A Plague of Mosquitos, Trigger-happy Cops, and Majestic Mountains

Day 242 ta:537 kt:33.5 gps: N 10 degrees 38.400' W 75 degrees 24.352'
Day 243 ta:2137 kt:94.1 gps: N 10 degrees 56.539' W 74 degrees 49.980'
Day 244 ta: 984 kt:78 gps: N 10 degrees 21.390' W 74 degrees 52.263'

As I expected, I didn't leave Cartagena until late in the afternoon. I headed to Barranquilla with a very important mission. I was to take a picture of the giant Shakira statue for my mother. At about an hour before sunset on my first day back on the road, I stopped at a town called Arroyo de Canoas. The locals there were friendly; they offered me a place to stay for the night. I gratefully accepted because I was being swarmed by bugs at the time and wanted to get away from them. You could bathe in mosquito repellant and they would still viciously swarm around you.
I stayed in the room of Jonaton, the family's 17-year-old son. He is a big fan of telenovelas so I watched a few with him. Most telenovelas are made in Mexico but Colombia has its own homegrown telenovela called El Cartel. I am glad that someone figured out that the drama that goes on in a drug cartel would make a good soap opera.
I was off to Barranquilla the next day ready to fulfill my mission. I was making good time until my rear tire deflated. As I suspected, the flat was caused by my faulty tire. I learned that the trick of sewing your tires back together only works with cheap tires because they have more rubber. The stitchings held but the tire ripped even more causing the flat. Oh well, I still have one back-up tire.
Only an hour and a half remained until sunset by the time that I made it Barranquilla. I had gained some intelligence as to the whereabouts of the statue beforehand. It was, I was told, on the outskirts of the city at the Metropolitan Stadium. It was getting dark and I was hungry when I decided it was best to find some food and a place to stay. The mission could wait for the next day.
The place I where I was camped at was an abandoned house close to a highway intersection. It was far enough from the road so that I didn't have to worry about being bothered. Abandoned houses are great places to camp in the countryside but not so great in the city because they become de facto public toilets. There were no shitstains on my tent when I woke up and I was happy for this minor miracle.
Fortunately for me, the statue of Shakira was on the way to the highway that heads to Medellin. It was not as impressive as I had hoped. I took a few pictures and took off.
It is hot, humid, and flat in this part of the country. There are ranches as far as the eyes can see. Insects plague me everywhere I go. I can't wait to be in the mountains but they don't start for another 300 kilometers or so. I would happily give up the flat terrain to be rid of the insects.

Day 245 ta:2646 kt:93.1 gps:N 9 degrees 39.812' W 75 degrees 07.967'

Last night, I was unpleasantly awoken by a cop and four soldiers when they shined the lights of their patrol truck on my partially obscured tent. I quickly put on my sweatpants and said, "Buenas noches.", to indicate my friendly nature but to no avail. The cop imperiously barked, "Venga aqui con las manos arriba." I apparently didn't come out of the bushes fast enough for the cop then demanded, "Venga ahora!", several times. Since I didn't want to get shot, I quickly explained that I was unarmed, that I was barefoot and had to put on shoes, and that I had to unzip my tent which was hard to do in the dark. I held my hands high when I came out of the bushes, trying my best not to get shot. All four soldiers had their machine guns trained on me. They let down their guard a little bit when they realized that they had their guns pointed at a half-naked, flip-flop wearing, gringo. The cop was still annoying, though. He interrogated me for a few minutes as if he was trying to catch me in a lie. He told me that my name didn't sound American even though he was holding my passport. I told him that I was a fifth generation American with a funny name. He asked me when and where I arrived and told me that my passport had a different date stamped on it. I told him he probably was looking at my Panama exit stamp. (I checked later and I was right. He was, indeed, looking at my exit stamp.) After I passed his interrogation, he directed me to a hotel and told me my campsite wasn't safe. I wanted to tell him that I felt safe until they pointed their fucking machine guns at me. Thanks Big Brother.
I went to the hotel and put my sleeping pad on the dining room floor as instructed by the hotel owner. He didn't charge me for this impromptu arrangement. I didn't want to unpack everything after I had been forced to repack it in the dark. The mosquitoes devoured me but they started doing this during my ordeal with the law. I managed to get some sleep but only after the hotel owner turned on the fan for me.
It is a good thing that I am pretty proficient with my Spanish or this could have been an international incident. I figured that I would write down a few useful phrases for someone else who finds themselves in the same situation. No tengo armas means I do not have any weapons. No disparen means don't shoot. Venga aqui con las manos arriba means come here with your hands up. Understanding and being able to speak these phrases might save your life.
Sometimes the governments of our world make us choose from a false dilemna between liberty and security. They do their best to spin everything seem like such a dangerous place. An adroit politician can make fascism sound like chocolate cake. Yall like chocolate cake don't yall? What would we ever do without Big Brother their to protect us? I am not afraid of this world. I would choose liberty every time. I am old enough to make responsible decisions about my security and I am willing to reap the consequences if I am wrong. One of the great problems with out world is that there are too many cowards who would choose security over their freedom. These are people who vote for neo-fascists.
The flat land is starting to turn into rolling hills today. Soon enough, I will be in the mountains. I can't wait.

