2-19-10, Turbo, Colombia

We struck a deal with a merchant ship that would bring us from Sapzuro to Turbo, some 60 miles off and were told that it would take us between 3 and 36 hours.  The merchant ship was docked next to us in the little bay and we were told that they were leaving promptly so we quickly went to work untying our bikes then wheeling them off the cat onto the dock on a ramp.  It was a bit precarious at times as the cat was rocking in the sea but all five bikes made it just fine.

We paid the captain half of the one million pesos upfront and were told to pay the rest on landing in Turbo. This equated to about $110 US per man.

We lashed our bikes inside the new ship which was full of mostly booze and coconuts, 4000 we were told.  We motored along towards Capurgana when we hit some rough seas, causing a 50 gallon fuel barrel to fall over, nicking Mark's leg, leaving a gash in it. Luckily it didn't hit his foot or his trip would be over.  Once in Capurgana the crew shoved 5 barrels of diesel overboard into the water, maybe 200 yards offshore. A few guys then swam out to meet the floating barrels and started the long process of pushing them to shore.

We waited for over three hours as smaller boats pulled up alongside ours to unload the contents of the ship.  There had been some standing water in the bottom of our ship where all the goods were stored, causing the cardboard boxes to deteriorate, leaving thousands of flasks of aguardiente, vodka and rum strewn about.  Eventually everything was unloaded with only one bottle casualty.

We started moving south when one of the crew members, the captain's nephew, came over to chat about our trip.  He told us that we could eat as many of the coconuts as we wanted however I feared an albino barf and kept my coconut intake to a minimum.

The boat rocked quite a bit more than the cat had but I was able to drift off to sleep at times, only to be awakened with a headache from the diesel fumes which kept blowing in.

We were served a decent lunch consisting of a bowl of rice, some starchy roots and some beast. It tasted good, but the texture was a little of the tough side.

After 10pm we pulled into the port at Turbo but had to look for a spot to park for half an hour, eventually pushing a few boats out of the way to get us close enough to land to where we could stretch a long, narrow ramp over the water.  Again, we unloaded each bike, the owner operating the hand brake while the rest of us steadied it. 

A crowd of people had gathered around our bikes in Turbo, especially mine which the locals thought had two engines because it's an opposed-twin configuration with an engine head sticking out each side.  Lots of touching and fiddling with the bike which I don't really care for.  We rode off from the crowd, following the captain's nephew who brought us to a hotel for the night, our first night in Colombia.