Peenie Wallie

Now, someone else wakes up and says "why won't the lights come on", and now I'm the one to deliver the bad news. Now, more flashlights as we try to get ready to cross the ocean - packing to cross the gulf today to Turbo. Our bikes will be on one boat (Rio Acandi), from Sapzurro to Turbo. We will be on another boat ('Renato I') from Capurgana to Turbo. The boat Rio Acandi will come into the harbor this morning and load our bikes on it somehow.

We wake up and start packing. It's always a panic when a boat comes into the harbor. I want to blame it on Fritz, the screaming German, but really it's more than just that. It's that this boat is in the harbor for a limited amount of time, and to make the most money, you have to unload and load the boat as quickly as possible. So, it's always an inherently maddening situation. This black hole of space-time where all of this dangerous loading and unloadin of the boat has to happen immediately and then the boat is leaving.

Somone says that we will use the lancha to load our bikes onto the Rio Acandi. Great. Fucking hell. But everyone is just resigned to it. What choice do we have.

So now, it is time to get onto this boat, it seems. I start packing like mad, as fast as possible running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Trying to get the motorcycle ready to load onto a vessel (Rio Acandi) to cross the gulf to Turbo without me. I pack up all of my gear, and race it out to the bike, stored in the back of the hostel.

I throw all of my gear on the bike, somehow, and ride the bike down the embarcadero to the dock. We ride our bikes out onto the dock. For Tune's bike, they just load it by hand, but his bike is lighter. For the KTM's, I've imagined that we will load the bikes with a crane, and then use tiedowns to fasten them securely. Instead, they throw a crate across the water between the boat and the dock and insist that we drive across the packing crate. I'm like "holy fuck".

Greg goes first on Jenny's bike. The crate is about 3'-4' long, and at an insanely steep angle to get from the dock ot the boat. Then, there are other crates just left lying around on the boat that are clearly obstacles/impediments to this process. Somehow, Greg drives the bike madly aboard the boat without crashing. Just truly insane. I'm very impressed with his skills as a motorcycle rider, as a less-experienced rider would certainly have crashed at that point.

Now, I am next. Holy fuck. I figure that, if he can do it, I can do it. So I put on my helmet with GoPro running and ride my bike up onto the boat also. Just insane. Hard to believe anyone would ever try this. Somehow, Greg loads now his bike onto the boat, and now all 4 bikes are on the boat.

Now, I open my Givi case and get out the WD40 and start spraying my bike again. Also, I start to pull out my tiedowns to tie down my bike. But now, they're saying they need a copy of the bike's titles.

I am the only one that has a copy of my title with me, because I sort of panicked and brought all of my gear with me. Only our bikes go on this boat but, as always, I was confused. So, I hand them a copy of the title to my bike, and the boat starts to leave the pier, immediatley.

Now, I'm looking around in a blind panic. FUCK!! Where are the keys to my bike? Everything happens so fucking fast. Now, the boat is leaving the dock and I can't find my keys and now I see them sticking out of the Givi case but I don't know how to say "keys" in Spanish. And, it's maddening "Amigo..amigo...motocycleta....necessito keys" and I make a sign like turnking a key in the ignition. But no one gets it and the boat is sailing away. Some other people come down the dock. Somehow, we make them realize I need the keys. And he pulls the key from the givi case, and now he's going to throw it to the dock. And I'm like...are you fucking kidding me? Lord God. I don't want to lose my keys, and he tosses them from the boat to the pier and I catch them without dfsropping them in the ocean. I don't know how much more of this I can take. I don't know how much longer this can go on.

Now, we go back to our hostel.

Now, there is some talk of breakfast. They serve breakfast and cafe at the hostel. Now, I realize that I can't find my boots. I walk back down to the dock, but my boots are not at the dock. And they're not in my room. Now, I'm thinking about finishing my journey through Latin America wearing flip flopsa. This is going to suck in a big way. Not fun. I'm going to lose my feet and I'll limp for the rest of my life.

