We´ve made it to South America! We arrived in Cali Columbia this afternoon. I know, we said we wouldn´t go to Columbia but they couldn´t ship the bikes to Ecuador until the end of November. Cali isn´t too far from the Ecuador border. Maybe two days ride. We expect the bikes to arrive on Friday afternoon and we should be on the road by Saturday morning.

So far two great things have come from shipping via Copa Air to Columbia:

One is that we met John and Jamie in shipping warehouse. Jamie is from the north of Spain and was acting as a sort of guide for John who, in his early 70´s is making this trip alone. Jamie´s mother is sick so he is returning to Spain and we are now traveling with John for a while.  He´s a tough old bird, barrel-chested with laughing blue-grey eyes, he speaks with a German / Canadian accent that makes me laugh when he curses. Here´s Jamies website: http://lavueltaalmundodesarto.com/sarto.html It all in Spanish, but he´s got some pics for you unilinguals.

The other is the hotel we´ve found in Cali. This place has to be the seediest hotel yet. To get in you ring a buzzer and the Madam, er, attendant comes out from behind her cage and pulls the pipe from between the door handles to unlock them and lets you in. Your room is small and (thankfully) smells of Clorox, but after you get used to the dark blue light you start to notice things… things like the bathroom door is clear glass with an etching of a naked woman on it, or that there is a box on the wall with a small door, open the door and there is another small door that opens onto the hall. I´m pretty sure I don´t want to know what this thing is for…. Then theres the art. The place is called the Hard Rock and there are big cement relief painting / sculpture things of J Lo, Britteny, Elvis and a Lenny Kravits with tits… Yes, I have pictures, but you´re kidding yourself if you think they have internet there. I´m in a combo convenience store /  copy center / internet cafe about four blocks from the hotel writing this. When I can log in on my machine I´ll post the pics. You won´t believe them.

I can´t wait to see what goes on there after dark.