Around the World and beyond.......Rad_venture

That's strange they made you pay $75. When I went through a week ago, the customer service desk on the ferry called everyone with a vehicle to the counter around 9pm and offered Colombian insurance for $20. All 4 of us with bikes purchased this insurance.

They just gave us a receipt, then when we picked up our vehicle permit on the dock after going through immigration, they had the insurance cards ready to go. Maybe they switched their procedures around since you went through, I dont know. Kinda sucks though that they made you pay $75.

Looks like you are really rnjoying Columbia. It's a great country, isn't it? The scenery is just amazing. I really like it so far. Are you two still in Bogota?

Lucky you motorbike, it looks like they realized that it was stupid making money from selling overpriced insurance. They also called us at 9pm and then handed the documents over the next day when we went through immigration. The process seems to be the same just the $$ are more reasonable.

Colombia is amazing and we loved every second over there; we already moved to Ecuador and it does not get any less exciting. Enjoy your ride mate!

Enjoying the ride. I wish I could get my wife to get on the back of my bike for a ride like that :eek1!

Where are you originally from? You are from Houston, but estimate your tire mileage in kilometers, so I'm just guessing. My wife is from Romania and you favor some of her relatives I don't suppose . . . ?

Great pics, keep em coming.

Thanks, this makes me feel a lot better about the trip. I will keep practicing but it is good to know I can get by either way. Since I will probably be traveling solo, I want as few avoidable complications as possible.

That tree is a ceiba tree, which was the sacred tree of the Maya. I have a picture of my wife sitting on the root to the right of you in the picture--mine was taken in 1996. I could not get the entire tree in my photo, so I assume that you have a wide lense? Nice photos of Tikal. I need to get back there, but my wife does not want to ride through Mexico--never mind that we just spent 5 months in her hometown of Porto Velho, in Rondonia, which is considered one of the most dangerous cities in Brazil!!!:huh Hope to take a class to the highlands Xmas Break 2015/2016

Surely, the white jacket must be bit scruffy by now. Update please...

To get out of Bogota was really crappy ride; big lorries everywhere totally ignoring any motorbike. It took us about one hour and half to get on a road that was free to ride. To get to Armenia you have to cross two mountain passes, the first one is fairly straight forward as you are already pretty high from Bogota.....literally. The second you have to start from altitude around 300 AMSL and then go all the way to 3300 AMSL in about one hour which is pretty cool, like riding heaven with plenty of turns and great asphalt on the road.

We made it to Salento and found pretty nice camp site.



the next morning we went to see what is the coffee region all about




....and trust me we found it straight away in the first coffee shop....well Lauren found it and it was delicious



the coffee tasted like nothing before and when we asked people "why?" their answer was...."well you are in Colombia". Also the coffee we were drinking was made on this over 100 years old coffee machine



we could not resist to find out how the Colombian coffee is made so we visited local farm to see how they do it



that smell was amazing



just grind it



on our way out of the farm I helped locals to carry some bananas....it was pretty tough job, these bananas are pretty heavy



after this heavy work it was time for good lunch; local specialty is a trout so we went to get one. while waiting for our food we played local games, throwing stones in some mud



After visiting the coffee region we hit the road again and were headed to Popayan for a night. It is really nice colonial town where we spent only one night. We walked around the whole morning which I believe is enough for this town and took few photos

















Last place to visit before leaving Colombia to Ecuador is Las Lajas Sanctuary. First I thought that it may be just one of these touristy places....how wrong I was! This place is amazing! If you are going this way you should defo visit it.



looking at it from the top viewing platform is like noting I experienced before, there are not any rails so you can feel the whole space



and when you get down it gets even better

Great ride report! In 1999 when I climbed Monserrte the people I was staying with hired a armed guard to walk up and back with!! Ransoms and kidnapping was big back then. Things have changed in the last 15 years! Good to see

Thanks for your message RideN! I can fully understand what you are going through with your wife; why do you think we went through Mexico so fast? Lauren and whole her family and friends were paranoid about her safety. At the end she was extremely surprised how great Mexico was and I believe we will come back one day for a bit longer than 5 days....

