9th of July - San Martin to Cartagena - exhausting 533km 8h30
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The first 400km went smooth despite a lot of trucks and buses and the breeding heat. The heat felt like someone points a hairdryer at you...and no escape.
Then the injector problem occurred again! Sh___. I took off the seat and tried to loosen the screw of the injector from the top without demounting the whole tank. No way, the screw was meanwhile so messed that I couldn't get hold with the screwdriver.
We continued our journey, first in the 6th and 5th gear and when the bouncing of the motor got too tough and the bike slowed down I tried with the clutch and throttle "to convince" the motor to continue...but the next hill we couldn't hardly climb. Every 20km I had to switch one gear down because the motor didn't take the gas anymore. The last 20km outside of Cartagena we drove in the 1. (!!) gear with maybe 20km/h. Exhausting with all the traffic and overtaking cars, trucks, buses.
The adress of the KTM service was not correct which I copied a couple of days before from the net. Perfect. With a nearly uncontrollable motorbike we drove to the KTM store which told us, that the service is all the way back in downtown...Aaaargh!
First impressions of Cartagena
Finally we made it to the workshop. James told us that he would expect the bike to be ready the next day at 2pm.
Fair enough and that would mean as well that we could still make it to the port on time for the container loading to Panama.
While high tide parts of the first road at the beach in Boca Grande always gets flooded we discovered later.
Some sightseeing on the way to the workshop.
Later James, el chefe at the workshop, told us that he couldn't make it up to 2pm and we should call later because he expects the bike to be ready in the evening. Hmm...we called Manfred from the shipping agency. He told me that exceptionally we could deliver the bike the next morning at 8am but customs might be a problem.
In the evening we heard from James that the bike would be ready only the next day at around 2pm.
That was it. Dream over to get the bike to Panama.
I informed Manfred and he told me that the next container would leave only in about 4 weeks. And the sailing ships which took earlier motorbikes via the San Blas islands are not allowed any longer to take motorbikes. We investigated further and actually 2 sailors still take bikes, the Stahratte from Cartagena (the only one) and another one from Turbo some gangster village :-) close to the Darien gap to Panama. The Stahlratte was already fully booked on the 22nd of July. + The sailing trip via San Blas takes 4-5 days.
Anyway all calculations we made pointed towards staying in Colombia instead of driving like insanes thru Central America and then to Florida to ship back from there to Germany by end of September.
2 months only for the whole trip? NO.
The skyline of Boca Grande in Cartagena reminds me of Miami.
The streets of San Diego, el pueblo viejo in Cartagena, don't remind at all of Miami :-)
Mobile phone "stations" on the street called Llamadas. Why one needs a phone shop? :-) Here I called again James for another update on the bike.
At Juan Valdez, a coffee chain like the famous one (which actually has no shop in Colombia!) the birds enjoy the fountain and take their bath.
Then the injector problem occurred again! Sh___. I took off the seat and tried to loosen the screw of the injector from the top without demounting the whole tank. No way, the screw was meanwhile so messed that I couldn't get hold with the screwdriver.
We continued our journey, first in the 6th and 5th gear and when the bouncing of the motor got too tough and the bike slowed down I tried with the clutch and throttle "to convince" the motor to continue...but the next hill we couldn't hardly climb. Every 20km I had to switch one gear down because the motor didn't take the gas anymore. The last 20km outside of Cartagena we drove in the 1. (!!) gear with maybe 20km/h. Exhausting with all the traffic and overtaking cars, trucks, buses.
The adress of the KTM service was not correct which I copied a couple of days before from the net. Perfect. With a nearly uncontrollable motorbike we drove to the KTM store which told us, that the service is all the way back in downtown...Aaaargh!
First impressions of Cartagena
Finally we made it to the workshop. James told us that he would expect the bike to be ready the next day at 2pm.
Fair enough and that would mean as well that we could still make it to the port on time for the container loading to Panama.
While high tide parts of the first road at the beach in Boca Grande always gets flooded we discovered later.
Some sightseeing on the way to the workshop.
Later James, el chefe at the workshop, told us that he couldn't make it up to 2pm and we should call later because he expects the bike to be ready in the evening. Hmm...we called Manfred from the shipping agency. He told me that exceptionally we could deliver the bike the next morning at 8am but customs might be a problem.
In the evening we heard from James that the bike would be ready only the next day at around 2pm.
That was it. Dream over to get the bike to Panama.
I informed Manfred and he told me that the next container would leave only in about 4 weeks. And the sailing ships which took earlier motorbikes via the San Blas islands are not allowed any longer to take motorbikes. We investigated further and actually 2 sailors still take bikes, the Stahratte from Cartagena (the only one) and another one from Turbo some gangster village :-) close to the Darien gap to Panama. The Stahlratte was already fully booked on the 22nd of July. + The sailing trip via San Blas takes 4-5 days.
Anyway all calculations we made pointed towards staying in Colombia instead of driving like insanes thru Central America and then to Florida to ship back from there to Germany by end of September.
2 months only for the whole trip? NO.
The skyline of Boca Grande in Cartagena reminds me of Miami.
The streets of San Diego, el pueblo viejo in Cartagena, don't remind at all of Miami :-)
Mobile phone "stations" on the street called Llamadas. Why one needs a phone shop? :-) Here I called again James for another update on the bike.
At Juan Valdez, a coffee chain like the famous one (which actually has no shop in Colombia!) the birds enjoy the fountain and take their bath.