Day 246 ta:2491 kt:74.8 gps:N 90 degrees 13.722' W 75 degrees 24.863'

My day was more of the same today. It is still hot and there are still lots of rolling hills. There do not seem to be any good roadside camping spots here in Colombia or, at least, this part. I am especially paranoid after my rude awakening two nights ago. My campsite tonight is in a graveyard. This is, surprisingly, a first for me.
There are two political issues that can whip me into a loquacious fury. One is the Drug War and the other is the issue of immigration. As far as I am concerned, the only Americans that have any right to complain about immigrants are full-blooded Native Americans and they don't exist anymore because they have all been killed off or bred with Europeans.
The federal government and some state governments have recently started taking more aggressive actions against immigrants. They have been raiding workplaces and arresting immigrants and charging them with felony identity theft because they are using real Social Security numbers.
I read comments from many Americans that say something along the lines of, "They get what they deserve because they are all breaking the law." I disagree with that statement because the laws were passed with racist intent to begin with. We did not have any immigration laws minus the Chinese Exclusion Act until after World War I. Being heavily influenced by the ideas of eugenics that were in vogue at the time, Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924. A better name for this act would have been the No More Mics, Spics, Dagos, Kikes, Niggers, or Gooks Act because it effectively limited legal immigrants to Western Europeans. It created a quota of no more than 2% of any nationality that currently resided in the United States. Since Southern and Eastern Europeans only started to come to the United States at the turn of the century, the numbers that were allowed to legally immigrate were severely restricted. Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans were not even listed in the quotas so it was assumed that the government didn't want any of them. The U.S. government so enthusiastically enforced this new law that it turned away entire boatloads of Jews during World War II, knowing very well that they would surely be killed off by the Nazis. In 1952 and again in 1965, the U.S. Congress amended the original act so that it broke down the quota between hemispheres instead of by country. It also allowed for war refugees to immigrate to the United States. I like to call these ammendments the No More Poor Uneducated Mics, Spics, Dagos, Kikes, Niggers, or Gooks Acts. They provided no quota for skilled and educated immigrants but still severely restricted immigrations from the huddled masses. They should have torn down the Statue of Liberty when they passed these laws. Maybe they should change, "Give us your poor, tired, huddled masses...." to "Fuck all you Mexicans" because that would be more of a reflection of the current sentiment. Notice no one wants to build a wall on the Canadian border.
I wonder what would happen if the U.S. government sent all of the "illegal" Mexicans back home. Mexico already has significant unemployment and underemployment and sending back 10% of the population would only exacerbate this issue. This is a recipe for revolution. They could then all immigrate to the United States as war refugees. Maybe they could all get jobs as drug mules and assassins working for the cartels and thus avoid unemployment.

Day 247 ta: 2344 kt:84.8 gps: N 8 degrees 34.639' W 75 degrees 29.072'

It rained very hard in the graveyard last night. I discovered that the rainfly for my tent is practically useless if the wind is blowing hard. The center of the storm passed right over me. I could tell because the thunder and lightning were simultaneous. There was nothing I could do inside my drizzling tent but cover my body with my rain jacket and cover my sleeping bag with my body to keep it dry. I managed to get some sleep dreaming of cops with machine guns.
In Colombia, the truck drivers drive older rigs than I have seen in Central America. I have seen some that look like they are at least fifty-years-old. Many of them were hauling hefty payloads, too.
The people in the towns are crazy for their small motorcycles which are barely powerful enough to keep up with the cars on the highway. Today, I saw two men carrying a hog-tied pig on their motorcycle. In the larger towns there are so many motorcycles that it reminds me of pictures that I have seen of Bangkok.
I popped a spoke today. The first thing I will do tomorrow is fix it. I hope that this doesn't become a chronic problem.

