‎February ‎9, ‎2011

Today we ride to Cartagena, about 175kms from here. Along the seashore for a while before turning inland. The road is in poorer shape as it is a troncial road instead of the main highway. Instead of topes (speed bumps) it has gravel, broken pavement and large potholes the size of small motorcycles to help keep our speed to a minimum roll.

Midway through our journey to Cartagena, we are navigating through a small town and are behind a normal size local motorcycle (100cc) which is behind a cargo truck. Trucks, buses and many cars always come to a complete stop before going over a topes, as this one in front of us also did. We don't know whether the motorcycle in front of us had no brakes or the driver was daydreaming, but he almost ran into the back of this truck. In the last split second, he had his feet out swerving around and because he couldn't stop went to the left and attempted to go around the truck. He couldn't see the huge semi coming in the other direction towards the topes, but when he came out from behind the truck and saw the other truck, he to scoot across the far left hand side of the road. Well, he didn't make it. The oncoming semi locked up his brakes but hit the biker and the bike went right underneath the bumper, pushing the bike onto its side. The biker, trying to get away jumped from the bike but his foot was caught under the left side. As we watched this all unfold, the truck's front right tire came to rest mid section on top of this small motorcycle's side. Plastic parts had flown everywhere like plastic confetti and we saw the rider getting up without a shoe or maybe a foot, as we rode past. There was not much we could do for the guy because of our Spanish and many people were there and running to the guy's aid, so we carried on. Just goes to show, wrong place wrong time, it can happen at anytime. Reminds us that we have to be aware and careful on this trip of ours.

Rode into Cartagena and the GPS takes us through a construction zone and we detour off this area and into some barrios (neighbourhoods). Gravel roads, single lane, at first I thought what did I get myself into and then as we watched people watching us, I was not intimidated. Their expressions were friendly. Got back on track and found the hostel we were looking for. This hostel helps people get boat charters to Panama. They were full but suggested another down the street a block. Ended up here and had to park our bikes in a parking garage for $12,000cop per day for both bikes ($6can). Went back to the first hostel and talked to a boat captain of the next leaving boat. He would not take our bikes because his boat was too small and told us that if any other boat chose to take our bikes, it would be like dipping our bikes into the ocean because the seawater would get into everything. We told him that we have reservations with the Stahlratte and his said that was our best choice, they do a great job and the boat is the biggest, we won't have a problem with the Stahlratte. So, we will have to suffer with traveling up the coast and visiting more resort towns and beaches, before our boat trip to Panama on the 26th of February.