Correction: I said fuel was R40 per litre, I was wrong, its R40 per Gallon, so closer to R10 per litre in Colombia.

Yesterday’s Route on the 10 ran South West and joined the Trans American Highway just below Cali (famous for where the Cali Cartel operated from.)

Last night we went out for dinner, it was a bit of a dud as it was late and most places were getting ready to close the kitchen. We ended up at a Gastro Pub with a wonderful menu, and great vibe, but Service was a concept they had not yet understood. Luckily Peens discovered he is fluent in Spanish after a few “Stoute Cookies” and he hardly needed the Translate App to push the kitchen and the bar to perform. This town also had a beautiful church on a square:

Earlier in the day when we had our Last Supper in Mecca before our day turned weird, Milsy decided he wanted a Milkshake and Googled the Spanish for Milkshake and ordered 2, one for him and one for Tex, both were sucked down in seconds. Rocky and I, like the good guys we are had Coke Zero.

This morning started with a bang, we all left the little hotel’s basement and turned left into the one-way in the peak morning traffic, in-between all the scooters and taxis, at the next street we turned left and then realised Rocky was not with us, the basement of the gate closed as he was leaving, so by the time he got to where we turned left was exactly the time a bus parked behind us, so early morning chaos. We had to start moving again when the bus driver got crazy and by the time we had circled the block Rocky was gone. he had no GPS and his phone was very suspect and on 4% charge as last night the phone said it was to hot to charge. We rode out of town and pulled over and tired to contact Rocky by phone and WhatsApp but his phone had died. Just as I started to panic for his sake we saw his lights, he stayed calm, as always, and made plan with borrowed phone and wi-fi and figured out which road to take out of town and calmly pulled up and said “lets go.”

We stopped before the border to fill our bikes using the last of our Colombian Money, including hands full of coins.

Today we had 95km to the border and it was all good new roads. The border like all border towns were chaos. The money Changers showed us where to park the bikes and helped us find the right offices to cancel our Import permits, stamp the Passports, all this to secure we do business with them.

It took us 45 minutes to pass both borders. Due to the State Of Emergency we were given only 10 days before we had to be out of the country. Once through the border we stopped for a cool drink AND I discovered the best Chips ever, its like Fritos but with Lime Flavour, they are AMAZING!!!!!

The scenery and people did not change, beautiful lush green rolling hills with farming happening on every piece of ground, with cows who have longer legs on the one side to be able to graze at dangerous angles on the hills. The road remained winding upon and down mountains, going down from 2800m to 1800m and then back up again.

We rode through several Roadblocks, we all rode together in a tight group with Peens leading. He greeted the Police in Afrikaans and then just said Tourist, Lima, Peru, good-bey and then we were waved through.

I guess Pork is on the Menu here tonight:

 

Lots of Carpenters working along the road, with wood from very old trees:

We arrived at Hans, our host, who came to Ecuador 14 years ago to visit his son who was doing Volunteer Work here for a year. He fell in love with a local girl and bought a property overlooking a lake, about 2 hours away from Quito the Capital and then built a Camping Site, Restaurant, bar, Chalets and he has the biggest selection of German Beers outside Germany. He loves the weather as he is very close to the Equator and the weather stays at around 24 degrees all year round, no difference between Winter and Summer, and rather cool due to being so high, 2300m above sea-level. We sat under the Grape vine and ordered German Wurst and Kartoffelen, washed down with some of Germany’s finest.

There are several Over Landers camping in his Camping Grounds:

After lunch Hans showed us our chalets and where the laundry was,  I hinted about the load of washing I  had, and mostly my Riding Jacket that can now stand on its own, and who’s collar has changed to an unsightly brown. I made them feel guilty as I always have to do the blog when they can drink a beer or go to bed early, they said they would wash it, let’s see, with this view from our chalets I suspect they are testing out the Hammocks and my washing is long forgotten.