Back on the bikes the plan was simple - get out of Cucuta and try to get as far as possible without getting killed - We were aiming for a small town called San Gil a few hundred Km’s North East of Bogota.

We’d already learnt the hard way, it’s not the distances here you look at but the terrain. Journeys of 50-60 miles are taking us 4-5 hours. Today was going to be no exception. Tight twisty mountain curves were keeping our progress down to a crawl. Concentration has to be 110% cars, coaches and beaten up trucks over take on blind bends. Around every bend there’s a good chance that something will be heading your way and on your side of the road and believe me they’re not going to move. By 3:00 pm I’d already been run off the road twice and Lisa had had a few close calls.

The recent rain wasn’t helping. The heavy rain had pulled down sections of the mountain side, which now lay across the road. We lost count of the number of times we’d been forced to a stop as we waited to skirt the debris of mud and plant life that had been smeared across our lane.

Still, a stunning day of incredible Colombian scenery. We’d ridden through towering mountains and then dropped into deep mountain gorges, then struggled through heavy mist when the rain started…..which then left the deep green tropical forestation around us dripping and humid when the sun came back out…..bringing with it a deep pungent aroma of unmistakable jungle. The roads were fantastic on a bike and the views were to kill for, we were just hoping that it wouldn’t be us doing the dying.

We managed to crawl into San Gil at 6:00pm just as dusk turned to night and found another small cheap hotel in the centre of town (GPS:N6 33.187 W73 07.985. San Gil is a 300 year old town on the main road through to Bogota and so it’s a great place to have an overnighter. After dumping our stuff in the hotel we wandered to a very cheap café to have what seemed to be the only food available here…chicken, roasted, or fried and with chips, chips or….chips. The café was close to the riverside park where the trees were covered with what we later learnt to be ‘barbas de viejo’ – long silvery fronds of tillandsia – very eerily beautiful.

By 6:30 am San Gil was already half an hour behind us. We’d woken the few other remaining guests as we started our bikes and rode out of the secure area the hotel had provided. It was hard to get our heads around the idea that in just a few hours we’d be in Bogota, Colombia’s capital. We’d not had too bad a morning, the road had been fair and we’d had fewer close calls than yesterday.

The large blue sign read ‘Bogota 120 km’. We could feel the excitement grow in the pit of our stomachs. We’d be there by 1:00pm. OK, the plan; ride straight to the airport, see Girag, meet with Carolina and get as much info as possible, hey , maybe even book the bikes on a plane for Monday.

Short entry:

We spent the day with Emily at the Zipaquirá Salt Mine an hour bus ride out from Bogotá.

It’s been an exciting, confusing, frustrating and bewildering few days.

With Edgar found we started moving the bikes from the workshop to the showroom. Edgar was looking smart. He’d asked yesterday if he could have his photo retaken with his white shirt on and in front of the large BMW wall poster of the R1150 GS adventure and the ‘Piedra de Arbol’. It seemed a shame not to make the effort to retake his portrait. Photos taken we hit a snag. Lisa’s bike wasn’t starting in any gear with the clutch pulled in. It would bark to life in neutral but nothing else. Something was screwy with the electrical gear sensor. By the time I’d explained the problem to Lisa, Edgar had already wheeled the F650 back to the workshop.

40 minutes of tinkering by Alejandro saw the problem sorted. Like so many times before on our amazing journey we did our best to express our thanks to people who only a few days back had been strangers. Again to Henry, Edgar, Alejandro and the managers and owners of BMW Autogermana a huge and sincere thank you to you all.

The delay had cost us, we needed to crack on. We still needed to get to the Girag offices, sort the paperwork, pay and get our bikes ready for the flight tonight and of course get ourselves a flight to Panama city. We hadn’t been able to pre-book anything as we were unsure as to when the bikes would be ready.

We’d parked up in front of the Girag offices and had drawn a crowd in seconds. One of us needed to stay with the bikes and kit. Whilst I’d waited and answered the barrage of normal questions, Lisa had gone into the Girag office to start the paperwork. The 1 ½ hours outside seemed to drag. I was still in bike kit and sweating my ass off.

Finally Lisa and Carolina appeared. OK, we needed to get the bikes and kit into the warehouse. Easier said than done. The only way was to ride the bikes up the two sets of brick stairs, into the reception of the building and then into the warehouse from the side doors. I was only now remembering an email from a friend warning us of exactly this. Oh well here goes…?

A wooden palette had been laid across the first 4 steps that led to the first level and up I went on Lisa’s bike. The next section was longer and steeper, 14 taller steps and then a hard brake before running headlong into the reception desk and furniture. There was no point contemplating this. Lining up the bike the front wheel popped up and then the back, a blip of the throttle and the bike had popped up. I’d braked hard and had missed the reception desk by about a foot and then wiggled the bike right, in past the two small narrow doors and into the warehouse. Time for the ‘big girl’.

Lisa’s bike had smashed the crap out of the first wooden palette but the first 4 stairs hadn’t been a problem. “Ah well, in for a penny in for a pound”, I thought to myself. 20 or so workers had gathered around to watch me fuck this up and fall on my ass. On the second level I stood on the pegs, lined up the bike, brought her to the first step, leant back and blipped the throttle. She behaved beautifully. The front wheel caught the second step and the remaining twelve and a second or two later I’d braked and was back in reception. I’d never ridden stairs before. Half an hour later and I’d managed to get both bikes and bags onto the scale to be weighed and had moved them around the back into an adjoining warehouse. The total weight was split – 320kg for one and 324kg for the other, without fuel or tank bags.

