The ship arrived in Cartagena on August 1st. We cleared customs on the 2nd, and Geert and I spent around a half hour driving through the crazy Cartagena traffic to our hotel. There, I had to say goodbye to my new friend — Tibet and Alex arrive in Peru on the 15th, which gave me less than two weeks to cover over 3600km of South America. I’ll miss Geert, but I have a feeling I’ll see the crazy Dutch guy again. I headed South.

Colombia is a beautiful country. It felt stupid to spend only six days there after spending an entire month in Panama, but I spent those six days well and likely saw more of the country than most tourists do in a month. Beautiful vistas abound, and ramshackle concrete pueblos are mixed in with old colonial towns. Most of the country is in the mountains, which meant I ended up doing around a thousand kilometers of twisties — finally, my bike was in her element!

Tuesday, August 2

On my first day of driving, I noticed something disturbing. On a particularly congested section of two-lane highway, traffic was crawling along and an ambulance came up behind me, lights flashing. I immediately moved over to let it pass, but no one else did. I then spent the next fifteen minutes watching in amazement as the ambulance tried to work its way through the traffic, and not a single person moved over to let it pass (there was more than enough room). Eventually, I had enough of watching this spectacle, lanesplit past all the congestion (poor stuck ambulance included), and sped off in disgust. I felt immensely guilty for passing the ambulance, but I wasn’t the one holding it up.

Before I’d started on this trip, I had no idea about the extent of the cultural differences between the various Latin American countries. In Mexico, on a two-lane highway, if anyone wants to make a pass, they simply move to the center and vehicles on both sides of the road immediately move onto the shoulder to let them pass safely. It’s one of the most civilized, empathetic driving customs I’ve ever seen. Such a huge difference!

Wednesday, August 3