of the valley with 3,000 foot drop. Among the most scenic and best roads in the world. There's a bit of a thrill driving along this scenic curvy road close to the edge, and not being able to see to the bottom It's like floating near the edge of abyss... The lack of guard rail, which really wouldn't do much for a motorcycle anyway, makes me question how well I trust my driving. Pasto is an unexpected surprise. It's a nice city like Bogota which is a change of pace from most of the Central America (Latin-America?) atmosphere. It stands out like Bogota from the other places we visited in Colombia. There are 300k people. and it's a nice climate at 8,000 feet. Judging from the type of stores, the city is better off economically from other cities we've been through. However It's not really a place for a tourist to go out of there way to visit. Rather it's a good stop off place on the way to Ecuador. While waiting for Sharon to find us a hotel, I stood on the sidewalk watching our bikes and traffic go by. Like a killer police force from a B-grade movie, I saw a COBRA police squad on slick looking dirt bikes wearing terminator glasses, helmet, bullet proof vest, and an oozie machine gun slung around the shoulder across the back. I can just imagine them doing wheelies down the side walk while rapping off a few shots with their oozie held in one hand as surprised bank robbers try to get away in the rush hour traffic crowd. They certainly look intimidating enough to keep peace... Sharon found us a nice colonial covered courtyard hotel, quiet from the city traffic, hard wood floors, high ceilings for 1400 pesos ($11). Attempting to recharge our walkie -talkie batteries and GPS batteries, I stuck my voltmeter into the wall. I can't figure out what the voltage is here. At first it was wildly fluctuating between 125 and 145 volts. next time it said 108, and then the next a sort of steady 96 volts. We walked around town before the stores closed. I found a store that sold Swiss army knives. I had no idea how much we would be using this knife, mostly for eating. For various culinary reasons, I wanted to get a larger than your standard size pocket knife blade, however on pricing them here, I decided to pass as the mark up was pretty high. I did see a swiss army knife complete with built in laser. We did the farthest thing from a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We had an Arab feast for Thanksgiving.... no turkey. Just couldn't eat another fried chicken. We went into a four star hotel restaurant owned by an arab named Hussein. Of course we were dressed in our usual ratty T-shirts and holy pants and disheveled hair, while the other clientele wore suits and dinner dresses. Nice multi-course meal, but not quite as good as the Arab dinner we had in Bogota. Like other eating establishments Latin American men must have their cell phone with them at dinner to display prominently on the table. I'm sure Motorola's new Star Tack cell phone won't do as well here as else where since one looses the benefit of the prominence factor. It reminds me of the flashing light over sized ghetto blasters popular in the inner cities. November 28, 1997 Pasto, Colombia - {Hotel Koala-Inn} Our shower had one of those electric shower heads. Of course the safety ground wire is not attached. Sharon who thinks my fears are overblown took the first shower. Feeling grimy and the fact that the unheated water was ice cold, I chanced electrocution. After first checking if Sharon remembered how to do CPR, I started the shower. The electric knife switch reminiscent of Frankenstein movies was fortunately far enough off to the side in the shower that it likely wouldn't get drenched from spray. Standing off to the side I turned on the knob. I bent over and washed my hair trying to keep my torso and legs dry counting on the fact that dry skin has a high resistance, and thus more insulating properties. I figured I'd wash my hair, and then my torso and then get my legs one at a time. The point being to keep my heart out of the critical path of electricity from shower head to drain pipe which I figured to be electrical ground. As usual, the lights dim to let you know that the shower should be warm and the heater is working. When I was done, I stepped out, dried myself, and then turned off the water since I had been warned by threat of great pain by several sources not to touch anything metal while in the shower. If all the clientele died off in these showers, it would be bad for business, and I'm sure proprietors would get tired of carrying bodies out of the room and finding ways to dispose of them. At these high altitudes, the water is so cold that one has to skip a couple days before the aroma incentive builds up enough to brave the cold water which comes from cold mountains streams and rivers. We weren't feeling energetic enough to hop on the bikes and drive to Ecuador, so we stayed another day. We looked for some shops that our book said contained varnish (barniz) items that Pasto was famous for. After our fifth address, we found one of these shops that was still open. Is was a bit of a disappointment. The varnish is made from a plant, and is initially stretched like chewing gum into a thin sheet. It's then cut into designs and glued onto things. The shop had a bunch of dust collector items decorated in barniz which we ended up passing on despite how nice they looked. November 29, 1997 Ibarra, Ecuador - {Hotel Imbabura} R100GS 22316 R80G/S 32177 Crossing the border here was the quickest, easiest and cheapest. At the Colombian border, I turned