Blindsided

So… there is a lot to cover here.  We got our bikes out of the shop, took off for Medellin the long way, and then Alex got sideswiped by a box truck going 35mph.  From the top:

We woke up Wednesday at a leisurely 9:30am and started packing our bags.  Both of us would have preferred to be on the road at 6:00am ahead of the midday heat, but the Suzuki mechanic was calling the departure time.  10:30am we hopped in a cab and had him drop us off at the dealership.  Proudly displayed in the entrance were our bikes, as clean as they’ve been in over four months.  With the professional wash job, two new tires, and a new chain assembly, both of them looked fantastic (especially since we had removed our beat up luggage from the racks).  I forked over $70 bucks for a job well done and couldn’t wait to hit the road.  Alex checked his gas tank and it was half empty; we dropped them off with completely full tanks.  Mine was drained as well.  The bastards had siphoned our gas.  Our mechanic sat there with the money in his pocket and a stupid look on his face while we examined our tanks and bitched about it in English right in front of him.  He knew we knew.  In the end we didn’t have it in us to start arguing.  We thanked him, fired them up, and took off.

My bike ran like a dream.  Like an aging face, you don’t notice the minute changes from day to day; nonetheless they were dramatic.  With new, fully rounded tires it pivoted from one lean to the next much more quickly.  He cleaned the air filter and it sounded much throatier with a louder roar (he told me to clean my air filter more often).  The chain and sprockets were all brand new and the throttle response acted like a whole different animal.  No more chunky gear shifts, just smooth sailing.  Most of all, I now have a stock 15 tooth front sprocket instead of the 14 tooth I had left with.  I need a little more gas to get off the line, but the bike is much better adapted to the road now.  I can get up to 25mph in first gear rather than 19; this is of huge importance in city riding.  75mph in fifth gear has the engine humming along instead of straining to keep up.  I wish I had made this change long ago.  Best of all, my gas mileage will perk up just a little in the long run!

Absolutely stoked, we went back to the hostel and loaded up our luggage.  Finally around 1:00pm we were ready to go.  I said goodbye to Anna for the near future and we took off on the first big road we could find expecting it to lead us out of the city.  The plan was to follow the other riders towards Medellin and meet up with them in the next couple days.  There are two ways to get there; the long way through the mountains and the short way through the highlands.  Alex and I never did agree which direction we were going, but we eventually came to the compromise that whichever way the road took us, we would take that route.  It was too hot out with too much traffic to start pulling U-turns and asking directions every other mile.  We had a map and we’re Eagle Scouts.  We got this.

The traffic kept up for at least ten miles, around forty-five minutes.  It was finally clearing up when we saw an exit with a recognizable city attached to it: Barranquilla.  Tired of the confusion and inner-city traffic, we bolted for Barranquilla.  We knew if we could get there, we could pass through it and start making our way towards Medellin on the lonely mountain roads.  The exit shot us onto a four-lane highway and I hit the throttle.  The fifteen tooth sprocket kept giving and giving and we were making great time though beautiful prairie landscape.  112 kilometers around 3:30pm later we finally had to slow down as we entered the outskirts of Barranquilla. 

Here’s my account.  The road eventually turned into two lanes with a double yellow between them as we crossed over a bridge with more and more buildings popping up everywhere.  Alex and I had about 100 miles on our tanks and we hadn’t eaten since 10:00am; we needed fuels.  Traffic was going about 20mph as we passed under the big ‘Bienvenidos!’ sign for Barranquilla.  There was a gas station with a chicken joint on the left-hand side of the road and standard procedure, Al turned into it. 

Like any road when you take a left, you cross into the oncoming lane to reach your trajectory.  With nobody coming towards us, Al took a safely arched turn across the open oncoming lane towards the gas station parking lot.  I watched him go and prepared to make my turn immediately afterward.  Just as I started to lean my vision of Alex was erased by a wall of rolling steel.   A box truck flew by right beside me at incredible speed from behind.  It was passing illegally in the oncoming lane and Alex turned right into it.  I heard a loud pop and then grinding; I don’t remember much of the next couple seconds. 

When I came to I was dropping my kickstand as I observed Alex lying motionless on the street up against the curb.  I flew off the bike and ran over to him in an overwhelming sense of shock.  By the time I arrived he sat up, asked the kid next to him whether or not he was ok, and then lay back down on his back.  I asked Alex if he was ok.  He was alert and coherent and he was moving all of his extremities.  He said his foot hurt pretty bad, ‘probably broken’.  I looked at his boot and there was blood on it.  They trained me on this shit back in the day in the Scouts, but nothing could prepare me for the intensity of the situation.  I told Alex I saw blood and he pointed to the kid.

Standing over us was a seventeen year-old guy hold his hand with blood all over his shirt.  The box truck had struck the bike’s rear end and shoved them both into the ground skidding towards the curb.  In some manner Al and his bike slid right into the pedestrian kid and chopped him down.  The kid toppled over and got a good gash to the wrist in the process.  Al and his bike kept going.  Yards later they hit the curb.  The bike hit tires first with enough momentum to flip upright and then keep going another rotation slamming hard on the opposite side it had been sliding on.  Alex managed to stay on the ground tucked up next to the curb. 

Within one minute there were fifty Colombians surrounding the entire scene.  Typical mob mentality, none of them aside from a select two or three offered any help at all.  They just crowded us and the bikes and made it really hard to make any sense out of the situation.  There was one lady who got to the front and actually knew a thing or two about first aid.  There was another guy who seemed helpful but in the end it turned out he just wanted some money.  All of them were tugging at me and asking me useless questions like ‘Where are you going?’ or ‘How crazy was that?’  I didn’t have the time; I walked through them pushing one into the next watching them trip over each other in front of me.  Get out of my way.

