Generally speaking we never ride at night for several reasons ie: potholes, animals, none functioning taillights on trucks, cars and semi-tractor trailers. Our plans to stop in Pereira for the night met with not being able to find a hotel with secure parking. Our usiing the Lonely Planet guide for info usually finds us in the middle of town searching for up to an hour for the recommended hostal or hotel. Many times the info is useful, but seldom takes into account the need for parking, being based on a backpackers needs. We tried backtracking over the massive and impressive bridge that is Pereira's pride but couldn't make a left hand turn anywhere and ended up so far off track that we found another exit out of town and headed to Cartago in the dark.
We stayed here for two days taking care of laundry and changing oil and filters on both bikes. We were befriended by Julio, a Colombian that had lived for many years in the States and now had returned home. He seems to have his hands in several ventures from horse training to helping locals with legal matters to dressing a local in Santa gear for the purpose of taking photos with kids for a tidy profit. Hotel 44 met our needs with guarded parking, hot water and Wifi. We also met a transplanted German who ran and owned a pizza joint. Like myself he had beautifully tattooed covered arms done in Colombia for a fraction of the price that I paid.
Having left Cartago we made our way to Cali on excellent split double lane highways. After several hours we decided to stop for something to eat and took a detour off the main highway and drove into a town progress forget. Sugar cane dominated the area and most of the residents were of African or Caribbean descent. Gone were the clean paved streets replaced by rock strewn dirt roads with refuse everywhere. Several burnt out buildings and derelict vehicles were in contrast to what we came to expect from Colombian towns. We spent some time looking for a place to eat but decided to move on.
Our timing was fortunate as we met Ricardo Rocco a few minutes later on the highway to Cali. Ricardo is a bit of a legend in Ecuador as a long time rider and motorcycle advocate. He helped in rejecting the need for vest and helmet identification for riders that is a requirement in Colombia due to assassinations by drug cartels on bikes. He has a motorcycle training school that covers both the mechanical side(repair) as well as defensive driving. We followed Ricardo on his 950 KTM for about an hour till we stopped at one of many Argentinian grill houses and enjoyed a feed of BBQ'd pork, beef, chicken and sausage. We made our way to Popoyan, getting caught in another deluge of rain. Ricardo navigated us thru Popoyan to a favorite inexpensive haunt close to the colonial center of town. This night was the begining of the festival of lights in Colombia. Residents place small candles on the street in front of their homes and businesses. In the town square were several indigenous groups playing guitars, drums and pan flutes. Someone had a pet Alpaca named Senor Pedro for photo ops. Vendors of all types were selling their wares.
The next morning we saw Ricardo off knowing we could never keep up to the speed that he travels at. We made our way to the border town of Ipiales that night and stayed at a disappointing hotel that said it had internet and hot water, both of which never appeared. The next morning we entered Ecuador illegally, having blown past the unmarked buildings responsible for import and export.
We turned ourselves around and went thru the necessary steps for exiting Colombia and entering Ecuador. The man in charge of processing our bikes into Ecuador was more pre-occupied with making coffee than pushing papers. While taking down our info he had the habit of opening his window an inch and then another inch trying to over hear a conversation fifty feet away between border guards and people bringing their vehicles into Ecuador. He was quite proud of himself having processed two bikes in 1/2 an hour. Insurance is not required if in the country less than a month.