in our vehicle papers at Aduana, and then got my passport exit stamped at immigration and we were done. The red tape helpers said that on the Ecuadorean side, the vehicle customs office was closed until Monday. I didn't to want to believe them since I had just checked out of Colombia, and was now in no man's land on a Saturday. At their suggestion, we walked over to the Colombian vehicle customs office who repeated the same thing. Still not wanting to believe it I walked the 200 meters to the Ecuadorean vehicle customs office. I asked the Ecuadorean vehicle officer, and he said "Where's the motorcycle?". He wanted to see it first. So I walked back over to Colombia, and picked up Sharon with the bikes. We drove over. He then asked to see our papers. I handed him the title. Unlike North America, in South America, they don't care so much about the title, and would rather see a vehicle libretta, a sort of vehicle passport available from South American automobile clubs. It's only available to North Americans through the Venezuela automobile club. He asked for the vehicle passport. I showed him all the stamps in my passport for the motorcycle that I got in Honduras, and Belize, etc. He said, "Oh", and then proceeded to hand copy the Belize stamp, and all of the motorcycle info. He put an Ecuadorean dated stamp across his hand writing, and was done. The whole process seemed so unofficial that I was sure he was going to ask for a bribe. He was getting a shoe shine while talking to me, and answered the phone about 5 times and questions from another officer all within the span of 5 minutes that he took to write the motorcycle information into our passport. The vehicles were done. No money changed hands..... too simple and straight forward after coming from Central America. At the immigration building, I got our passport stamped for our personal entry, and we were done. The whole process took about 10 minutes total. Shocking after experiencing a crossing into Honduras or Nicaragua. We changed money at one of the many money changers. We got a rate of 4150 sucres to the dollar. Sebastian, the Dutch bicycle world traveller, had told us that 4300 was a recent good rate. When I attempted to bargain for this rate. He pulled out a paper clipping that said the exchange from dollars to sucres was 4250, which is what he set his price off of rather than the posted sucres to dollar rate of about 4310 sucres to US$1. I later found out that the sucre exchange rates are listed by city. The three largest cities, Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca each have a listing in the Ecuadorean news papers for their exchange to the dollar. Quito currently has the best rate, however the variation between them is less than 1%. Twice on our way to Ibarra, we were stopped and papers (passport) checked. Once by the police 7km from the border, and another time by a military checkpoint that wanted to look into my top box. A friendly discription about our trip sent us on our way with minimal searching. They saw my collection of country stickers stuck on the motorcycle boxes, and asked "How come there is no Ecuador?". Driving down the PanAmerican highway that spans the length of the entire American hemisphere connecting countries across two continents, we drove upon a two mile section of road where one lane was entirely closed off. The locals had filled our lane with bean plants that they were drying on the road. When the plants were dry, the red beans would fall off the plant into the road where they would sweep them up into piles. Meanwhile we navigated around on coming trucks sharing the one lane on the PanAm highway that the red bean people were generous enough to leave open for intercontinental commerce and travel. We arrived in Ibarra, and checked the map in our guide book for directions. We were still off the map, and weren't quite sure where we were. We asked a local for directions, but I think we misunderstood him, as the one way roads didn't follow his route. Sharon pulled over to the side of the road to look at the map again. She said, "I haven't a clue where we are..." I told her to look up. She had stopped exactly in front of the hotel we were looking for. Hotel Imbabura is a traveller hotel. It has glowing recommendations from the South American Handbook. We had a nice roomy room on the second floor over looking the garden on one side, and the street below with hard wood floors and 13 foot ceilings all for 13000 sucres ($3) per person. The garden downstairs has a little cafe, and the family that owns the place are very friendly and offer lots of advice on touring the area. We pulled the motorcycles into the inner courtyard garden area. Since we arrived early, we walked around town, had some lunch, and later dinner. There's not much to see in this town. We stopped because our guidebook suggested it as a better base to visit Otavalo the country wide famous market town. A day later we decided Otavalo is a better to place to see Otavalo from. The tourist market in Ibarra consists of shops that sell blackberry syrup. nougat covered with walnuts, and panela covered with walnuts. Note: One of the regional cellular carriers is called "Imbacell". A fusion of the state name "Imbabura" and cellular. 'Imbecile' is 'imbecil' in Spanish, so I can only imagine an imbecil named the company, or else native Spanish speakers in Ecuador don't make the cognitive connection. ---- Dave Thompson thompson@pdnt.com www - http://sdg.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~mag/Thompson Net-Tamer V 1.09 Palm Top - Registered