A sticky start without a bicycle

A dark cloud hangs over the start of our adventure. It feels like our entire journey has been plagued by pretty bad luck. It began with being stood up by our taxi at 3.30am in Bristol. Waiting on the street for a ride which never showed up and getting led up the garden path by Veezu’s customer service agents. We were saved by a taxi driver who had changed his shifts around his prayer time for the holy month of Ramadan. He certainly answered out prayers and we eventually got to the airport an hour late but still with plenty of time thanks to general travel anxiety. Bikes and bags checked we went to buy the largest hot chocolate we could buy with our remaining sterling change. Cream on top? Silly question.

The flight was not good for Liam’s lingering lurgy but fortunately the authorities on the other end didn’t find him suspicious, accepted our Covid vaccination passes and allowed us in. While Liam went to change some Euros to Colombian Pesos I waited by the luggage belt with a good view across to oversized baggage. I had stuck my air tag inside my frame bag so was confident the bikes had made it despite the short connection in Amsterdam. But when only one bike and one bag made it through we started to worry. I went to try and top up my friend Katie’s Colombian SIM card while Liam registered the missing baggage with an AirFrance/KLM rep. Those Spanish lessons already paying off. By this point we were too tired to care and just wanted to get to the hotel and go to sleep. Liam seemed to think I should build my bike at the airport and ride in while he took a taxi. I argued that this was a silly idea giving neither of us had fully functioning phones/SIM cards yet and that the roads would be chaos. We somehow managed to get into a people carrier with the worst driver in the whole of Bogota (a few days later we realise that while the roads here are chaos most drivers don’t drive half as quickly or erratically!)

For our first day in Colombia we tried to put bag gate behind us and check out the sights. We went up to Monserrate on the cable car to see some incredible panoramic views across the city and listen to some Christian propaganda piped through the speakers.

We balanced this out with an afternoon at the botanic gardens where the information boards were pro-evolution and pro-science. A unique opportunity to expand my Spanish vocabulary while also revising undergraduate biology on carbon dioxide concentrating methods in photosynthesis.

When we got back to the hotel the receptionist greeted us with a green retro hiking backpack – Liam’s bag had arrived! Although no sign of the bike. Growing impatient and increasingly suspicious at the level of competence in the KLM lost baggage department day 2 was overshadowed by trying to hassle them on every possible front from public shaming via twitter (shame I deleted my account and all my followers last year) to emailing the general manager of KLM UK and CEO of KLM Netherlands.

Between all this hassling we managed a visit to the Gold Museum which was really fascinating – covering everything from metallurgy to the cultural and spiritual significance of nose rings. A little wander around Plaza Bolivar confirmed to us that we dislike tourist hotspots and so we squirrelled up some of the streets of the old town in search of some more local place for lunch. Ticking Ajiaco (a typical Colombian stew off) off the food bucket list.

As we headed back towards the hotel we tried a few camping stops to get white gas for our MSR whisperlite but no luck. Looks like we’ll have to use petrol with alcohol priming for our Colombian camp cooking. Feeling quite tired with a sore back after so much walking I requested we took an Uber the remaining distance back which turned out to be the right call as the heavens opened. When it rains in Colombia it really rains! And I thought that coming from the South West of the UK we knew a thing or two about heavy rain!

So yes, not quite the start we hoped for. KLM are still tracing Liam’s bike box so there is no knowing if and when the bike will arrive. Also in the box is our tent, Liam’s Tailfin aeropack and panniers, our Spot tracker, carefully curated bag of spare bolts, tools, pump, Garmin Etrex. Most of which will be impossible to source here in South America and would take a long time to arrive from anywhere else. The Stooge itself is obviously irreplaceable as Liam’s highland trail winning bike, not to mention pretty hard to get hold of. We will have to decide how long we wait for and what our cut off point may be. We can’t claim anything until the bike has been missing for 21 days and having seen a bit of the city we just want to get into the hills which we came here with the intention of exploring.

Thanks for reading and if you have another spare minute please help with the public shaming of KLM and pile on the pressure to #findthestooge by retweeting https://twitter.com/EleanorJaskows1/status/1643631879138975745?s=20