Freedom ain't free!

Exploring off the beaten Gringo Trail.

One of the hardest things about experiencing a foreign country is finding transportation. Since public transit normally operates within city centers or goes from one city to another, most tourists only get to see the cities. In the past I've hitch hiked and gone on bicycle tours, but neither of those are great options along Colombian roads. While I can't say it's much safer, I decided a motorcycle would be a great way to explore.

I started looking for a motorcycle a week or two after arriving in Colombia and was astounded at the costs. I learned that Colombia has a very different second-hand ecomomy than the US, and things hold their value extremely well. Craigslist doesn't exist here nor is there anything similar and you'll never find a free couch on the side of the road. This is because there's a very small segment of the population that can afford to make large purchases regularly so when someone saves up to buy a new car, motorcycle, or couch, they hold onto it forever. And if, for some reason, they decide to sell it before it has had all the life beaten out of it there are loads of people looking to buy cheaper secondhand goods.

The motorcycles I was finding for about $2000 were completely thrashed - stretched chains, worn tires, half the radiator missing – and they had tiny motors. Most Colombians ride a 125cc because it's small enough for them to stand over, and because taxes go up substantially when the motor is over 200cc's.

Stoked on my new moto!

It took a while for me to accept that these tiny bikes might be sufficient but eventually I found a 1996 Yamaha DT 125 that seemed in decent condition for about 800USD. I couldn't believe it but according to several Colombians this was “a good deal.” I scooped it up, hoping that if nothing else it would hold it's value and I could sell it without losing too much money.

I rode it into town a few times and found that motorcycles were - from all appearances – immune to the law. Helmets are required but many people perch their helmets on top of their head instead of pulling them all the way on, one way streets are only a suggestion for motos, and motorcycles regularly pass cars and trucks on narrow single-lane streets. (No vehicles stop at stop signs, don't be ridiculous)

A passenger isn't a reason to drive any more carefully.	Who needs a pickup truck when you can carry gas cylinders or mini fridges on a motorcycle.
Splitting between taxis, straight into pedestrians.	Somehow this satisfies the legal requirement for wearing a helmet.

One Friday night I was riding home after dinner and while passing through the city square a police officer held out his hand for me to stop. Apparently they were conducting a sting and stopping motorcycles that night. He asked for my “documentos” - the Colombian equivilent of US registration and insurance – but I had sent my backpack home with Gringo Mike and the papers were in the backpack. In the US this isn't a huge deal – everything is computerized so an officer can look up your name, find if your license is valid while getting a picture of it, and check your registration status. In Colombia that's not the case. Without documents a motorcycle is immediately impounded.

Finally, after a few days of impatiently waiting and then paying a fine, I was able to reclaim my tiny little motorcycle. I had my freedom back!

Aside from the monetary expenditures, one of the things that has surprised me most about living in Colombia is how much time it takes to accomplish tasks. When my motorcycle was impounded the police said I could get it out Saturday so I went to town and checked with the impound lot. They said I had to go to the police station first, so I went there and an officer made a few phone calls before telling me to have a seat. I could see my moto sitting on the street next to the building. After about 15 minutes the officer calls me over and tells me I can't get the moto until Monday.

Repair shops are especially bad – they will quote a certain amount of time to complete a repair but when I call to see if it's done they tell me it will be a little while longer. Eventually I'll go to the shop only to find it wasn't fixed correctly, or occasionally it won't have been touched at all. It is always up to the customer to check the mechanic's work and ensure it was actually done. Frequently the only way to get a repair done is to stand in the shop and wait.

The motorcycle has opened up the Colombian countryside for me, and it's also integrated me into a foreign society in a way that I've never been integrated before. These time and money expenditures can be extremely frustrating for someone used to the efficiency of the US or Europe, but it's part of the culture and that's what I'm here to experience. Sometimes it just takes a few minutes to remind myself of that.

Riding off into the sun.

Life in San Gil, Colombia

I've been in Colombia for a few weeks now and it's been a very different experience than I anticipated.

To begin with, the riding is sick. I apprehensively expected a bunch of dirt road tours, pedaling along super bored with a pack of tourists following along behind, but I was mistaken. The tours that we do regularly are cool and I don't forsee getting bored of them anytime soon. We start at the top of a mountain and ride some of the roughest dirt roads I've seen down to one of the most picturesque towns in Colombia. I always have to be scouting the road for cattle, drunk farmers, and angry dogs. We ride down into a beautiful river valley, then drive up the opposite side for lunch at a viewpoint overlooking one of the largest canyons in the world. Then it's back down the mountain through some small towns and on to a pedaling section rolling past small family farms called fincas. That's a day at the office!