Al was stable and in no immediate danger and his biggest concerns were his bike (of course) and his important possessions.  I hadn’t even seen at the bike.  I looked up and immediately saw it ten feet away on its side, the left turn signal still blinking.  I parted the sea of Colombians between me and the bike and walked over.  At first glance it looked absolutely destroyed.  I got it up on two wheels, walked it over next to mine, and pulled the key out of the ignition.  All of Al’s luggage had been ejected except for his two side Pelican cases.  Both of them had taken serious hits and their mounting racks were forcefully warped inward toward the top of the rear tire.  His right rack crushed so horribly that it stabbed holes in his side case dislodging it.  The right box was dented around the rack, similar to mine from a hundred miles back.  His top box was long gone; its bottom had obviously blown out seeing how the trailer hitch lock was still mounted to the rear rack (the hitch pin locks the top box to the bike).  His tank bag was hanging on by one buckle dangling at the side.  For a moment he was on his feet and managed to hobble over to his baby.  He hit the ignition and it started without hesitation.  Then he posed for a photo and sat back down.

By this point the circus was out of my control.  The cops started showing up one-by-one on their motorcycles and within a couple minutes of the accident an ambulance as well.  The truck that caused the accident pulled over immediately and the driver was squawking about explaining his story to whomever would listen.  Alex was a patient in the Colombian medical system and out of the picture.  We each raised a thumbs up as he was carted away with what luggage he needed for the hospital. 

That left me, gringo superstar, to fend off the hordes, protect the gear, and answer a lot of questions.  Colombians speak a completely different language than all of Central America.  They don’t annunciate and they stress different parts of every word.  Everything is spoken under their breath.  Plus they have a whole new vocabulary for half the words I know.  That made speaking to three hurried officers at the same time extremely difficult.  It didn’t help to have the entire city block watching me and murmuring two feet away.  It took a while but I finally got it across that we were travelers from the United States.  We had no family in Colombia, no address, no phones, and no clue where we even were.  There were a lot of ideas thrown around about what to do with me and the two bikes.  I wasn’t going anywhere without mine and I was making sure I saw where Al’s was taken.

After a lot of foot dragging the police came to a consensus.  The plan as I understood it was that we would take the wrecked bike to an impound lot and then head straight to the hospital.  The chief of police confidently mounted Al’s bike and hit the ignition with a smile on his face.  All the other cops were tossing on their helmets (not latching them) and mounting up.  The chief put on his aviators, looked at me as he rolled on the throttle, and then absolutely screamed out of the parking lot.  The rest of us followed trying to keep up with him by weaving traffic, blowing stop signs, and yes, passing in the oncoming lane.  With a police escort, I decided it was permissible.  The entire ride the chief was revving Al’s DR as high as he could, popping the front end up every chance he got.  Like watching a kid with a new bicycle.  When we pulled into the impound lot asked him how it ran, ‘Better than my Yamaha 400!  Like a dream!’  Finally some good news.

They parked the bike inside and the truck as well.  I took a look at the grill and Al managed to do a fair amount of damage.  There is a hole in the hood above the lights from his left Pelican case and you can also see where his tire fried across the bumper.  Well done Al.  While the police filled out some paperwork I took the spare moment to eat a can of tuna, oil and all.  Then we were back on the road driving like maniacs for the hospital.

Inside the hospital I found Alex sitting on a bed with his leg exposed.  His ankle was swollen, but otherwise intact.  The next few hours were a blur.  I spent a lot of time talking to the cops explaining my story over and over again.  I drew it for them, I acted it, I’m surprised we didn’t go out in the street and reenact it.  Alex had already undergone an X-ray and he thought he saw a fracture in the image.  There was a shifty insurance lawyer representing the box truck milling about.  The seventeen year-old kid was leaning against the wall with a bandage around his wrist covering three new stitches.  As the only witness I was a hot commodity.  Everyone urgently asking me questions in rapid Spanish and then turning away to talk to someone else while I delivered my garbled answer.  Absolute chaos.

To no surprise the truck driver was giving a different story.  He said we were riding at his side to the right of him when Al cut in front.  According to him, he swerved in the same direction Al turned, but couldn’t stop in time.  BULL.  SHIT.  I sat down with him and his lawyer.  They started asking me a bunch of legal questions, none of which I could answer.  I didn’t feel like dealing with them anyway.  Eventually they looked at each other and determined that I was a gringo that didn’t understand anything.  I just looked at them and smiled and pointed at my ear.  They smiled back and stopped talking; I understood enough to shut them up. 

I also got yelled at by the seventeen year-old’s boyfriend.  The kid had waved goodbye and walked out at some point during the commotion while I was knee-deep in police talk.  His boyfriend, yes boyfriend, showed up an hour later and started badgering me asking why I didn’t buy him a cab.  I told him exactly what happened and that I was not responsible.  The boyfriend stamped his feet and pouted in the corner glaring at me for the rest of the evening.

I also took on the role of Al’s standing family.  ‘When was he born? Where are his insurance docs? When did he eat last?’  I’m standing in the middle of a Colombian ER in full riding getup holding all of our valuables while sweating my ass off answering questions I don’t know in a language I can no longer speak.  Why didn’t the truck didn’t hit me instead! 

Eventually the dust settled.  The specialist looked at Al’s X-ray and gave him two options: surgery or a cast.  The surgery involved screwing a plate onto his fractured fibula and a three week recovery period.  The cast: immobilization of six weeks and then physical therapy afterward.  The doctor wanted to go forward with the surgery and of course Alex was apprehensive.  We’ve heard a lot of horror stories about third world operating tables.  Plus we’re on a motorcycle trip from Seattle to Buenos Aires; surgery was never part of the plan.  Al weighed his options and within a half hour accepted the doctor’s order.  He would go under the Colombian knife.

With that sorted, I looked at the cops and told them it was my turn.  It was 9:00pm and I hadn’t eaten a meal or sipped a drink since breakfast.  I was exhausted and drenched in sweat.  My bike was outside with all my luggage exposed.  Alex was under supervision, his bike parked, and our stories delivered.  Time for Tom to go to bed!  Surprisingly they understood what I was saying.  I had met a Colombian woman from New York named Ruby who recommended a nearby hotel.  The insurance lawyer was pushing me to stay somewhere else, but Ruby tipped me off that it was a dump; he was getting shiftier every second.  Ruby told me to trust no one and get to a safe place.  I told the cops I wanted Hotel Caribbean Gold and they arranged escort.

