Out of the desert (Motorcycle Diaries, Pt IV)

The adventures in and around Riohacha continued the next morning when my trusty moto, reliable until this point, decided it didn't want to start. I pushed it down the road, sprinting at full speed, and eventually got it bump-started causing blue smoke to billow out the back. I ran it for a while, then stopped and started it a few times over to make sure the water in the watered-down gasoline had mixed back in correctly.

I rode the straight and flat highway east towards Maicao, then turned north towards Uribia and the intersection aptly named Cuatro Vias. There was a railroad that paralleled the highway perfectly, several crashed cars in the ditch presumably from people falling asleep at the wheel, and a lot of cactus. The road was so hot and so boring it wasn't fun anymore and I questioned why I was continuing several times.

I was trying to get to the coastal desert oasis of Cabo de la Vela but had heard that the way there involved a long desert road. I started to take that more seriously as I was passed by expedition-worthy 4x4 trucks with lifted suspension, extra gas cans, full size spare wheels, winches, and jacks. My fantasy of skipping across the desert on an underpowered motorcycle was evaporating as quickly as my water reserves.

At Cuatro Vias I was tired and bored, and the rude attitude of the man in the shack that passed as a convenience store further soured my mood. I was feeling less and less motivated to continue to Cabo and when I realized I was standing on the last meters of paved road I decided against riding it. I probably could have made it but it just wasn't enjoyable anymore so I turned around.

The rural desert had one more trick up it's sleeve though - there's no gas stations. When I asked for directions to a gas station I was pointed to the front of the convenience store shack where a man had soda and liquor bottles filled with fuel. Each one was prefilled, and when I asked for a certain amount the bottle containing it (a liter, a gallon, etc) was upended into my gas tank. I had seen stands on the side of the road where people had a yellowish liquid in bottles but I had assumed it was some sort of local drink, not a makeshift gas station. Turns out gasoline is so cheap in Venezuela there's a huge amount of black market fuel that pours across the border into Colombia. There's so much that conventional gas stations don't exist along the eastern border of Colombia.

Cuatro Vias' gas station

Once I had turned around from Cuatro Vias and decided I wasn't going to Cabo my mood started to brighten. I still wanted to ride some dirt so I swung over to the rail road tracks but was turned back to the highway by a security guard resembling an under-funded Terminator impersonator. I took some pictures of the cactus fences I saw, watched some cows eat watermelon, and smiled as the foliage turned green, the temperature dropped, and curves started to grace my path.

Cows eat watermelon. Who knew?

Ok, ok, I won't try to jump the fence.

Continuing south I lost my gas cap once but went back and found it, and ran out of gas again but quickly found a man on the side of the road selling some. I checked in to one of the worst hotels of the trip, and after dinner turned on the TV finding out it was Thanksgiving because the American football game was playing live.

Thanksgiving sunset outside of La Paz, Colombia.