I got that fancy "window office."

There are three guides, and on our days off there's plenty of singletrack to explore. The main trails are called camino reals - essentially 200-year old paths created so goat farmers could get from one town to the next. But don't let the fact that they used to be main transportation arteries fool you – they're about 8-inches wide and “paved” with rocks. Sometimes they're fast and flowy, but they almost always drop off into super technical switchbacks on extremely steep slopes. Some of these camino reals seem like they were purpose built bike trails even though they're hundreds of years old, and others have been modified by local riders with small booters and berms to add excitement. Across the board though they're way better riding than I expected to find.

John wisely dons a full-face helmet for a camino real run.

Just in case the off-road trails weren't enough, I arrived to find a nearly completed pump track in the empty lot across the street. John, a guide from New Zealand, had been working on it for months so all I really needed to do was build some drains to keep it from flooding.

Jamie shows the neighborhood kids what you can do with a helmet on.

Nearly all South American towns are awesome for street riding, and San Gil is no different. There's stair gaps, weird sidewalk transfers, ledges, and drops everywhere. I'm certain there's an amazing wall ride somewhere in town too, I just haven't found it yet.

Jamie ponders just how steep the city streets are.

What's stuck me even more than the riding though is the difference between being a traveler and living in a foreign country. I'm finding that the immediate connections people make in hostels aren't limited to backpackers. It's any expat, traveler, backpacker, whatever. I've hung out in the city square with a foreign hostel owner, had a local restaurant owner and a local firefighter help me buy a motorcycle, and struck up a half hour conversation with a backpacker eating alone. I just wish there was a way to capture the “live for the moment” mentality of traveling and transport it “home.” In the States I don't lock my house and am happy to lend out my car or bike when needed. But traveling takes it to a completely new level – I let a girl I knew for a few days keep my computer overnight because she felt sick and wanted to watch movie, and left my backpack and passport in a “friend's” room, even though we only became friends a few hours before.

I think there's an inherent vulnerability when traveling. I don't know the language, the culture, most of the time I don't even know what I'm eating. So when I meet someone and know something about them, if feels so much more concrete than when meeting people at home. Travelers are always looking for that definitiveness, so we reach out and try to know someone – where they came from, where they're going, and what they've done. Whether that is literal or figurative depends on the person you're talking to.

The best thing about traveling though is it makes me conscious of those connections, and reminds me to cultivate them no matter where I am in life.

Round two in Colombia!

In 2011 I hopped a flight from San Diego to Quito, Ecuador and set off for my first solo international adventure. I met awesome people, saw some awesome sites, and found that I could travel South America for less than rent costs in the States.

One of the people I met while backpacking was Gringo Mike – an ambitious expat from Washington attempting to start a mountain bike tour company with limited knowledge of mountain bikes. I gotta give it to him though, two years down the road and he has a flourishing bike tour company, an encyclopedic knowledge of trails within a 5-hour radius, and rave reviews from backpackers the world over.

Sitting in Boulder this summer I found I could accomplish nearly everything I needed to do over the internet, and decided I should go explore. I emailed Gringo Mike and we decided I'd head to Colombia in early September and help guide tours.

I left Colorado just before a 100-year flood hit Boulder. I always thought the flood warning siren and “In case of flash flood climb to higher ground” signs were weird – we live in a semi-arid desert with more days of sunshine than Southern California. But when I logged on to Facebook after arriving in San Gil, Colombia I saw photos of Boulder I couldn't have imagined. My friends' houses were flooded and streets were destroyed as the amazing power of nature ripped through downtown.

My time in Colombia has been more relaxed than I anticipated, though still full of excitement. I've guided a few tours, learned to drive a natural gas powered car, went swimming in a cascade of natural pools, and built trails. I live in a house with the other guides – John from New Zealand and his English girlfriend, Jamie from England, and Miguel, the mechanic, from Colombia. I've taken some time to get used to “living” in a foreign country, but aside from the construction that was going on outside our house, it's great. We even have two adopted pets – Shakes the trail dog, and L.C. the kitten with a broken hip and ravenous appetite.

Sorry, I can't hear your jackhammer, could you come closer?	Dust from the aforementioned jackhammering
Miguel holds Shakes while John gets ready for the pumptrack.	L.C. the night we adopted her.
This is a multi-user trail.	Driving our natural gas powered Rover.