We rode out around 9:30pm just as the torrential rain started.  Fitting.  It actually felt cleansing.  By this time I knew the two cops pretty well, Juan Pablo and Carlos.  It was a good ride despite the rain.  We were making jokes about strip clubs and hookers.  They walked me into the hotel, helped me book a room, carried my luggage upstairs, and set it inside for me.  Juan Pablo gave me his personal cell number and told me to call him in the morning when I woke up.  He would then meet me at the hotel and escort me back to the hospital to continue the proceedings.  I thanked them, told them we’d go the night club someday, and said goodnight.  I sank into my bed, cranked the A/C, and ordered room service.   I ate my burger and fries in my underwear watching the only English program on TV: VH1’s ‘I Love the 90’s’.  I finished the meal in seconds flat, hit the lights, and slept like a brick for the next nine hours.

I took my time in the morning.  I knew that the moment the cops arrived I would be back on their schedule as long as they felt necessary (and these cops don’t move fast).  Fully fed and hydrated I called Juan Pablo at 9:00am and told him I was ready to go.  9:45am we arrived back at the hospital.  I went inside with the cops to discover that Alex had just finished surgery.  I went to the post-op room and asked how he was doing.  She said the operation went fine, but he was currently sleeping.  I asked if he would wake up any time soon; she swallowed and responded ‘I don’t know… he finally stopped talking.’  Safe to say his personality was unharmed.

A couple more hours of waiting around and we were out the door around noon.  On the way out we collected two prescriptions from the in-house pharmacy.  Alex never paid a dime.  We’re still not sure what is covered by the motorcycle insurance or who was given the blame for the accident.  Regardless, one of the older cops from the night before had looked Al in the eye and told him not to pay a dime for any medical attention; ‘we have national health care’ the sergeant explained smugly. 

We shoved Al in a cab and once again Juan Pablo and Carlos escorted us back to the hotel.  They helped him hop to the elevator and then asked for his bike key so they could take it to the repair shop for insurance purposes.  That’s where we’re at now.  We’ve got Wi-Fi, A/C, and a lot of time to kill.  Last night we went out and watched Captain America in 3D; it was such an indulgence.  Right now were both lying in bed watching the Colombian Price is Right.  We’re not sure the plan.  Al has to be in Bogota in less than three weeks to pick up his girlfriend Kristi from the airport.  He also needs to recover in bed for most of that period.  I’m going to stick around a couple days and then maybe head over to the nearest tourist town Santa Marta for a night or two, it’s only an hour away.  For how shitty the situation is, we’re both in good spirits.  Al’s alive and I finally got some good material to write about… win-win right?

Spic and Span

For the first time in weeks I can say I’m excited about the condition of my motorcycle.  It is currently resting in a Suzuki dealership awaiting two new tires, two new sprockets, a new chain, and a full service inspection.  The DR650 is the police bike around here too and the dealership garage is full of them.  I can only assume whoever is working on it will be very familiar with its weaknesses and soft spots.  In total I paid $390 for all the parts; higher than US prices, but reasonable given my situation.  The chain and sprockets are Suzuki Genuine Parts and the tires are both Pirelli dual-sports.  Quality all around.  The labor will cost another $70.  Included is a washing, oil and filter change, lubrication of all moving parts, cleaned air filter, dialed brakes, and the installation of all those parts.  It’s a lot of money, but it will be done in a garage by a professional rather than on the street by me in a trail-and-error process.

I’ve been fixated on these issues for weeks now ever since we crossed into Panama when I noticed my chain was stretching.  The missing spare parts have been gnawing at me since Mexico.  I’m actually not picking up any spares right now because I figure the mechanic will tip me off if there are any problems in the near future.  With Alex’s girlfriend Kristi flying in to Bogota in three weeks, I can wait for her to deliver a care package of brake pads, clutch and throttle cables, spark plugs, and earplugs.  Putting the bike in the shop feels like giving an old friend a big hug.  Like C-3PO taking an oil bath, ‘thank the maker!’ 

In the spirit of maintenance I even went out and got a haircut today.  $5 for a salon quality job, although I kinda look like a Mexican now.  Thin sideburns and very clean lines leading up my forehead.  I also shaved for the first time since Costa Rica; it was time for some manscaping.  Throw in a trip to the laundromat and I’m feeling very clean at the moment.  Aside from slicing my finger open on a fan blade yesterday when I was taking off my shirt, I feel pretty healthy too.  I’ve been sleeping plenty and eating a lot of meat.  Vegetables are harder to come by but I’ve managed to sneak them into a couple meals.  I’m still underweight, but I don’t feel like such a shadow like I did back in Panama.  It’s a new continent and I’m starting off fresh with a fully serviced motorcycle; there’s a lot to be excited about.

This is the fourth day in Cartagena and we’ve been packing it in since we got here.  Although there is little to show for it, I’ve been running around every day sightseeing, partying, and dealing with customs.  Saturday everyone was kicked off the boat to go live in the city for the weekend.  Customs wouldn’t accept our bikes on when we pulled in and Sunday they were closed.  That gave us two nights to kill fresh off the boat.  If you’ve read Alex’s blog, you can see that we were way too tired to do anything Saturday night.  We all just shuffled off the boat, sweated our holes out finding lodging, and then laid ourselves to rest immediately after dinner.  Sunday was a little better.  Everyone woke up energized and ready to explore.  A group of us set off towards Cartagena’s ancient fort across the water.  The fort is hard to describe.  It’s a lot like a castle, but with sloped walls and no moat.  Up top there were decommissioned cannons pointing out into the harbor; you can imagine the strength of the fortress back in the pirate days.  Inside we explored a maze of catacombs.  After the fort Anna and I walked into the old town and got some cool pictures of colonial architecture.  That night was pretty big.  The entire boat group met up in old town for drinks on the water.  After a couple hours of that we all funneled into a dance bar and kept it going a little longer. 

