As we made our way to Elephant Moto headquarters for the start of an ADV tour on BMW’s R 1300 GS, all of my preconceptions about Colombia bubbled to the surface. My big brother’s warning rang in my ear: “don’t get kidnapped.” Four of us were crammed in a van, juggling helmets and jackets on our laps, when we pulled up to a red light and a muscle-y guy in a yellow Los Cafeteros jersey began stretching a metal wire from one side of the street to the other. I instinctively turned to look out the van’s rear window to see if another wire was being rigged behind us to trap us. Then I noticed what the man in the yellow shirt had in his hand: juggling pins. Before my heart rate could return to normal, the man deftly hoisted himself onto the wire and sauntered into the middle. He began juggling nonchalantly—like doing a high-wire act in the middle of city traffic was completely natural. As the light turned, he leapt off, unhooked the wire, and took a satisfied, smirking bow as traffic moved past him.“That dude would be a social media star if he were in the US,” Melis Heerens said. Daniel Heggarty and I looked at each other and agreed: “Or the cops would have busted him.”We were more than a little amused—and maybe some of us a bit relieved—but passersby took little notice of the spectacle. “Just another Saturday morning in Bógota,” Ted DuPuis said.A few blocks later, the van dropped us off in front of Elephant Moto, where owner Mauricio “Micho” Escobar greeted us and led us to the BMW R 1300 GS motorcycles we’d be riding through the Andes mountains for the next week. Team Bravo’s Big Adventure

Two years ago, I met Daniel and childhood best friends Melis and Ted at the GS Trophy Prep Course at the BMW Performance Center in South Carolina. Then, at Trophy Qualifying, I was placed on Team Bravo with Melis and Daniel; Ted became an honorary member. Somewhere between the rock gardens, the hill climbs, and the crushing defeats, we became genuine friends. Something about (attempting to) hard enduro a $25,000, 500-plus-pound motorcycle really brings people together. They say men bond “side by side”—our hunter-gatherer heredity coming through, apparently—but for motorcyclists, it’s more “bar to bar.”After Qualifying, we all kept in touch, regularly texting about motorcycles and commiserating over the fact that the US wasn’t hosting a qualifier for next year’s GS Trophy.“Maybe we can do a big trip together instead,” I texted the group last year. “I was thinking South America. On GSs. We can kind of make it our own personal Trophy.”

When I mentioned the idea to Executive Editor Dawes, he immediately mentioned Elephant Moto. He met Micho, a certified BMW Motorrad tourguide, when he (Micho) was marshaling at the 2022 GS Trophy in Albania. After a quick Google search, I learned Elephant Moto is an official BMW Motorrad partner, and that this year it would be celebrating 12 years in business. A plan started to take shape.“Here’s the deal,” I told the guys after having a Zoom call with Escobar. “Elephant Moto does custom-designed tours, catering to customers’ budgets and preferences. And Micho has already laid out a route through the Andes for us, showcasing Colombia’s best roads and coolest towns. He’ll be our personal tour guide. We’ll ride R 1300 GSs on- and off-road. Seven days of riding, plus an extra first day in Bógota. We’ll stay in some rustic places and some fancier hotels. The price includes bikes, hotels, dinners, and transportation to/from the airport. Fuel, lunch, and booze are out of pocket. Think you guys can swing it?”“Closes all tabs for Tuareg, 890 Adventure R, F 900 GS, and DesertX,” Melis texted back. While aligning four people’s schedules is ordinarily a challenge, the allure of a once-in-a-lifetime trip eclipsed any potential logistical difficulties. Plus, we didn’t have to plan a thing. We exchanged a few emails with Micho, signed on the dotted line, and booked our plane tickets to Bógota. From Mountain to Mountain

