We had coffee at 6h00 and left at 6h30, not expecting the day it turned out to be we were relaxed and after the 1st Stop-&Go Pie disappeared off into the Sunrise. I was leading with Milsy right behind me when the road forked. We spoke on the intercom and both our GPS’s said right, getting off the “45” and onto the “20”. It was a nice road with very little traffic apart from when we had to ride through a little town and share the small streets s with mothers and their kids on the scooters, or with their baby plus the pram hooked over the shoulder. Every little town had a church on the square and I was loving life.

Our ODO Meter clocked over to 100km for the day and we stopped next to the road for breakfast and coffee:

We were in high spirits, idiots.

Then Tex opened his phone and saw we were no longer on the 45 and he was adamant we return to it as he knew Pie would take it as that was what they agreed. I told him both Milsy and my GPS don’t want to take the 45, but Tex got hold of ProfF Google, who is a psychopath, and he showed Tex a little short-cut along the back roads that cross the farm-lands from our side of the V-Split to the other side of the V.

It was small gravel road and the farmers were very shocked to see us.

Then we got on the 45 and it was such a pleasure, the road was small but no traffic, just a few roadworks and stop-and-go’s, but good fun. We went over a few mountains and stopped for an early lunch at 12h00, still in high spirits, not knowing what was still to come.

Trout Farm:

During lunch we asked Proff Google again and the bastard said we had 150km to go for the day but it would take 5 hours!!!!!!!! The reason I thought was the mountain pass that lay ahead, which looked rather intimidating:

We set off and soon we crossed a bridge and were stopped at the Police Roadblock, there were several per day and sometimes the police search the truck or motorbike infant of us, but mostly we just get waved through. These police looked surprise to see 4 of us on big Adventure bikes wanting to continue on “The 10” and after giving us a sneaky smile they waved us through.

The road turned into a gravel road immediately and I thought that it meant more Roadworks, SKAAP, it was the road surface for the next 75km with took us 3 hours. It was hell and we were not expecting to do a gravel mountain pass. There were a type of Taxi, which was a Hillux Van with a canopy on the back racing in both directions, and a few small motorbikes. I was next expecting to see trucks on this road, but all of a sudden, coming around a blind corner I came face to face with a truck, a big one, that took the entire width of the road. Sadly the gravel was like riding on marbles. And as you saw on Google Maps above, no straight road, just blind corners and more corners, and often there were crosses for those that died and also several little shrines to stop and pray before continuing.

As if all the water crossings weren’t bad enough the cold and mist set in when we reached 3000m and the temperature dropped to 10 degrees.

You need to have stopped to pray (or inside the helmet will also do,) if you have road this narrow with a truck or even a Bakkie coming from the front:

When we reached this little “shop” we bought water and asked the guy how long this gravel road still continue, he said 2 hours, if crying would have helped I was ready to cry!!!!!!!!!

Note the dog in the photo above. As most people stay on the road, so do their dogs, and each house would have several clever dogs lying half in the road or on the edge of the road happily watching us pass. I said “clever” dogs as the dumb dogs don’t make it and gets run over, only the clever dogs survive life on the road.

Lots of waterfalls right next to the road:

And then we came around a corner and there was Pie, taking a video of us (which I will post on my Instagram,) so then were were 5, (Peens sent us some photos of his evening last night with his Colombian female friend and when I got signal I asked him to please find us a hotel is Pasto as we were going to be coming in late.)

Once we got onto the tar again we had another mountain to pass, but at least this one was tarred, and because this pass was after the gravel pass there were hardly any traffic apart from a few local scooters. Tonight we are all going out on a celebration dinner, we had a tuff day and we made it, look lots of concentration and sweat and screams in my helmet, but we made it.

Tonight is out last night in Colombia, tomorrow we have 100km to the Ecuador Border and then another 125km to Hans, our Fixer-come-storage-guy-come-guesthouse-owner.

glad this day is over, now I am going to snort some Voltaire as every single muscle in my body is on fire tonight.

Luv Ja All

Fleisch