More photos and ramblings in Colombia

 Carl is saying let us go North so we can continue our journey South!

Our GPS coordinates showing that we closed the gap from Yaviza, Panama to Somewhere in northern Colombia

Beautiful Colombia

Another nice thing about Colombia, they have a free lane to the right at all toll booths on the highways for motorcycles and bicycles.  This is me making my way through one.  There were a few that actually had speed bumps in them. 

We met this man at a gas station and asked him for recommendations for a nice hotel.  He had us follow him here, Premium Biss in Supia, Colombia ($50,000 Colombian Pesos).  It turned out to be a very nice hotel.  They let me use the washer to catch up on laundry and hang the clothes on their line in the laundry room.  They were dry by morning.  Fresh clothes, wonderful. 

The road for the past two days have been very twisty, turny with a lot of construction.  The turns on the road were so tight that trucks would stop dead in the middle of the road to very slowly navigate themselves around the corners.  

 The worse bed we have ever slept on.  This room cost us $10,000 Colombian peso (app $5.50 USD)for the night.  The room was barren, the linens were clean, and we shared a bath.  We decided to stay here as the road had been awful, a lot of construction and the truck traffic was very heavy.  We averaged about 25 miles an hour for several hours due to the road condition.  It was going to get dark on us before we could reach the next sizeable town that would have a better hotel so we elected to stay here.  As it turned out we may have made it to the next town because shortly after here the road improved. But, the good side of staying here was talking with these young fellas that were also staying at the hospedje.

From this little town by Timbolo, Colombia we crossed the border into Ecuador.  So far, border crossings in South America have been a snap.  The only problem was the customs officer was too friendly and wanted to practice his English and it slowed the process down.  It took about 2 hours to cross from Colombia to Ecuador and should have only taken an hour but yak, yak, yak...

There was a young man at the Ecuadorian side of the border who was riding a KLR.  He has traveled all over South America via motorcycle and is in the process of writing a guide about such.  He offered to have us ride with him to Quito.  We attempted but realized that he rode faster than us in the dark and rain and we peeled off at Ibarra, Ecuador.

Adios, Colombia! I would love to return to this country and see the sights at a little slower speed.