Motorcycle Explorer February 2015 Issue 4 | Page 254

I
t was time to move on from our travel oasis. The capital, Bogota, was calling, and the city
was madness. How many million people on the road were all trying to be first?! There weren’t
any of the usual South American city speed bumps either. But the potholes were massive and the
ever-present threat of missing manhole covers was enough to keep the speed down to a
manageable level.
Bogota traffic lights are designed to frustrate drivers and overheat motorcycle engines! Our feet
turned into portable swimming pools under the Boxer twins’ horizontal cylinders. We had only
driven 150 kilometres the day we arrived but were shattered by the time we found somewhere
to stay. The few budget hotels all had entrances too narrow to fit the wide handlebars of the
BMWs through. But the old and rather magnificent Youth Hostel building, tucked onto the edge
of the city centre, had a large arched double door onto the street. With the help of some chunks
of wood we found lying in the gutters we could get the bikes up the steps and through the doors.
Inside, we found a large tiled courtyard lined with plants in big terracotta pots. It was covered
with a curved and yellow-stained glass roof. Perfect. The door was locked at night, they had a
room that the four of us could share, and we were within easy walking distance of the sights and
shops.
The madness that is Bogota continued as we found our way around and continued researching
how to get the bikes from Colombia to Panama. As we’d found before, trying to do bike things
and bike-related research is a fantastic way to see a city. Yes we could and did go to the things
that you are supposed to see, and Bogota has many of those, but the hunt for my rain trousers
took us to another world. I’d not strapped my trousers onto the back of the bike properly and at
some stage the day before we arrived in Bogota, they’d fallen off the back. I was gutted, to begin
with. But then the upside happened and the funny side of life came into play.
The hunt took us into back streets where small businesses survived as punctuation marks
nestling between bigger firms. It’s a world where large, battered and overloaded trucks lumber
through traffic that seems to be mainly made up of pickup trucks, taxis and bicycles. Money
never seemed to be spared to paint anything that wasn’t advertising something, and most of the
unwashed windows were guarded by rusting black bars. Small piles of rubbish had collected
against solid objects that sat in the gutters. A trashed and rusting Chevy with no wheels and no
glass in the windows had the biggest collection of old newspapers, plastic bags, a broken plastic
sandal, water bottles, plastic coke bottles, bits of old string, and silt mashed up against it.
I found some rain trousers, not in a sports shop, nor in a bike shop, but in a workmen’s
warehouse that was stacked high with tools, small sized work boots, small size overalls and small
size fluorescent jackets, all ‘Made in China’. It was almost as if we’d stumbled across a store for
little people, but then it clicked. Most of the men we’d seen working on the roads, on the
building sites and in the fields were of Indian extraction – and they were little people.
Fortunately I managed to find a pair of navy blue waterproof trousers that sort of fitted. The legs
were cut for a little person so the crotch of the ‘grande’ trousers sat at lower thigh level and the
waistline was cut so high that it looked as if the trousers had been modelled on a very short,
very fat person whose aim was to be able to fasten the elastic over his belly. They made me look
like an overgrown toddler. When I tried to walk in the things, it looked as if I were doing so with a
filled nappy. Not very elegant… but on the bike, when they’d ridden up over the saddle, at least
I’d be dry from the knees upwards!