Monday was absolute hell.  All the bikers reported at 8:30am at the dock to receive our motorcycles from the Stahlratte.  Getting them off was a little more hectic than putting them on.  This time the crew winched the bikes onto the dingy and putzed them over to the dock with an outboard.  Six times Ludwig pulled up next to the dock and from there it took everyone’s might to lift each bike onto the dock.  George’s turn signal on his BMW was dislodged, but other than that there were surprisingly no incidents.  From the dock we rode illegally on non-imported, uninsured bikes over to customs.  I thought the waits were bad back in Central America, but importing to Colombia was by far the biggest headache we’ve encountered.

Because it’s such a huge port city, customs was a big multi-story office building full of paper pushers.  Ludwig had arranged for a friend name Manfred to meet us there and help expedite the process.  Even with Manfred’s help we waited for three hours in the morning for an inspector to come out and verify our VIN numbers.  When he finally arrived it turned out that all our papers had the wrong numbers.  On top of that, the customs computer system was down so they couldn’t officially import our bikes (meaning we were still illegal in the eyes of the all-knowing internet).  We were dismissed and told to come back at 4:30pm to finish up.  In the meantime Al and I went out and found all the parts we needed.  We showed up back at customs that afternoon and waited two more hours for one final signature.  By 6:30pm we were on the road, finally.  I’ll take a dirt road border crossing any day from here on out. 

Monday night was calm as all the bikers got ready to take off Tuesday morning.  All of them except for Alex and me took off this morning for the mountains.  Too much humidity; I don’t blame them.  Al and I are heading out tomorrow morning as soon as our bikes are finished to catch up.  Cartagena is a beautiful city; it has a little bit of everything.  On the horizon is Medellin, the former home of the legendary cocaine emperor Pablo Escobar.  If the rest of Colombia stacks up, I’ll be very pleased.  We’ve slated a month in this country and according to everyone I’ve met going north, it is the highlight of South America.  I’ll be the judge of that, but so far it’s living up to the hype.

I'm On a Boat!

7/28/2011- First Stack

Finally on the boat, it’s a huge relief to have Central America behind me.  From my house in Lake Stevens, WA to the loading dock in Carti, Panama I covered just over 10,000 miles of unforgiving roads over the last four months.  I’ve lost at least ten pounds out here, all of it muscle.  Monday I went through all my gear for the third time and got rid of another load of unused items.  Among them were some rope, bungee cord, a cup, my broken helmet comm device, and a jar of peanut butter.  The same day I went out and bought a passenger helmet as well as a matching set of bright yellow rubber rain gear.  I’m going to look like a fish sticks spokesperson next time it starts storming overhead, but I am determined to stay dry.  Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru all promise to be just as wet this time of year. 

As for my list of missing spare parts, I bought none of them.  Bright and early Monday morning the boys and I set off for Panama City’s only Suzuki dealer.  I knew we’d be in luck because everywhere you look in Panama there is a DR650 flying by with two heavily armed police officers on top.  The brand new 2011 model sparking on the showroom floor was a good sign as I walked in.  I gave my list of parts to the guy at the computer and he assured me he had all of them.  Overjoyed I asked him to tell me the prices so I could see what I was in for.  He started with the chain: $200.  Then the sprockets: $115 for a front and rear.  At home I can get the all three for $129 shipped to my house.  Brake pads and cables were similarly overpriced.  I balked; I really wanted to take care of this nagging issue, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay such absurd  prices.  I deliberated going back and forth for at least an hour before Alex and Charlie convinced me to sit tight and give it another go when we arrive in Colombia.  As they put it, a country with 45 million people will have a lot more buying power (therefore cheaper prices) than a country with only 3 million.  Here’s hoping. 

I ended up walking out of the dealership with a can of chain lube and a helmet for passengers.  We’ve been giving people short rides around town throughout Central America and very few of them have worn helmets.  It was never ideal, but the helmet store is never there right when you need it either.  Plus there have been no helmet laws the entire way down.  It’s very easy to become complacent with safety after 9,800 miles of smooth sailing.  Nevertheless, I saw the DOT approved half helmet on the shelf and decided it was time.  Panama has a strictly enforced helmet law and I was tired of risking peoples’ lives.  Al and I also had passengers scheduled for a ride to the canal the next morning:  Anna, who caught up with us again in Panama City, and the Dutch girls whom Al promised one more ride to. 

Monday night everyone got together for a big sendoff in the ritzy part of Panama City.  In attendance were myself, Alex, Charlie, Andy, Patrick, Ty, Jill, Anna, Kim, Roberto, Maura, and Chalenka.  We really stirred up the district for a Monday night.  Tuesday morning we loaded up to catch the boat.  Anna and the Dutch girls hopped on the backs of our bikes and we took off for the canal.  This was the first time I had given someone a ride while fully loaded.  My bike was handling it well, but was obviously overloaded. 

We pulled up at the Miraflores Locks twenty minutes later and ran inside to see the attraction.  I wasn’t too excited about seeing the locks until we arrived.  I’ve seen so many sights at this point that a post card is good enough.  The real experiences have proven to be in the streets talking to other travelers or locals and gleaning information off of them.  The locks themselves were not very interesting; just a bunch of Panamanians in hard hats walking around doing their day jobs.  There were no massive tanker ships coming through nor any opening or closing of the locks.  What was amazing was the symbolism that the locks represented once I got up there.  I knew I had made it to Panama, but it wasn’t until I looked down at the canal that I realized how far I’ve come since April 2^nd.  The Pacific was to the west and the Atlantic to the east.  The Atlantic Ocean was about fifty feet higher than the Pacific interestingly (hence the locks).  We took a lot of pictures up there celebrating the accomplishment of riding motorcycles through eight different countries down to the bottom of a continent.  For once in the past four months it felt like we had made it somewhere, rather than always being on the way.

Back in the parking lot we said goodbye to the Dutch girls and Patrick.  Monday night we had agreed that Anna would ride out to the dock on my bike since she was catching the same boat.  Andy took her backpack on his bike and Alex took on some extra weight as well.  Helmets on, we pulled out already late for the boat heading towards the Caribbean in a big hurry.  Naturally, we immediately got lost and ended up stuck in traffic for an hour. 

