Leg 19 Day 326 Tue 20 Feb Bogota to Garzon 446km

We left the hotel at 6h30 sharp after some trouble getting the bikes out of the Basement Parking, there were separate bike-lane with small little boom-gate. The chaos started within the 1st 5 minutes, the traffic was HECTIC and some guys had a little fuel to make it out of town but some did not and ran their tanks dry for the flight across from Panama. Peens turned off the main road with Pie and Tex following him, the rest continued in the traffic hoping to find a fuel station within the next 50km. With busses and trucks and cars and plenty of small motorbikes all pushing and shoving for a better position or lane Rocky and I soon lost Milsy. We filled up with fuel and then Rocky gave me the bad news, his phone had 4% battery power left and the message from his phone was that it was too cold to charge. His GPS was also giving problems, so it was up to me to get him and me to our destination. For 1 hour we fought in the traffic with Rocky on my tail light and when we had traveled 30km we got to the edge of Bogota.

Then for the next hour we were on a winding mountain pass between busses and trucks and hundreds of little bikes. We spent the next hour on this road and we had road-works the entire time. Then the GPS showed me we needed to turn but the roadworks made the exit confusing and before I could do anything we missed the turn and then we were stuck on the wrong road being re-routed to join the right road somewhere ahead.

We were 100% sure we were behind everyone and just kept going for 3 hours non stop, only stopping for a water and an ice cream. Eventually we got Cell phone Signal and realised we were ahead, so we stopped for lunch and sent the rest our Location. After 2 hours we were all together except Peens who decided to go and visit his friends he made when he visited Colombia 15 years ago.

What do you think these roadsigns mean, maybe that you can nod-off but your eyes must be half open:

Maybe that Cane-Rats will be crossing??????

After some homemade Empanadas and home made Lime juice the 5 of us left together but 5km later we stopped for fuel and Pie did not see us.

Colombia is a very religious country, or so it seems, with small reminders along the road and everywhere you stop, like at our little lunch Empanada stop.

More photos of the road:

I think we rode past rice paddies for several hours today.

Most trucks looks like this:

The road was single lane today for most of the day with big trees growing overhead. But the road was very busy and there were more small motorbikes than cars on the road. The price of Diesel is R40-00 per litre and fuel just a little less, so not many cars, mainly trucks and small bikes.