Mind the gap

Current location: Medellin, Colombia

Miles to date: 9,978

Location of bike: Hopefully Bogota airport (hopefully).

Those of you with sharp eyes might have spotted something. No, it’s not the video of me squinting worriedly into a cloudy Costa Rica day (which I recommend you watch, even though I clearly cannot pronounce “Orosi”).

Scrolling down a line you’ll see – school atlases at the ready – that I am no longer in Central America but have crossed the Darien Gap into South America, Colombia to be precise. In fact, I’m in Medellin, last in the news when Pablo Escobar was still dealing coke with his left hand and drug-related slaughter with his right.

There are those here who mourn the passing of everybody’s favourite 80s drug overlord, claiming – like some latter day Al Capone or London’s own Kray brothers – he kept the streets safe for ordinary folk as he disapproved of the kind of small scale crime that blights poorer communities, and made sure it did not take place.

True or not, modern Medellin is hard to reconcile with the drug-fuelled hellhole of legend. The city nestles attractively in a steep valley, surrounded on all sides by green hills over which snake low, white clouds. Every afternoon at this time of year these turn threateningly black before delivering some of the most impressive thunder and lightening shows I’ve seen.

The centre of the city is a blend of modern office blocks and colonial churches, with the usual gruesome array of Christ figures being bloodily tortured, their real hair plastered to their plastic faces by an oversupply of fake blood. It’s a chaotic cocktail of street peddlers and cheap clothes over which floats the modern metro system, an underground that flaunts convention by sticking resolutely overground.

After the chaos, grime and heat of Panama City I decided to forgo the dubious pleasure of staying in the heart of the melee, and have chosen a hostel up the side of one of the hills in the decidedly more tranquil and middle class district of El Poblado. Up here it’s all overpriced coffee shops and polished shopping malls with clothes priced high enough to make my eyes water. Without a functioning drug trade it remains a mystery to me how Medellinos can afford to shop in these places, even those who call El Poblado home.

It is a dramatic departure from Panama City, not least because it is a minimum ten degrees cooler during the day and distinctly chilly at night. In Medellin air conditioning is a pointless extravagance. In Panama City it is a necessity, at least if you have any illusions of sleeping through the night.

The biggest surprise – for me at least – is just how close Panama City is to the light blue beauty of the Pacific Ocean. Approaching the city from the west you cross the lofty arch of the Puente Americana which needs to be high enough to allow the ocean-going ships of the Panama Canal to pass easily underneath. Its height allows you to see the modern tower blocks of the numerous bayside
developments curving east towards the airport. Just the place to seek sanctuary if you’re on the run from a canoe-related insurance scam.

After the low-rise disappointment of the other capitals of Central America, Panama City seems to gleam with architectural modernity. From a distance at least. From ground level the city is slightly less impressive, with mildew-blighted buildings lining a central shopping street groaning with market stalls.

But within walking distance of this urban blight is the Pacific, stretching blue towards the far horizon. For years, Panama seems to have turned its back on its nearby coast. Now, however, the seafront is undergoing a development that will turn it into a destination in its own right, for better or worse.

Despite the varied charms of Panama City I was keen to leave. Plan A had been to fly with Girag to Colombia, but a $900 plus price tag was enough to put me permanently off the idea. Plan B had been to drive along the Panama Canal, through the jungle to the Caribbean city of Colon and from there to sail to Cartagena.

At least, that was the plan. Riding by the canal was interesting, and through the jungle a delight. But the cracks in Plan B started to appear – along with the cracks in the road – the closer I got to Colon. If Panama City felt hot and chaotic when I first arrived, Colon made it seem like a Cotswold village.

It also has three or four ports, and no apparently easy way to book a ship across the seas with passage for me and my bike. Mythically, there exists a ferry where you can just roll on in Colon, and roll off in Colombia. There was no sign of it while I was there.

What there was was a sweaty, desperate looking South African biker and his Brazilian travelling companion who’d just made the journey in reverse. Their advice was clear: fly.

It was what I wanted to hear. So it was back to Panama City, racing against the clock to reach the offices of Copa Cargo before they closed for the day to see if it was possible to fly to Colombia for anything like a reasonable price.

And it was. Copa can get you across the Darien Gap to either Medellin or Bogota for $640 all in. Even adding the cost of my flight, it still worked out less than flying Girag. All I had to do, I was told, was turn up the next day with my bike and I’d be good to
go.

So I booked a flight for me to Medellin, reasoning that a smaller city would be easier to manage getting the bike through customs. Then I packed everything onto the bike, thinking I’d only be without it for the 50 minutes or so it takes to fly from country to country. Plan C seemed to be working out just fine.

Until I turned up at the airport. Sadly, the Medellin flight was cancelled. So while I was flying there, the bike would be (hopefully) on its way to Bogota. It should be there now, waiting for me. I’ll find out tomorrow. After four days of using public transport in Medellin – albeit excellent – I’m looking forward to being under my own steam again, and exploring a whole new continent.