Sitting there sweating in 90F degree heat on top of an overheating engine in stop and go traffic late for the boat, I decided it very fitting that the final leg of such a massive journey be so tortuous.  Eventually though, the traffic let up and we started making better time.  Soon we had wide open road with 70mph cruising and things started looking up.  My bike was doing well with Anna on the back although twice the engine stopped running when I released the throttle at speed.  Both times I pulled over and it started up on the first try with no complaints.  I’m not sure the reason behind the shutdown, but I’m confident it had something to do with the weight or the heat.  If there is a problem developing, I’ll deal with that when it presents itself. 

With fifty miles to go we came to a checkpoint run by the Kunu people.  The Kunu are the locals who live throughout the southern Caribbean coast and the San Blas Islands.  They charged us $6 each to enter their property and we all willingly obliged.  At this point we were on schedule to be half an hour late for the boat.  Charlie and Alex took off in a mad dash into the Kunu territory.  The road was more like a big overdone rollercoaster.  Lots of ups and downs over the course of fifty miles of hairpin turns.  I was not enjoying myself: dehydrated and exhausted with an overloaded bike and a girl’s life at stake.  I remember thinking that it would be quite a feat if we all made it through this last stretch without crashing.  I was about to hit 10,000 with zero incidents.

That’s when I went down.  Not a typical motorcycle crash, this one occurred at about 2mph… in reverse.  Ten miles from the loading dock I wound around a very sharp turn that lead directly into the steepest hill I’ve ever ascended.  I hit the hill hard in second gear thinking I could make it.  Halfway up, though, my engine started bogging down as I fed it more and more gas.  Naturally, I shifted down to first as the power gave out in second gear.  In first gear now, I let out the clutch with the bike losing momentum very quickly.  As soon as the clutch dropped the front wheel popped off the ground and I was riding a wheelie.  I had the throttle closed but the engine’s revs were still coming down when the clutch released.  With all my gear and a girl weighing down the rear wheel, the front end lifted up with no effort at all.  Not about wheelie into a backflip that would crush both of us, I hit the brakes and the front wheel dropped back to Earth slightly to the right at an agle.

As soon as both wheels were on the ground I had my feet on the ground to keeping all 600+ plus pounds of the bike from tipping on the uneven slate.  But it wasn’t over yet.  I watched in terror as the front wheel started skidding down the hill.  The front brake was fully applied and holding the disk, but there was not enough weight up forward to keep the entire bike from slipping backwards.  As I mentioned, the front wheel came down slightly to the right after the wheelie so we started sliding backwards into the oncoming lane (thankfully there was no traffic for miles).  I held on trying to muscle the bike to a stop, but there was no way.  I couldn’t bring my right foot up to hit the rear brake because it was the only thing keeping us upright at that point. 

Eventually the levy broke and I couldn’t keep it up anymore.  I gave it one last ditch effort to dump us towards the uphill side but it was too late.  All the weight went to the downhill side and Anna and I were slammed down into the pavement with the bike taking the brunt of the impact.  It still wasn’t over.  At this point the bike started sliding down the hill with both of us still straddling it with our shoulders digging into the road.  In the midst of the entire ordeal (totaling about five seconds), Andy had come around the corner behind us.  He saw my predicament and knew he’d be in the same one if he tried to stop on the hill behind us.  Andy decided to pass in the other lane while he still had momentum.  Right as he was about to do so is when I backed my overloaded bike into his trajectory and then dropped it on myself.  Andy could do nothing but stop. 

I knew he was there as I slid towards him while listening to my bike grind along the pavement.  We slid right into him.  My head was just to the left of his forks when his front tire took the impact.  Battling the same hill with no other options, Andy dropped his bike as well.  He went down with his bike to the left with his front end landing right on my head.  Then, finally, everything stopped moving.  There was a set of bike forks resting on my helmet, but I was uninjured.  Anna hopped up and said she was fine as well.  Andy got up and immediately lifted his bike enough for me to get my head free.  We all three stood there and looked at each other for a moment, trying to put together what had just happened.  There were two bikes on their sides spread across both lanes on a slope so steep that they were liable to slide down the rest of the way if we weren’t careful.

We got to work right away.  Anna went up the hill to stop any oncoming traffic from running right through the entire wreck.  Andy and I got his bike up first.  Getting it back on its wheels was hard enough, but starting off on the hill was a whole new ordeal.  Neither of us wanted to see the same thing happen again.  At this time Ty and Jill showed up from behind l and saw our condition.  Ty stopped at the bottom of the hill and immediately started skidding backward himself.  Luckily Jill dismounted instantly and Ty was able to keep the V Strom upright as he found traction.  Observing the hill that had destroyed me, he decided to ride up to the top with his own bike and then come down to help us.  He smartly had Jill walk the section as he eased up the hill with all his body weight as far forward as he could get it.

Moments later Ty ran down to me and Andy and helped us position Andy’s bike.  Ty, the most experienced rider, hopped on and took Andy’s Tenere to the top.  Then he came back, helped us lift mine, hopped on, and rode it to the top as well.  Andy and I walked the rest of the way very shaken.  Up top I was glad to see that Anna escaped with just a couple of scratches on her right arm.  Andy’s bike was ok and mine had no real damage other than some gnarly scrapes and a punched in pannier.  My aluminum box on the right side took the impact and caved towards the bike around the steel rack.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  The box and the hand guards protected our legs as the bike slid.  Coming out with just a small dent is the least of my worries on this trip. 

Physically everyone was fine.  Emotionally I was rattled.  Andy offered to take Anna the rest of the way and I was happy to take his offer.  My worst nightmare had just come true.  Every time I take a passenger I tell myself that I can’t crash this time.  How awful it felt to be responsible for such a dangerous turn of events.  And I caused Andy to drop his bike too.  And I was hadn’t eaten for eight hours nor had any real means of hydration.  I was wrecked and now I had to hop back on the death machine and finish the fight.

Anna hopped on Andy’s now overloaded bike and we all took off together with me in the lead and Ty in the rear.  Classic of every time I’ve dropped my bike, everything felt wrong when I got back on.  It felt loose, rattily, and unsafe.  It was all in my head though.  Pulling Anna off changed the way it rode and the trauma of the accident had my mind absolutely warped.  I rode it out telling myself that I was just imagining things, which I was.

