M
y wife, Johanna
and I had been
on a long term
motorcycle trip
throughout Cen-
tral and South
America for about 4 and 1/2 months,
and were doing some much needed
maintenance on our bikes in Bogota
when we received an invitation from
Ricardo of EpiCO Moto Adventures,
a newer motorcycle tour company
based out of Cali.
Ricardo was putting together a new
route for a tour and asked if we want-
ed to come along.
We were already having a blast in
Colombia, but to see it with someone
who knew the area, and spoke far bet-
ter Spanish than we did was an oppor-
tunity we could not pass up. So, we
altered our plans and headed south
towards the city of Cali where we met
Ricardo and were invited to stay at his
fantastic home that also doubles as
the EpiCO headquarters.
From the EpiCO headquarters we set
out early in the morning, knowing we
had our longest day of the trip ahead
of us. We had to ride south through
the city of Cali, and even though it
was early, traffic was already growing
thick. We had already been practicing
lane splitting for months but Ricardo
made us look like amateurs as he ef-
fortlessly weaved his bigger bike be-
tween cars, yet always made sure we
could keep up.
As we got out of the city the rain
started to fall, forcing us to pull over
and put our rain gear on. We rode on
through heavy rain all day, speeding
up and down steep winding roads and
weaving around long lines of trucks
despite the blind curves and slick
roads.
After a long and wet day of riding
we arrived at the Laguna de la Cocha,
a beautiful glacier originated lake that
is also Colombia's second largest nat-
ural water source. We found a wood
cabin style hotel, complete with home
cooked meals and an adorable dog to
TRAVERSE 13