11 May 2006
Almenia
Colombia

Colombia is an amazingly beautiful place. The scenery could so easily be mistaken for Alps regions of France or part of Switzerland in the summer.

I have been riding long hours because the more I ride the more I realise what a long time it will take to get to the USA. I seem to average between 40 to 50km/hr since Peru. The slowsness is due to a blend of the high mountain passes, many, many trucks and the roads passing through every village. There are also other wondeful delays like local farmers drying their crops on the road, rock falls and the police doing body searhes. Today I got to a que of trucks more than a kilometre long. Weaved to the front to find the police were body searching the truck drivers. One driver was so mad, he was close to assualting the policeman.

I have been enjoying winding around the corners of all these mountains and passes.
So far Colombia is going onto my list of countries to come back to a revisit with more time.

I am now at a town called Almenia which is about 8 hours ride from Bogota. Hope to make it there tomorrow.

Adios
Ricky on a mission.