Colombia is a notorious but, more importantly, a sadly misunderstood country about which we can readily cast some harsh stereotypes without knowing any specifics. On closer inspection, much of this turns out to be outdated, while other fragments of our knowledge are simply media prejudices. Two excellent conditions to visit Colombia yourself, to discover it up close on your own and to form your own opinion. Anyone who has ridden the Vuelta Colombiana round trip through Colombia will not only have experienced a challenging motorcycle adventure in the most diverse natural areas and climate zones, but will also be able to tell of the courteous friendliness and helpfulness of the people of Colombia that is second to none.

Kurze Pause auf der Schotterpiste durch die Tatacoa-Wüste

You can't get any closer than by motorbike. However, you have to be willing to compromise. In order not to get bogged down, it is important to mark out a route on which you can experience as much of the essence of the region between the Pacific, the Caribbean and the Andes as possible, without reeling off endless, empty and low-contrast asphalt kilometers. Colombia is twice the size of Spain or Kenya. Above all, it is diverse; with a millennia-long history that produced impressive cultural products long before the Spanish conquistadors. A country where you can

• look down at the clouds from the mile-high ridges of the Andes,
• let the sun burn that Bacardi feeling of the palm-fringed Caribbean beaches into your skin,
• gravel through mystical, misty rain forests and discover the stone death guards of ancient cultures that have long since disappeared or
• in bizarren Wüstenlandschaften offroad in die Sonne reiten kann.

Until late in the evening, a talented and powerfully vocal trio belted out Colombian diatribes on a neighboring balcony of our hotel for a couple who were believed to be celebrating their wedding anniversary there. I thought it was nice because I was still looking at my film material from yesterday's stage anyway. But my passengers were bedridden after another dinner and therefore complained during breakfast this morning about the previous evening's babble. You can't argue about art. Our breakfast is always similar here in Colombia: fresh fruit, scrambled eggs and something that is called that here, but would never be called “bread” in German-speaking cultures. No sumptuous brunch. But that way we don't have to dally in the morning either, so that we can quickly get our things together in our rooms and start the engines at eight o'clock. Our bikes definitely look like adventure. There is also a small spot of hydraulic oil under Sean's 850 GS. Not much is dripping anymore, because the seal on the rear shock absorber burst yesterday while driving over the track with deep potholes and bumps. When standing, he was always enveloped in a small plume of steam and smoke, which created the oil that dripped onto the hotter parts of his craft. For the remaining few hundred kilometers of the last section of the Vuelta Colombiana tour through Colombia, he would only have the coil spring at his disposal for suspension.