Carolina had been speaking to Lisa in the meantime. We now needed to walk over to the Aduana, on the other side of the dual carriageway in another section of the airport and get our carnets signed and stamped. We then needed to get the appropriate departure clearance from the Police following a narcotics search. Um, there was only one small hiccup in this plan…it was now 12:00pm and the Police and Aduana were now on lunch until 2:00pm. They start their lunch break at 11am… WHAT!!! How much sodding food do they need to eat? “You’re kidding’”, we thought! How can the whole Police and customs department close down for three hours at an international airport. OK, well we now needed to use the time to get ourselves over to the main airport terminal and buy our tickets.

We’d been to the Avianca flight and ticket desk twice before in the last week to double check prices and flight times and to their sales office in the Unicentro Mall in Bogota and been quoted all three times US$ 218 without taxes and around US$315 with taxes. That seemed about right for a 1 hour and 5 minute flight. We’d been asked each time ‘one-way’ or ‘return’, and had answered one-way. OK, not rocket science? On all three occasions we been told in English and in Spanish the latest flight time to Panama City was at 4:30pm with check in at 3:30pm.

We’d now been at the Avianca desk for 30 minutes and had got nowhere, I was getting agitated. The price we were now being asked to pay to get on the flight was $1,500.00 US…What!?!?!?!?!?! For love or money that would not sell us the one-way ticket we’d been quoted for…3 fuckin' times. Only with the intervention of an English speaking assistant did we finally get our heads around what was going on and to make matters worse the plane time had been changed (or they gave us the wrong info to start with) and the flight was now departing at 3:30pm and the last check in was 2:55pm!!

Bottom line was that apparently Panama demands proof of onward travel and so airlines have to sell you a return. I was furious, try as I might the 3 assistants that were now dealing with us in English and Spanish did not understand the fact that we had been completely mislead. What the hell is the point of asking if we wanted one-way or return and then quoting us for a one-way ticket (at £150pp approx) if that ticket wasn’t on sale…it isn’t an option. It’s like going to buy a car that you’ve been told is £500, showing up with your hard earned cash and being told that the car will cost £4,000 because the price of £500 is only for the front wheels and axle and that the car has to be sold as a whole…Duh….AaAArrrrgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Spitting feathers doesn’t even come close to describing how I was feeling. We explained the fact that we were then leaving Panama for Costa Rica via a land border and by motorbike…the fact that we were stood there looking like frigging astronauts in full bike kit with helmets in hand seemed to prove our point…it made no difference. We’d now been going in circles for so long that this whole episode had become mute – we’d now missed any chance of getting on the flight anyway, and as yet still needed to complete the police and Aduana process to get our bikes out of the country. We walked away in disgust.

10 mins later and we were at the Copa Airlines desk and dealing with a young and distinctly more helpful sales assistant. Their last flight for Panama left at 5pm and the last check-in was 3:30pm…..it was now 2:10pm! We had to get a move on. We’d had the Panamanian requirements confirmed. OK, so basically we needed to prove that we were leaving the country, and with a little research had discovered it was going to be cheaper to buy and onward ticket to Guatemala (that we wouldn’t use!) than it was to buy a return back to Bogota, either way we were looking at a little over 700 quid! This seemed absolutely ridiculous for a 1hour 5 min flight. We were now running out of time.

We’d managed to hail a cab and had got ourselves over to the Aduana, and had emerged…Victorious, stamped and cleared Carnet in hand and no inspection. Back in the taxi and around to the police office. Dam there was already 12 people in a line in front of me. An hour later and I’d managed to secure the illusive signature and stamp and again managed to talk them out of a 30 minutes narcotics search…No I have no clue how I did this or why they conceded?

Back at the Girag offices we threw the documentation at Carolina and paid the last remaining US$80 to complete the process.

Down stairs and with the clock still running our taxi had been waiting. We were still in full, hot and sweaty bike kit, MX boots and all. By now I’d lost most of the skin off my heel and right ankle from the rubbing in my MX boots.

We simply threw our bags o the floor outside, ripped them open, strip down to our underwear to the surprise of on looking warehouse loading staff and jumped into our jeans and a shirt for the flight.

This isn’t how we’d envisaged our departure from South America. Back at the airport and with the Taxi paid we headed inside. Our newly purchased army issue duffel bags into which we’d stuffed our MX boots, riding kit and bits from our tank bags were hurriedly locked and plasti-wrapped and finally weighed and accepted by the check-in staff.

We were now running up two flights of stairs and pushing our way past the milling masses, who were embarking their own flights at a more leisurely pace. At last after two x-ray machines and two searches we were at the passport desk being signed out. The fun wasn’t over.

We handed over our boarding card to the flight attendant, who in English had informed us that the security staff had selected our bag for a security check. Following him down the small corridor and into the small grey room the stern officer demanded we open the bag. This was one of the same bags we’d just padlocked and paid US$ 10 to get completely plasti-wrapped, basically the bags were bound thick and tight in ‘industrial strength ‘cling-film’. “Will it be re-wrapped” we asked? No of course not. Our plane was ready to leave. We hurriedly unpacked our stinking dirty kit. “Right, go ahead…stick you hands in our 7-years old rancid foot infected and sweat sodden, stinking MX boots…I hope you catch some really nasty”, we thought to ourselves trying to gain some kind of mental compensation from our persecutor. (It was just the mood we were in, by now we were beginning to believe in the idea of conspiracy theories). Search done we did up the bag as best we could, nabbed a thick plastic bag and once again wrapped up the end.

Finding our seats on the plane was the first thing that had gone smoothly this day. Bloody hell, I’m knackered just thinking about this as I write it up.

Anyway, 1-hour and 5 minutes later and with night falling we landed in a hot and humid Panama City. Picked up free advice for a clean hotel in town and rode a taxi to Costa Inn hotel.

I’m now going to pass out…night, night!