We rode for another fifteen minutes (nine miles).  I was just starting to calm down and feel comfortable when my engine sputtered and died.  Out of gas.  FML.  There really is no excuse to ever run out of gas, but here is mine.  When Alex and I rode into Panama City on Saturday we filled up at the first gas station we could find.  It was a prepay pump, the first we had used the entire trip.  We each put in $15 and emptied all 3.6 gallons into our tanks.  Then we set our tripometers back to zeros and took off for the hostel with a mental note that we didn’t have a full tank’s range.  Three days went by.  I looked at my tripometer Tuesday morning when everyone else was gassing up and I only had 15 miles on my tank… plenty of gas.  Then I rode about 150 miles burning more gas than I ever have before with the added weight.  Just in case that didn’t suck me dry, the icing on the cake was all the gas that dripped out the tank while my bike lay upside down for fifteen minutes on the road after my crash.

Life sucks and then you have to syphon gas.  Normally I have a spare liter of gas in my panniers but it had been empty since I left Trujillo, Honduras.  It’s one of those things you forget about after a couple days if you can get away with it.  The thought of filling it back up hadn’t crossed my mind in weeks.  Plan C; I grabbed my extra length of fuel hose out of my tool kit as well as my empty liter bottle for gas.  Andy unscrewed his gas cap and I went to work.  I stuck the hose in, brought the other end down below the tank, and sucked hard.  I’ve never huffed gas fumes before and I don’t plan to again.  I inhaled a full hit of the toxin and collapsed as it burned my entire respiratory system.  I tried again and got the same result.  My hose wasn’t long enough.  I went and got more, pulling it off the bike itself. 

This time the hose was long enough and I happily took a mouthful of 95 octane petrol.  The shit burned all around my mouth but I was happy to get two liters out of Andy’s tank.  Anything to get to the boat.  With my face on fire I put everything away, thanked everyone again for all their help, and slumped back into the saddle.  It was quarter mile more before we rounded the final corner and there in front of us bobbing in the water was the Stahlratte.  I carefully navigated some mud puddles and pulled up onto the dock.  I had made it, somehow.

7/29/2011- The Stahlratte

Today is Day 4 on the Stahlratte.  Built in Holland over 100 years ago, this hundred foot long, two hundred ton steel-hulled sailboat has a lot of history.  It was one of the first steel sailboats ever made.  Originally it was a fishing vessel until that market calmed down in the early twentieth century.  Eventually it was passed off to a junkyard until a group of people decided to purchase it and live as a commune aboard sailing around the world.  It’s an amazing idea.  I think at that point the pilot house and propeller were installed.  The commune had a hand in a variety of different jobs along the way; for a while they were even commissioned by Greenpeace.  By the time they got here to the Caribbean, they decided that the only way to keep the boat going was to stay for a while and work the tourist routes.  The Stahlratte normally makes our trip twice a month.  She also has routes scheduled for Cuba every month.  Google the boat and learn more.

Ludwig is our German captain. He’s awake from dawn to dusk all day, usually in his tightie whities.  He’s got a big pot belly and he’s always joking about something.  As for crew, there is Spaniard Donatan, French Floyd, and from Grant’s Pass, Oregon Ruthy.  They all take care of business throughout the day while we rock back and forth in the gentle swell.  The food on board is amazing.  I’ve eaten myself sick just about every meal; there’s so much.  The menu has been mostly seafood with plenty of rice and potatoes.  Last night in particular was a treat: lobster fresh that day out of the ocean.  The boat gets a good rock going through the waves.  Our bikes are strapped up on the sides of the deck; we’ll have to clean the salt off them when we arrive in Colombia tomorrow.  Best of all, when guys need to pee, they are encouraged to send it right over the hand railing. 

Day one we loaded the bikes up onto the boat and then headed out in the harbor to spend the night.  Ludwig tied loops around each bike’s steering column and rear frame.  Then using manpower he raised each bike through a pulley system onto the boat.  Then they were unhooked and then lashed to the deck; pretty simple.  Everyone was pretty tired that night so after a Kunu dinner on the nearest island we all turned in.    

Wednesday was quite a different story.  We were all up early for breakfast and excited to start the voyage.  The boat picked up eleven more passengers and we took off under power for our destination.  The boat offers as much food as you can eat for free.  The drinks are priced cheap ($1  beer/Coke, $10 bottle of rum).  We decided to start the festivities around noon.  Eventually the Stahlratte pulled up between two islands right beside a submerged shipwreck.  The San Blas Islands are truly honeymoon post card material.  There are always so many islands in sight; sometimes so thick you can see four or five in any direction.  They are little lumps of sand with anywhere from one to one hundred palm trees on top.  Those that are inhabited are held by the Kunu people.  They build thatch huts and docks all around the islands and inside is the city. 

Those who were interested grabbed snorkel gear and hopped in the warm turquoise water to check out the shipwreck.  I particularly enjoyed this part.  The deck of the wreck was just feet under the water.  This boat was another steel hull.  I checked out just about every nook and cranny I could identifying at least the engine room.  We all swam over the nearby island and splashed around on the beach for a bit. 

Dinner was on the island over the barbeque that night.  Jerk chicken with a whole lot of potato salad.  I ate it up and then swam back to the boat.  Fantastic night.  Thursday Ludwig fired up the engines early and we set sail for a three hour voyage further south.  Our second destination was similar to the first, but much less inhabited.  We spent the night with several other personal yachts amongst three small uninhabited islands.  During the day we snorkeled a nearby reef and floated around the Stahlratte with the beer cooler.  By nightfall the group was very familiar with each other and the empty rum bottles were piling up.  We have a young average age for passengers so very soon it was a full-blown boat party.  Lots of people singing and dancing on the table.  I had a great time peeing over the edge every twenty minutes. 

