Sunday 1 September 2013

Barichara To Puerto Berrio

Leaving Barichara we only had we only had 10 mil in our pocket which is about $5 bucks. ... it was gettin skinny cos the ATM wouldnt' recognise our card.

Destination big town Santa Gill for tank and money or we were not going anywhere, our bank cards don’t have chips so we are very limited to funds we can get and where we can get it.

With tank and ATM stuff done we carried on towards Puerto Berrio, turning off at Barbosa we left the main drag and climbed to 2600 meters into the fog line .... suddenly 20 deg felt cold!!

The main road



Biggest obstacle of the day was these fellas not wantin to leave their road kill lunch on the road, we very nearly hit one 



Crossing many roadwork patches and getting into Landazuri we stopped for a quick break and water and to ask directions out of the town, we would not have been more that two minutes and we were swamped with curious people looking at us and the bike, this also happened in El Banco.

Amidst cheers and smiles from the crowd we felt like rockstars ....two minutes later we were back to normal 8-) 

A nice view of the road from the top .. the top case came loose, not sure if I tightened it up properly or not 



Most of the day was pretty easy but there was one reasonbly lengthy section where the SE shone brightly, the smaller bikes etc no match ...for once!!



Arriving at Puerto Berrio we stopped just out of the main square, Ellen did a walkabout to find a hotel while Maya and I gathered a huge crowd of curious onlookers, there was 20 - 30 people gathered when Ellen returned, so much so it looked like a big street fight or something had started so the Police came along wanting to know what the drama was.

Next thing we know we are taken to the police station escorted by their best to see the commander who talks english, he in turn said ok, this is a great restaurant over here, I will take you to a hotel, you can leave you bike their, I will have an armed guard watch it during the night.

So we got taken around in royalty, to the hotel with AC and Wifi, take Maya along the street outside the second Police station and have our guard appointed, next thing we know the street was locked off at each end of the block with Police tape and cones, no through traffic was allowed ... classic.



So Maya was locked and under cover with not one but TWO personal guardian angels with machine guns looking after her .... not quite sure what else to say other than outstanding service from them.

Here is Puerto Berrio's MIB, left was a Sargent, left (looking at the pic) of me was THE top dog, he fired the orders and people jumped, me, cop who had just come off duty. 



We walked at night, the town was safe and the people all very friendly, I think with the protests on they were being cautious and me being the only whiteyfoo in town they enjoyed showing their strength, ability and flexing the muscles to show who is boss.

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