Spending time in Colombia changed the views of the country for this writer.

Somehow “Colombia” almost had a negative connotation for me. Cocaine and cartel-related crime instantly sprung to mind, before reason could remind me that there must be more to this country where thousands of people live their lives. I knew the only remedy would be to have a look for myself, so I was super excited to finally touch down in Bogota. My partner, Aidan, and I were on a motorcycle journey from Canada to Argentina, but since we couldn’t ride across the Darien Gap (a stretch of just over 100 km of deepest jungle), we had to fly from Panama to Colombia, and the bikes would follow.

With time to spare, we explored the capital and its tempting street food. Having seen pigs’ heads stare back at us from heated glass vitrines, we just had to try lechona. It’s a mix of slow-cooked pork, spiced rice and sweetcorn, stuffed into the roasted skin of the pig. Each portion is served with some maize arepas (a type of corn flatbread) and a piece of the crunchy crackling. It’s a very filling meal, and we decided to walk it off, heading from hip Chapinero to La Candelaria, the old, colonial part of Bogota. 

In the cobblestone alleyways behind Plaza de Bolivar, brightly coloured buildings house art shops, trinket sellers and restaurants. A little further up the hill, a triangle of narrow alleys is lined with small, mural-covered buildings, hippie shops and funky bars. 

Reunited with the Bikes

A couple of days later, we retrieved the bikes from the shippers and headed west across the mountains. My partner on his powerful BMW F650 GS didn’t notice, but the higher we climbed, the more my loaded little Honda NX250 struggled. At the time I put it down to the effects of the altitude on the carburetor and switched to a lower gear, plodding along as the late afternoon sun dreamily lit up grassy slopes and leafy treetops. 

By evening, the farmlands gave way to a wild melee of short and tall grasses strewn with mossy boulders. We pitched our tent as cool mist encroached and tucked into dinner watching the hazy sunset.

We knew our bikes weren’t in great shape and had planned a bit of a TLC stay at Donkey Sunrise — an ADV moto hostel amidst the sugar cane fields and vineyards near La Union. Even with the bikes out of action for maintenance, there was lots to keep us entertained, from a stand-off between a cat and a snake that resulted in the snake hiding in someone’s shoe, to a tour of the winery in town. When my parcel…