About cranks and balance

by Hector Velasquez (Argentina)

A leap into the unknown Colombia

Put it in writing... Applying pencil to paper is highly underestimated, I never thought that something I had written 10 years ago in a self improvement seminar would eventually turn into something that I not only materialized in the practical world in the shape of a bicycle tour but also as a life-project. A lot has been said and written about Venezuela, my country of origin, not all of it accurate, yet not entirely blown out of proportion, long story short: I had grown weary enough of the situation to decide to leave the country with only one clear goal in mind, get to Argentina by bicycle taking each day as it came and then "take it from there". I know, not exactly a carefully thought-out plan. As embarrassing as it may be to confess, it is one characteristic that is quite common among the nationals from Venezuela, we start up with greater enthusiasm than preparation or planning, some call it reckless, some call it brave and others call it plainly irresponsible, maybe they are all right. Venezuela and Colombia, being neighboring countries, have always had an odd relationship, mix of love and hatred over silly things such as the authorship of the arepa, that corn flour patty stuffed with whatever your imagination allows. That was the first stop pit. There were a few things I did not leave to chance or "road magic", I had plenty of gear ordered from Amazon (we Venezuelans love gadgets and gizmos), I had done long hours of internet research on biketouring life, tips and tricks from the saavy and contacted the owner of a "Casa Ciclista" in Colombia who was organizing a tour to Perú to get to the World Bike Forum 2017 which was to be held in the city of Lima. There are quite a few challenges to planning in a country where the situation could change within hours, and that by no means is an exaggeration, at the time there were price changes at the pace of 3-4 per week on food and other items, restriction to purchase of dollars for travel purposes, unavailability of cash in local currency to pay for bus fares, unability to book trips ahead of time, gasoline scarcity and general unrest in some bordering states with Colombia. There were quite a few rookie mistakes I made for a non return bike tour through South America: not testing the cargo racks with a loaded bike, not discarding whatever might not be essential for the road, in that regard the "just in case-you never know" mentality greatly stimulated by the war-economy state of mind that prevailed in the country had a huge influence in that unpractical behavior. For safety reasons and to save time, as there were rumors that the Venezuela-Colombia border was going to be closed by december 15 th, in the end we had to hire a Kombi to take us to the border with Colombia before the situation got to the point where leaving the country would be almost impossible. Some fellow biketravellers had experienced problems to enter in Colombia as the migration authorities demanded a guarantee of continuing the trip through the country without illegal immigration intentions, a latinamerican travelling by bicycle most of the time does so on a shoestring budget. Our bikes were so loaded that when we got to the migration officer booth he said: "Oh, you´re the people on the loaded bikes", apparently the colombian police had radioed us as we crossed the bridge between the 2 countries, so when we finally got to the customs at 8:45 PM our passports were stamped and we were welcomed to Colombia even though when asked where we were heading I replied with a vague: not sure yet if to Bogotá or Medellín first. There are a lot details not included in this writing for the sake of brevity, going through the border twice, riding down a long line of cars on our bikes as we entered in the last bordering town to check on the source of the unability to get into town, an incident with a local "authority"...