Another long day to Ipiales

In our quest to make up some lost time from the two-week delay getting our bikes delivered to Bogotá, we banged out another hard day. About 500km and 10.5 hours from Palmira (Cali airport area) to Ipiales! The good news is that we have made up some critical time and this is the last hard day for a while.  

We were blessed with good weather for 7.5 of the 10.5 hours today, the other three was cold rain. Long sweepers and twisties for hours and hours on end! I've never been to the Tail of the Dragon but I can't imagine that it is better than the road we took today. We even spent a good part of the day in 5th or 6th gear. Navigating these Columbian roads is still a mano-a-mano battle.  Everyone is trying to get just one spot in front of you. Motorcycles don't have to pay highway tolls, there is a special lane to the right of all the other lanes. Common practice is to pass on the right or the left to get ahead. Just don't do it in front of the policía we are told. Many of the high mountain towns were crammed with people and little motorcycles - I assume all taking care of the days' business needs.

The scenery today was a delicious tropical paradise. Mountains of lush green dotted with sugar cane or banana or kiwi. Sorry, we blasted through so I didn't get any pictures.... But trust me! We also met three truckers at a gas station which gave us some good advice about the border crossing.

Tomorrow we cross the border into Ecuador. ¡Nos Vamos!