Day 248 ta:1554 kt: 61.8 gps: N 8 degrees 08.174' W 75 degrees 24.723'

As is usually the case whenever I have to fix on my bike, the spoke repair took longer than I anticipated. I had to remove the tire, remove the rim tape, put in a new spoke, true the wheel, put on new rim tape, put the tire and innertube back on, and pump up the tire. After I finished pumping up the tire, the prestivalve shot off to God knows where and I had to repeat the last two steps. I noticed that the bike shop in Panama City gave me a 36 spoke hub for my 32 spoke rim. This concerns me a little bit because there are gaps in the rotational symmetry of my wheel. I am worried that this will lead to uneven spoke tension and, hence, more broken spokes. I will probably try to swap out hubs in one of the big cities.
Between the late start and the long internet/lunch break I didn't get very far. I am hoping to make it to a point where I can finally see the Andes tomorrow.

Day 249 ta: 2483 kt:97.1 gps: N 7 degrees 33.088' W 75 degrees 22.841'

I can finally see the northernmost part of the Andes though they area still about 50 or 60 kilometers away. Hopefully, I will reach the base of the mountains by midday tomorrow and make it up to at least 4,000 feet where it will be cool at night and devoid of mosquitoes. I have grown tired of the heat, the plague of flies, and the lack of good campsites. I probably won't pass the tree line until I am somewhere in Peru.
There was another unexpected road hazard today. A dump truck rode under some electricity wires with its back still propped up and almost took down the wires with the poles. It is a good thing that I was paying attention. I quickly rode to the other side of the highway to avoid any live wires or downed poles.
I found another bridge to camp under tonight. This is good because it looks like it is going to rain again tonight as it has been prone to do recently.There are literally hundreds of wasp nests above me on the roof of the bridge. This is good because I like wasps and I am not allergic. Maybe they will eat all of the mosquitoes.
The river I am camped next to is one of the first clean rivers I have seen in a while so I took a bath. This is nice because I haven't bathed since Cartagena. When I get to Medellin in probably three days, I am going to shower to my heart's content.

Day 250 ta:4533 kt:65.1 gps:N 7 degrees 07.067' W 75 degrees 28.045'
Day 251 ta: 6553 kt: 75.2 gps: N 6 degrees 38.860' W 75 degrees 27.610'
Day 252 ta: 2641 kt: 81.1 gps: N 6 degrees 12.446' W 75 degrees 34.529'
Day 253-255 I stayed in Medellin

I am now in the Andes. The road that I followed into Medellin is quite lovely. It starts out by going along a ridge. Huge green gorges open up to each side. There are lots of waterfalls right by the side of the road. It is already significantly cooler, too.
The locals have a novel way of hitchhiking on the long uphill parts of the road. I see rigs passing by with people hanging off the back like they are spiderman. There are, of course, people on bicycles hanging on to the corner of the rigs as well. I don't do this because I think it is cheating.
When I was taking a little break from a long climb, my friend Gwen from Belgium rode up the hill. We rode together for the next two days. Having a riding partner actually makes me move faster because I feel guilty if I take too many breaks. We made some good time on those long ascents.
Just so no one thinks I hate soldiers, I actually camped with a bunch of soldiers at a checkpoint on the road. It was getting close to sunset and I didn't see any very good prospective campsites so I straight up asked them for permission to camp with them. This helps avoid any misunderstandings that lead to getting machine guns pointed at me. In the morning Gwen and I took some great photos with them. They even brought out their fully loaded grenade launcher for the photo shoot and let me hold it.
After staying in the town of Santa Rosa de los Osos, Gwen and I parted ways because I wanted to sleep in and he didn't. Santa Rosa is a nice place and I am surprised there are not more tourists there. It has a special dish called an arepa de queso that I really liked. It is a pan grilled hunk of cheese covered in a sweet milk sauce. In the morning, before I left, I wondered around the central plaza and watched some people trying to catch a stubborn cow. It was pretty hilarious watching the cow run around, block traffic, and overpower the two people trying to rope it.
I finally left Santa Rosa around midday but I made it to Medellin because there is a very large descent to the city on the way from Santa Rosa. I must have passed at least 20 semis on the way down. The metropolitan area of Medellin is pretty large. It seems like there are probably about 5 million people living in the general area. I am now resting and relaxing. It is nice to enjoy a little down time every once and a while.
I read the other day that the state of Florida did a study that concluded that prescription drugs were responsible for at least three times as many deaths in the state as all illegal drugs combined. Alcohol and cigarettes also kill more people than all the illegal drugs. Guess how many deaths were attributed to marijuana. Zero. Our nation's drug policy is a fucking joke.