I can't find them anywhere. I go back and ask the owner of the hostel, Mario, if he can ask the boat if my boots are on the boat. Only then does he admit that he took my boots and put them behind a planter for some reason. And didn't tell me. And if I didn't ask him to call the owner of the boat and see if my boots were on the boat, then I wouldn't have a pair of boots right now.

So I now have all of my gear. Thank goodness. Now that the bikes are gone, we choke down a breakfast and cafe at the hostel, and now we go get into a little lancha in the harbor. The lancha stops for gas on the way out of the harbor.

Now, we take the lancha into Capurgana. We buy our boat tickets for Turbo - they need our passports, and now they want us to put our luggage into some black garbage bags. THey put a tiny sticker on the bag, and give us a tiny receipt that we will use to match the bags when we unload. I'm not sure how big the boat is though, and I assume this will be a nightmare, so I keep my CC Filson bag with me, as always. Now, we have a brief period of time, it seems, before we get on the boat that will take us to Turbo, so I race through the streets of Capurgana, looking for something to drink. I see Donnie still sitting at the Hostel Capurgana. Now, I get a watermelon drink. Now at the store by the dock, more drinks and a waterproof bag for my CC Filson handbag.

We clamber for seats on the boat but realize at some point that the skiff we're on will not be full. So we spread out a bit. I sit inside on the aisle, so that I will get less water spray from the ocean. And now we take off south. At some point, we stop and pick up other people. I'm not clear what town this was in.

Now, still we are on the 'Renato I' skiff sailing...i think...South.

When we get to Turbo, we will go to aduana, and wait to pick up our bikes. Reportedly, Turbo is not a safe town, and not a place that we should spend the night. Instead, we are told to go to Necocli on a bus, if needed, to avoid Turbo at night. The canals are reportedly putrid and disgusting.

Now, a girl in the boat starts barfing, one row ahead of me, and on the other side of the aisle.

I am left to wonder about our bikes. I never got a chance to put my tiedowns on my bike. When we saw the bikes on the boat in Capurgana, they were not tied down, but we were assured, of course, that they would be.

There's a reason for the Darien Gap. It keeps people in business. It allows people to profit moving cargo and people through the fronterra. If the fronterra went away, then what would these people do? Right now, they're smuggling people, drugs, cars, bikes, all sorts of things between North and South America. Who would gain by building a road between the two continents? Not many people, honestly. Not many people drive to Central America today from North America because it's too far, and there are too many border crossings. It's faster and easier to fly.

Now, we stop at the port town of Trigana, Colombia, briefly, before continuing south along the coast.

The girl in front of me is working on her English. I'm working on my Spanish. She points to my friends (Tune and Jenny).

"They have dreams?" she asks.

(Apparently, she meant that they were dreaming...as in, asleep.)

Yes, I'm sure that they do have dreams, or they wouldn't be down here. We all have dreams, it seems. Some of us are more serious about chasing them than others, I think. But we all have dreams.

We're down here on a very serious journey across the planet on motorcycles, so I think it's safe to say that we have some dreamers with us.

It's tough riding with them though because their Spanish is better than mine, and they don't really see me as an asset. So, we'll be parting ways as soon as we leave Turbo. Also, it's hard for me because "I rode my motorcycle here from Colorado" sounds a lot better if the 3 other people riding with you didn't come from further away.

However, I was able to successfully negotiate a deal for us to get the bikes from Sapzurro to Turbo on my own. So, I'm happy that I was able to accomplish that. I don't really need anyone else with me on this journey, so I'll be riding south as soon as possible.

Now, we turn out away from land, heading southeast towards an island and a point jutting out into this bay. Shortcutting across a gulf, it seems, near Rio Atrato.

I talked to people who told me that the jewel of the Carribbean is the Colombian town of Cartagena. It's supposed to be really beautiful. European even. This would be nice to see, but I'm not clear that I have time for this on this trip.