Today, Thursday, we are the walking dead.  I don’t feel hangover but I’m extremely tired.  I’ve taken two naps already.  I think four months of adventure and partying caught up with me today; my body is using the boat opportunity to sleep as much as possible.  It is such a drastic change to not be responsible for anything.  No choosing lodging, no worrying about the bike’s condition or vulnerability, no food decisions, no maps, no Spanish.  Just sit back, relax, and let someone else do the work for once.  It’s definitely what I need.  We dropped the sails this morning and started a thirty-hour non-stop voyage to Cartegena, Colombia.  The weather is good and we haven’t encountered much swell.  Tomorrow morning we arrive at port and ride off into a whole new continent.  I can’t believe we’ve comes so far.

7/30/2011- Touchdown!

I’m back on dry land on the other side of the world.  We got off this morning with just our gear; the bikes are delivered on Monday when customs is ready to deal with them.  I can’t walk straight around town because it feels like the whole world is rocking back and fourth after five days on the Stahlratte.  I’m well-fed and well-rested.  I’ll need a couple more days here in Cartegena getting my land legs back.  No matter the price, I will be buying my spare parts here before heading any further south.  I can’t wait to hit the street and check out the town.  From the boat it appeared beautiful and during the brief time I spent getting to the hostel it was alive with a culture like I haven’t seen before.  It feels like a tropical version of the Mediterranean; I could get used to that.  Everyone be sure to check out my latest photo update below!

Fotos VI

Live from South America, here is a photo update.

This is the mud road that led us back into Costa Rica just moments after we got stamped into Panama.  Not a fun day of riding.

Andy enjoying Day 2 of his motorcycle adventure.  He faired well, although wet like the rest of us.

Hanging out with the whole gang at Jack from Ferndale's place in Panama.  Epic garage.

Like the Millennium Falcon, it's still holding together.

Bocas del Toro at dusk.

Andy, Patrick, and Charlie enjoying the balcony at Bocas.

Flavor country.

Riding two-up with my bike in a pickup.  

Just another semi that ran off the road.

Everybody's final night in Panama City.  Lots of mojitos.

Patrick and me savoring the victory of the Panama Canal.

Ty and me in front of the Stahlratte moments after I dropped the bike on a hill and then huffed gas.  I needed a beer.

Winching the bikes aboard. 

Alex finally ran into some people his own age.

Our first night in the San Blas Islands.

The submerged shipwreck I got to explore.

Andy serenading the group with his travel guitar.

A classic San Blas island.  Life was good on the Stahlratte.

Final Boarding Call

As romantic as the idea of overland motorcycle travel sounds, there is no part of it that is easy.  It seems fitting that my last three days in North America turned out the way they did.  On the heels of a sleepless weekend at Bocas I have encountered major engine malfunction, severe tropical downpour, and failed to gather together any of the motorcycle parts I desperately need.

The night at Aqualounge at Bocas was exactly what we expected: loud rap music and drunken twenty-somethings jumping into the Caribbean off the dance floor throughout the night.  Even Charlie hopped in because ‘there was this particularly cute brunette’ that dared him to.  We stayed up too late that night and woke up very tired around noon the next day.  I lay around all day regaining my strength and went to bed as soon as I could Thursday night on the eve of a big push towards Panama City.

Friday morning we caught the 6:30am boat off the island back to the mainland.  We arrived at our pay parking lot around 7:00am and started repacking our bike luggage.  It was probably a forty-five minute process in total putting everything back in its place and putting all the gear on.  Finally everyone fired up their bikes; herd is about to start moving.  I popped the key in, put the transmission in neutral, dropped the choke, disengaged the engine killswitch, and hit the ignition.  The starter engine whined like it always does, but the 650cc’s wouldn’t turn over.  I tried different variations of choke and throttle for five minutes convinced the engine was cold.

That didn’t work.  Then I realized I had left my fuel petcock open all weekend.  In the past this has allowed the gas to seep from the engine and flood my carb.  So I drained the carb.  Still wouldn’t start.  Next step: rip off the seat and gas tank.  It started to rain.  I pulled the carburetor all the way off and disassembled it with Charlie’s help.  We checked all the gaskets and moving parts and everything was in order.  Put that back together and remount it.  Check the air filter; it was showing some dirt but no real signs of disorder.   We pulled out the spark plugs; they were charred but not necessarily bad.  I opened my spares and replaced them just in case.  Then we hit the ignition with the plugs out to blast out any gas that had flooded the cylinder.  There was no more gas in any part of the system.  Put it all back together and try again.

Again, nothing and now my battery was getting weaker.  Then someone recommended pulling the plugs out and actually looking for the spark by holding them to the engine block.   Five more minutes of pulling the seat and tank off again and the problem presented itself.  My spark plugs were not putting out any charge.  We knew the symptom, but a diagnosis was much more difficult.  The four other motor masterminds took turns offering more ideas.  We sprayed WD-40 on every connection in case water had seeped in.  We checked every fuse we could find.  We even pulled Alex’s ignition coil off his bike and put it on mine to see if that was the missing link.  My bike simply would not start.  By 9:30am there were multiple tool sets scattered around the parking lot and no answers. 

Time for a professional.  I got nervous.  The boat to Colombia leaves on Tuesday.  Not an ideal time to get stranded in the third world (Panama could very well be second world for all I know).  The saving grace is that we were in Central America and within a half hour the parking lot owners found a friend who was willing to haul my bike across the mountains to the nearest legitimate mechanic in a city called David.  His rate was $160 up front and that was good enough to me.  He pulled up in his little Toyota with a six foot bed.  Uh oh, my bike is at least seven feet long.  With the help of the town drunk we heaved it into the bed only to find out that it wouldn’t fit.  Amidst a lot of screaming and straining we managed not to drop the beast bringing it back down to the ground.

Of course, the Panamanians were not deterred.  They went to Plan B: take the front tire off.  So we did.  And in the midst of the process the drunk leaned on my bike on the kickstand side and the whole thing toppled over and slid into the ditch.  It was still pouring out.  I was soaked at this point.  I had my sleeping bag and pad on my seat at the time it went over.  I remember seeing both of them floating in the muddy ditch with gasoline reflecting all around them.  How did I ever end up here?  No time for philosophy, though; I rescued all my shit from the waterway and raked the bottom with my fingers to find my keys and padlocks.  I was wet anyway.

