Following the coast

On the way to the coast around 200kms to Turbo, I had a long stretch of unpaved road, making me fear that the next 100+ kms would be like that fortunately it wasn't.

It looks a lot better on the picture than it actually was ;-)
All villages from Chigorodó up to and including Turbo are a complete traffic chaos and you can consider yourself a lucky person when you manage to get through without accidents.
Once you get passed Turbo, the landscape changes completely and it is like changing country with vast banana plantations on both sides of the road and became the sensation that all off a sudden everything is cleaner and organized.

My first contact with the Caribbean coast the place to go for a swim.

 Short stop for fresh pineapple and a banana.

Here is a good thing about ridding a bike in Colombia that I would like to see in Europe, motorcycles don't need to pay toll, there is a small way on the right of the toll station where you can pass through without having to stop or pay.

 

Up to the Caribbean Coast

Spent the night in Salento and found out that Colombian cocks start to sing at 3 in the morning and not at sunrise like the European ones.

This is like a not so cold shower looks like around here by the way.

A lot of people here seam to live from tourism, the Willys jeeps in the central square are all waiting for passengers to Cocoro and there's where I went after convincing a juicer to sell sell me a pure orange juice, it seams to be a Colombian tradition to mix natural juices either with water or milk which I don't quite understand apart from increasing profit.
On my way to Cocoro I bumped into this guy ridding on a small motorcycle and keeping his horses in front of him at around 20 km/h pace.

I drove a while behind him because I didn't really new how to overtake the horses without having some panicking a run against something.

There was a nice steep unpaved track that goes deeper into the valley but I was not on an appropriate bike to doit, maybe another time.
Then I moved on through Zona Cafetera.

I am sure there must be more beautiful places than where I drove through because after seeing the one in Sri Lanka, these didn't impress me much.
Further north the temperature started to increase and I saw landscapes that I wasn't expecting in Colombia.

The ride was a continuously stop and go, with a lot road works and a road closure due to an accident, I spent more than 3 hours waiting in total.

On the way to Salento

Once I finally found a bike, drove back to my hostel to get my luggage, it was on new tires but handling pretty bad and besides that it was nearly impossible to put in neutral,it would always jump to second or first depending on which gear you were before. Went back to the rental and fortunately another bike available but I still lost a lot of time.
Short of time I headed to Salento, watching traffic and drivers behavior, learning how to drive in Colombia, speed limits seam to be only of decorative nature around here, only pedestrians and horse riders respect them, most of the motorcycle riders ride it like they've stolen it, well, some possibly did :-)
On the road I found the only traffic rule that all drivers respect around here, a stop sign at road works, even motorcyclists do it. What I found very interesting is that, cars, when they arrive first at such a stop, they leave a fair distance for motorcyclists to get in front of them and be able to pass first, they actually do the same at traffic lights by the way, not very common in Europe such behavior.

Colombia

Last year I planed to visit Colombia with a friend but then work came in between and the trip had to be postponed to a later time, at the end of the year we finally agreed to do it at the end of January. Then when everything was set to go, my friend canceled his travel plans in the last minute, leaving me alone. This forced me to make some adjustments and departure was set to the beginning of February.
Spent the first days in Cali and surroundings until I got a bike available for this tour, didn't make any reservations upfront due to the destination of my next trip which was still not 100% settled until my arrival in Colombia, which made things more complicated.

There are some interesting aspects and surprises when visiting Colombia. My first one was the flight itself, as maybe not much to do with the country but it was the first time I had to leave the plane and later go back to take the same place, including taking the hand luggage. Then when I first tried to get money out of a cash machine, it timed out before I was able to enter my pin, because they have a protection cover above the numpad and these are visible if you're about 130-140cm high. It is quite an exercise to get done.
The next day I came across this shop with a sign asking their customers to please leave their motorcycles outside.

Not everyone takes the traffic lights seriously, to a point that I normally only cross the street when the traffic has green light, that's the only way this guys predictable :-)
If you're driving, specially at night, you should always prepared to brake at green lights and should never drive over at normal speeds, if you want to avoid accidents.
Another surprise is that you have pay for parking almost everywhere, motorcycles inclusive.

Parking space for motorcycles at a commercial center

 A couple doing show dancing salsa at Sebastián de Belalcázar monument

Iglesia de San Antonio

Cristo Rey

My first Colombian meal 

Enjoying Sardinia

Sardinia doesn't have much to see but has a lot of awesome roads to ride, most of them in very good condition and with almost no traffic to care about. 

Can someone explain me what this traffic sign is supposed to mean?

While enjoying the good tarmac I saw a sign about some roman historic site and decided to take a look and follow the signs and ended up here.

And at the end four closed gates and nothing to see...

Best enduro ever :-)

Autumn escape

The weather has been quite uncomfortable the last weeks, time to go south and get some sun. The ferry and hotel for the second night was reserved upfront which means that the goals to reach on the first and second day were already set, with no room for changes without spending a lot of extra money. The result of this was not very pleasant, way over 700 km on the first ridding day. The first half with temperatures near the freezing point and the other half under torrential rain. 

Bike tighten the "Corsica ferries" way :)

 
The second day was supposed to be easy going but we bump into a road closure and were forced to do an extra 70 km of twisty roads which would had otherwise been a pleasure, so not much time for pictures just keep on going.

First impressions

Next days just resting from the exhausting begin, with a swim in the beach and enjoying the sun.