“I know you guys have ridden together a lot,” Micho said during our pre-ride briefing at Elephant Moto’s headquarters, “but look out for one another, especially in Bógota. The drivers here can be crazy.”The truth is, the four of us had never ridden together outside the controlled confines of the BMW Performance Center where we barely rode over 20 mph. It was the end of February, and being from either the Midwest or East Coast, none of us had been on a bike in months. Leaving Elephant Moto HQ and heading into Bógota felt like jumping off a cliff. Bógota is the largest city in Colombia with a population of over 8 million people—roughly the same size as New York City—but at 8,500 feet of elevation. If I ever harbored any thought that New York congestion would be eased if more people rode motorcycles, I was disabused of the notion after freefalling into Bógota traffic. There were motorcycles everywhere, zipping in and out of amorphous lanes, jostling for any available spot of pavement. In a swarm of bobbing and weaving 10 horsepower Bajaj Pulsars and TVS Strykers, 145 horsepower GSs made us feel like birds of prey being mobbed by territorial jays.The huge differential in speed was most alarming of all. People on foot, rollerbladers, cyclists, scooters, tuk-tuks, riders on horseback, small-displacement motorcycles, tractors, cars, and trucks shared the road in an egalitarian free-for-all. The roads were equal parts sidewalk, playground, highway, and racetrack. “It feels like I’m in a video game and I’m avoiding all the non-player characters,” Ted said over our Cardo helmet communicators. The GS was the proverbial gun in a knife fight. We rode exponentially faster than everyone else—even past police officers. They gave us thumbs up as we passed; they were riding motorcycles too, after all. Beyond Bógota’s sprawl, and on smooth pavement, my adrenal glands coaxed me to pin the throttle and let the GS roar, even while my eyes were greedily trying to take in the astounding mountain vistas. When we got off the bikes to take a break at a roadside cafe, I realized the extent of my sensory overload. I’d either have to make peace with my uneasy stomach, or make peace with bathrooms that didn’t have toilet paper. I chose the first option and stuffed my belly with a tamal of pillowy soft masa and mystery meat, and washed it down with pocket-change-priced bottled water.Back on the bikes, we settled into the epic twisty roads descending the eastern range of the Andes Mountains. From Bógota to the Magdalena River Valley at near sea level, the temperature increased to 98 degrees and the air felt as thick as tamal filling. Then, as we climbed the central range of the Andes, the temperature dropped rapidly and it began to rain.

By the time we reached Los Nevados National Park, fog enveloped the landscape, and the temperature dropped 54 degrees in a matter of a couple of hours. We all fumbled with the 1300’s switch cubes in a rush to turn on the heated grips and raise the electric windscreens, caught off guard by the turn in the weather. “I told you: there’s a reason we don’t really have weather forecasting in Colombia,” Micho said. “It’s just too unpredictable. We’re only four degrees north of the equator. There aren’t four distinct seasons, but the elevation change means we can get all four seasons in a day.” We climbed to nearly 14,000 feet and the landscape changed dramatically. Emerging from the fog, frailejones, ancient sentinel-like plants native to the region, watched over us as we meandered through the clouds and past rivulets of water trickling down the mountainside.

After a long day, we turned onto a dirt road overlooking the snow-covered Nevado del Ruiz, an active volcano shrouded in smoke. Dodging potholes and cows, we arrived at Termales del Ruiz, a semi-rustic lodge at a natural hot spring. Termales del Ruiz is a haven for birdwatchers, nature lovers, and soaked-to-the-bone motorcyclists. We changed out of our gear in cozy brick-walled guest rooms and then went straight to soak in the aquamarine waters. Hidden amongst botanic gardens and fed by cascading waterfalls, it was a world away from the chaos of Bógota. The place was a sanctuary.“It used to be a leper colony, actually,” Micho said, momentarily interrupting the tranquility of our ablutions. Fortunately, a waiter came by to deliver cold Club Colombia beers and Margaritas so our revelry could continue.

As hummingbirds zipped past our heads and we gazed at the mountains rising from either side of us, I said: “This is the best possible ending to a cold, rainy motorcycle ride. For the rest of my life, at the end of every foul weather ride, I’m going to remember this moment with envy.”“What could ever come close to topping this?” I mused.After soaking in the geothermals until we were pruney, we sat by the wood stove in the dining room and ordered another round of margaritas before dinner. Where the Edges of Tires Wear Out First