Renato I
CP-08-1065

This boat that we're on has about 10 rows, that each seats 6 people. So, it would easily carry 60 people. It's the nicest boat that I've been on in Colombia. I don't feel unsafe crossing in this boat, as it's farily large.

We cross the gulf and eventually enter into the port at Turbo. It's just so foul there aren't words. 3rd world trash and crowds. The canal we pull into is basically just an open sewer. Makes you want to vomit just to inhale. Sunken ships on both sides of the canal. Not a place you'd want to put on your tourist brochures.

We come to a port, and now it's time to unload. I have most of my gear with me, and only a few items (my riding gear and my helmet) in a black plastic bag I gave to them to stow when we boarded. Now, I wait at the head of the boat for them to pull up my bag with the number 462 on it. Verify that it's mine, and now we walk into an area here at the port. I'm not clear where to go. We're pinned like a bug in amber. But now, we regroup and go back the way we came in, and now we're released into the streets of Turbo.

It's just complete madness. There's no way to describe it. In the middle of the day, beneath the sweltering mid-day sun in December, on the day before Christmas, we're trying to cross a street without dying, as motorcycles of all forms race past. Horses carry goods from store to store, pulling produce on a flat 2-wheeled wooden handmade wagon.

We seek the shelter of some shade trees, and the others in the group tell me to put up my cameras, and I do. Now that I look around, I see that I'm in the sketchiest place I've ever been. This is not Mexico. It's way worse than that. You don't want anything to draw attention to yourself here. You don't want to stand out. That's for certain.

Now, we start trying to come up with a plan of what to do. I want to check into a hotel room, as I'm reasonably sure we're not going anywhere anytime soon.

They want to go to Aduana (Customs) and wait for the bikes. So we decide to get a taxi, but they can't get anyone to offer us a resonable fare to go to the port and check on our bikes.

Jenny wants to walk. And I tell her flatly....I'm not walking anywhere. That's not going to happen. I'm carrying all of this gear. We're not walking in the mid day sun for 17 minutes or 17 miles or 17 anything. I'm not going to do it.

Finally, Toon flags someone down in the streets of Turbo, a cab driver, and he agrees to take us, but now that we all get in the car, the price changes, and Toon is furious. He's about to lose it, and finally it is all sorted out. They thought we were asking to go to a city 3 hours away. It was a miscommunication.

So now, we have a cab, and a cab driver, and he drives us out to the military post where Customs (Aduana) will process our bikes when they come into Turbo. But they're closed today. And tomorrow (Christmas). So, it looks like Tuesday morning is the soonest we could get our bikes processed into the country legally. However, they're OK if we go out and get our bikes when they come into the port. Originally, we were told our bikes would be in Turbo by noon, but the boat was late leaving (big surprise), so now it looks like they'll be here closer to 4:00 p.m. (Jenny and Greg are tracking them via SPOT).

But now, it seems that the boat hasn't left Capurgana, so they're not going to be here by noon, obviously.

Our cab driver now takes us back into town. On the way there he turns around and speaks directly to me, and I reply to him in Spanish.

"Maybe it would be better if you just let us handle the communications," Jenny says condescendingly as she turns to me.

"He turned around and spoke directly to me, and I certainly have every right to reply to him. Thanks very much."

Like...I was married for 7 years. You're not going to win this one. You might have Greg beat into a corner for pulling his beard all day, but you're not getting down on me. That's not going to happen. Thanks for playing.

Now, we go back to the police station in Turbo, and try to get them to help us, but I think that we really don't have any option but to stay here in Turbo until Tuesday morning.

We were warned for sure not to stay in Turbo, as it was too dangerous, but now, we go to a hotel, in downtown Turbo, and we check into the Hotel Costa Del Sol. (The local police said it was safe, apparently.)

At least now, we have a base to operate from while we wait to process our bikes through Aduana (Customs). Also, we have A/C, showers, & internet although I'm not clear how fast it is. Now that I have internet access, I'll try to catch up on some photos.