With the tire off and my hand now bleeding, we successfully hoisted the bike diagonally into the pickup with the front forks in the far corner tied up resting on top of the wheel well.  The driver strapped the whole thing down super tight and then broke some even more distressing news to us: he didn’t have room in the truck for me to ride along.  Al and I would have to ride two-up all the way to David… over the mountains and through the rain.  I still don’t know what I did to deserve any of this.

So moments later I threw my riding gear on over my soaked undergarments and high kicked over Al’s seat to mount up.  Straddling him like a Guatemalan horse, I gave a thumbs up and we took off following the Toyota.  I don’t know Al’s opinion, but the ride wasn’t as bad as I expected.  He didn’t kill us and I got to check out some cool views.  The rain let up for most of the ride and four hours later we pulled into a backyard mechanic’s garage in David.  Oh great, the ‘friend’ recommendation; classic of Central America, our driver had brought us to his buddy’s hole in the wall operation on the outskirts of town.  We unloaded the bike and I started to explain to the head mechanic what we knew about the spark plugs.  I was sure to stress the fact that I was booked on a boat to Colombia in four days.

Tato the mechanic looked at the bike confidently while deciphering my information.  His mind was obviously racing.  I pulled the seat and tank off and let him go to work.  Immediately Tato pulled out a multimeter and started putting it against all the different connections.  He had a worried look on his face.  He tried the same readings on Alex’s bike; while my bike was reading 1800, Al’s was reading 240; not good.  Tato narrowed it down to two possible conclusions.  First he unscrewed the computer off of my bike and plugged into Alex’s.  Al’s bike fired right up.  My bike has a functioning brain!  Dodged one bullet.

At that point the problem was diagnosed: a failed stator linkup.  I didn’t know what that meant, but I was not excited as I saw the next ten minutes unfold.  Tato drained my oil and then pulled out his Swiss Army knife.  He ripped off my left-side engine case as I watched in horror; four days until the boat leaves and my engine is being pulled to pieces… its guts strewn across the ground.  The stator was mounted on the inside of the case and Tato started cutting through the factory gasket so he could get a better look (the whole time reassuring me that he knew what he was doing as he grabbed for his beer).  He found the culprit; it was a little black box mounted on in the case and some component of it had failed.

Tato pulled out a pair of wire cutters and cut the piece right off, again swearing that he could put it back together with a beer in hand.  The stator is a series of wrapped wires that work with a magnet inside the engine to generate power for the bike.  Similar to an alternator on a car.  A new one costs around $300 and cannot be bought here in Panama.  And Tato just chopped mine in half. 

Somehow though his confidence really was reassuring.  I just watched with blind faith the whole time.  If this guy can’t do it, I am screwed.  Would I truck the bike to the boat and fix the problem in Colombia or miss the boat and catch up two weeks from now?  I didn’t want to think that hard.  I just watched him squirrel through all his little boxes of gadgets until he pulled out a similar looking little black box and examine it.  He seemed satisfied.

Then he ripped the bracket off it and started matching it up to the one from my bike.  They did not match.  For the next half hour Tato sat over a grinder and a vice forging a new bracket that would work in my engine case.  At about three beers deep he managed to get it right.  He put it back in my engine case, dialed its position, and soldered the wires back together.  He pulled out he mulitimeter and it measured 269.  Next beer is on me Tato!

Half an hour later he had my engine back in one piece and refilled with high quality oil.  He hit the ignition and to unimaginable delight the bike chugged once and then roared to life.  Back in the game.  This bike is my identity now and I was getting frantic with it out of commission.  This man just saved my trip; the thrill of adventure had never been stronger.  Tato was smiling and so was I.  He had dropped everything he was doing and in three hours diagnosed the problem and built the solution with his bare hands.  I paid him $115 bucks well spent and then we took a big family picture (by this time we were well acquainted with everyone hanging out on in his garage). 

That night Al and I got the first hotel we could find and rested up for Panama City.  We took off early Saturday morning and spent the next eight hours riding through intermittent rain.  It was nothing new; just plain old hell on wet Earth.  My gear did ok this time but I got wet anyway; before I got a chance to zip my jacket up tight, a bus drove through a six-inch deep puddle next to me and fanned a wall of water down my chest.  I was damp the rest of the day.  We got to Panama City and had a hell of a time finding the guys’ hostel.  After an hour of doing circles we finally did though.

The hostel was the first of its kind.  It is built specifically for motorcyclists who are trying to cross from Panama to Colombia.  There was a plethora of information for spare parts, maintenance, and anything else motorcycle-related.  It sounds like heaven, but we only spent one night there because the place was over capacity just with the seven of us staying.  Seven?  Yes, we are seven people strong now that Jill and Ty have caught up.  Last time we saw Jill and Ty was at Zephyr Lodge and they were off to Guatemala City to fly home to care for Ty’s sick mother.  Good news, she is fully recovered and we are all back on the same trail. 

So, after four months on the road, we have all funneled down into Panama at the same time and we’re all catching the same boat into Colombia.  It’s quite a thrill at such a momentous time.  Unfortunately, Patrick won’t be joining us; he is flying off to his native Sweden this week to continue his vacation.  We’ll have to catch up with him further down the road in the next few years; until then, Patrick, you’ll be missed. 

Today was a Sunday so shopping was limited.  We moved closer to downtown to a more comfortable hostel and everyone is resting up for a shopping spree tomorrow.  I still need tires, cables, sprockets, spare brakes, and a chain.  Luckily the police here ride DR650’s so I should be in luck.  Fingers crossed.  If there is time we also want to ride along the canal and take that in for what it’s worth.  I crossed it coming into town and the scale is much bigger than I imagined.  Tuesday we crane the bikes onto the boat and then it is four days of cruising through the San Blas Islands toward Colombia on a 100 year old sailboat.  I am ready for it after the fiasco I’ve been through.  I probably won’t have Wi-Fi for about a week now, so keep reading and thanks to everyone for the comments.  The trip isn’t even halfway in and there is another full continent ahead.  Buckle up!