Colombia beautiful Colombia

We arrived in Cartagena on Saturday the 12th of November 2011. This was festival time. We were not able to get permits for our bikes until Tuesday. The Migration Office was closed.
I had two days to enjoy Cartagena.

Carolin, I and Marcio enjoying popular Colombian Aguila.

When I was waiting for the permit, group of six bikers arrived. Among them two Australians Adrian from Tasmania and Tim from Alice Springs. They planned to visit Venezuela and Angel Falls.
I always wanted to visit Angel Falls. The world's highest waterfall. We exchanged our email addresses and promised to keep in touch.

 

I spent one week in Cartagena. Beautiful city with very well restored old town. Cartagena was founded in 1533 by Spaniards. For its fame and wealth it quickly became an attractive plunder site for pirates and corsairs – French and English privateers licensed by their king. Spain in 16th and 17th centuries pumped a lot of money to improve Cartagena's fortifications. It built very impressive eleven kilometer long wall surrounding the town with bastions and underground tunnels. At the time thought to be impregnable to attackers.

Impressive fortification at night.

An old town

Main gate at night

Christmas decorations.

  Main gate in daylight.

At night this place is full of people dancing and enjoying the nightlife.

Narrow colonial streets.

Pick your hat......

The church

and inside the church.

Many horse driven carriages more then happy to take you for a ride around the town. 

Next Santa Marta but first I visited mud volcano - El Totumo.

Only one way in and one way out

Spot the black Fella

and after the treatment

I passed some villages set right in  the middle of the lake.

I arrived in Santa Marta late afternoon. I ran on to three German backpackers. We crossed from Panama to Cartagena on the same boat. I had to find a hostel quickly. It was getting dark. I arrived at Luna hostel. Shortly after I heard familiar roar - KLR roar. It was Adrian and Tim, two Australian riders I met  earlier in Cartagena. We decided to ride together around Venezuela.

But first Tyrone Beach. 

This looks just like back at home in Australia except for sticking up cactus.

Tim y Yo

We passed several places dedicated for camping.

Very characteristic rock formations for the area

We walked pass many picturesque bays

and more beautiful bays

Tim is cracking the coconut.

In the park's car park we saw a bike looking very familiar to us. It was Stefan, the Canadian living in Panama City with his Colombian girlfriend Natalie. We decided to meet the next morning and ride together to the Venezuelan border.

But first the waterfalls - local attraction.

We are on our way

Often walking in pristine clear river.

Adrian is helping some locals to move the furniture

And finally very impressive waterfall

Time to return to our bikes and continue ride to Venezuelan border.

We came across army of ants carrying leaves to their nest

We stopped at roadside restaurant for a dinner. Shortly after group of Indians arrived and sat next to us. The looked very intriguing in their traditional clothing. I asked for permission to take a photo. Permission was declined at first but shortly after an elder came to me agreeing to have photo with me.

This man insisted to stand on the bitumin just not to look shorter then me.

Tim wanted to see Flamingos. We went off road. After several kilometers road became impassable.

Natalie checking the road.

This is sticky according to Tim

To much for this BMW

We had to turn back. 

We stopped at the small town and became instant attraction for the the day and probably main discussion topic for the whole week

We parked our bikes inside this hotel riding through the lobby.

Next day after checking tire pressure we rode towards Venezuelan border where we split from Natalie and Stefan. They continued their ride around Colombia.

Local LLantera

We must be getting pretty close to Venezuelan border. Cheap fuel appeared on the side of the road.

Fuel pumping Colombian way.

The movie is showing how this is done:

       The movie clip