I am originally from Czech; I have been living in Houston for the last 4 years

What a great RR and trip.

Yeah we were really impressed by the police and army work in Colombia. They were nearly everywhere and mainly they were very helpful when we needed some advice. You can definitely feel that they are making an effort to keep safety under control.

While riding in the mountains we saw hundreds of soldiers just standing on a side of the road with thumbs up to wish good travel. We felt very safe while staying in Colombia.

For an amazing ride, go north towards Turbo from Santa Fe.

The rides and scenery are stunning, some of the best riding I have ever done.
Also it's a great route to travel to Cartagena, beats the highway via Medellin and all the trucks etc.

We hope you'll stop by our shop in Quito so we can help you with some route planning through Ecuador.

thanks a lot for your message, we would love to visit your shop but we already left Quito . Currently we are in Macas and will be heading to Cuenca today. sorry but I am few days late with my rr, will be trying to catch up soon

Before we even entered Ecuador we were already impressed with this country. Migration and temporary bike import was very easy, fast and free. When you get there they tell you what to do and even give you a little map of Ecuador with safety instruction and main places to see.

Our first stop was at a little town Cotocatchi; here we met with our friend Robert. He is very experienced rider also from Texas who is getting ready for his travel from Texas to Tiera del Fuego in 2015. We had very good conversation and shared some of our experience. We would like to say thank you Robert for your stories and dinner and we are wishing you all the best for your journey south!!



Cotocatchi streets



While in Cotocatchi we stayed with former Ferrari mechanic and keen bike rider Gerry who shared many stories from his life. We totally loved his house with amazing views





While in Cotocatchi we visited Lagona di Cuicocha which is volcano lake with small islands in the middle. There is nice hike around the lake which takes around 4 hours; unfortunately we run out of daylight to complete it so we had just little walk





To get to Quito we had to cross the equator....we were checking our GPS while riding south and found the equator in the middle of one village. We were expecting some type of stone on a side of the road but nothing was there. So we created our own imaginary equator and had little fun



each wheel of the bike is on different hemisphere

the Lauren's jacket is not looking that bad...well on this photo; in the real life it is a bit worse than showing here



Getting to Quito city center was a bit challenging due to heavy traffic. We found a hostel and looked around the town; there is like thousands of hostels in Quito. The other challenge was to find one with parking.

One thing you have to try in Quito is to go at the top of Basilica del Voto Nacional. We believe that the stairs they have installed would be illegal anywhere else, pretty steep but we think they are totally safe. Going all the way up will give you pretty good feeling how big and pretty Quito is.....














while in Quito we could not miss visiting local market to buy some Ecuador t-shirts. It took a while to pick the right one for Lauren



she really wanted a jumper with lama motive...it took me a while to explain her that we do not have any space in our luggage for her new sweater......

So which one had parking ?

Hostal Margarita 2
Address: Valladolid N24-562 y Coruña, Quito 12-71
Phone02) 295-0441

From Quito we headed south to Cotopaxi national park. We found out that we could camp in the park which sounded pretty cool. From Quito is short ride on the PanAm and then 20km on light stony/dirt road. When we arrived to the gate of the Cotopaxi national park we learned unpleasant news....motorcycles are NOT allowed into the park!!! The park ranger was pretty strict. We were really pissed of that we could not in, as that afternoon there were not that many clouds and volcano was nicely visible, so we decided to rough camp on the side of the national park and spent late afternoon just walking around the park and enjoy the volcano.....









there were bunch of wild horses






despite cold and high altitude we really enjoyed this camping, the next day we set off early for the Quilotola Loop which was spectacular



we visited small villages, it felt like time stopped there







we got some local snacks...really tasty





After the Quilotola Loop we made it to Banos which is very nice little town sitting in a valley.







we found one place with Belgian waffles which made Lauren extremely happy



Christmas decoration in Banos

Thanks ! I'm following a week behind yall


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Three Angels in this pic?