The next morning, over a big breakfast of fresh fruit and Colombian coffee, Micho said, “Okay, amigos. We have another nice ride today, and we’ll end in Jardín, a Colombian coffee town.”As soon as we left the hot springs, we were on some of the best twisty roads I’ve ridden anywhere in the world. Whenever you see a kid retching in the road next to the family sedan, it’s a good indicator of high-quality twistiness. I could just imagine the poor kid yelling: “¡Papá, orillarse! ¡Voy a vomitar!” before fumbling for the door handle with a hand over her mouth and unfolding from the backseat just in the nick of time. The sheer volume of four-star paved roads in Colombia makes it a must-ride destination. “In Colombia, motorcycle tires wear out on the edges first,” Micho said. “The soft compound should be in the center of the tire. By the time the edges wear out, the center still looks brand-new.”We scraped pegs all morning before hitting a four-lane road with fast sweepers and a mash-up of traffic: 4x4 taxis with people hanging off the bumpers and cyclists hurtling through space wrapped in nothing but lycra and optimism. “It’s like living out your MotoGP dreams,” Daniel piped up in our headsets as we swooped around vehicles like they were backmarkers. “But there are people on the roads.”And not just people. Dogs hid in the shade of overgrown verdure. Cars stopped in both lanes, obscured beyond blind apexes. Occasionally, entire lanes went missing, the road having tumbled down the mountainside during a rainy spell. A lapse in concentration here could have dire consequences. It was more pressure-filled, more intense, more exhilarating, and more gratifying than riding in more predictable environs. Despite the exigencies of riding in Colombia, the GS made me feel in utter command. On twisty roads, my boots kissing the tarmac, the GS was a sportbike. Until it transformed into a dirtbike.

Without warning, Micho led us through a muddy off-road section in the jungle. I panicked for a split second remembering the bikes were shod in sport-touring rubber, but the GS powered right through without breaking a sweat. Off-road, the 1300 splits the difference between a comparatively unwieldy 1250 GS and a just-right middleweight ADV—which the guys, who own 1200 and 1250 GSs, couldn’t stop raving about. We went deeper into the jungle for about 50 kilometers, through mud, ruts, and rocks until we wound up on another sublime twisty paved road that took us into Jardín.A Festival for Every Reason

We checked into Plantación Hotel, a bright and airy boutique hotel with gracious balconies covered in flowering vines. Daniel and I classed up the joint by spreading our sweaty gear to dry on a hand-woven hammock outside our room and clinked our cans of Club Colombia in honor of another incomparable day on two wheels. “It was a nice ride,” I said, miming Micho, who we were beginning to realize was a master of understatement.In the afternoon, the four of us walked to Jardín’s town square bordered by brightly painted buildings and bustling bars and restaurants. Patrons of all ages spilled into the streets, cheer and repose clinging to them like too-loud music hanging in the air. Kids played soccer and tag in front of the cathedral while their parents socialized at outdoor tables. Dressage horses pranced up and down the brick streets, their riders bobbing in rhythm to the horse’s dance, lending a comically surreal air to the scene.

“It’s like a festival for no reason,” I said.“Or a festival for every reason,” Daniel replied.Despite the crowd and the noise, everyone seemed to recognize each other’s humanity, treating one another as though the golden rule was still a guiding principle—none of the suspicion or averted gazes which many of us have come to expect in public gatherings.“I saw only two other gringos here,” Melis said, as we sipped affogatos on the cathedral steps, “but no one is hassling us or trying to sell us anything. People are just enjoying themselves and going about their business.”“Yeah, and no one is looking at their phones,” Ted added. “And the town is so clean.”Jardín felt like a summer of Sundays. It felt like a shot of anise-rich aguardiente vaporizing in the sinuses. It felt like a plunge in a hot spring after a rainy ride. Here was a place that shouldn’t be, but was. A place foreign to the senses but familiar to the heart.“What could ever come close to topping this?” I mused.

Infamous Exports“Okay, amigos,” Micho began, “today is a transit day. We just need to get to Doradal to set us up for the rest of the route.”From Jardín in the western range, we crossed the Cauca river and headed toward Medelliín before looping back to the central range. In typical Micho fashion, he undersold the day. Hours of twisty paved roads and off-road sections through mountain passes left us breathless. “There’s nothing very exciting about Doradal,” Micho said when we stopped for a plate of blisteringly crisp chicharrones and freshly squeezed juice, “but it’s famous for being close to Hacienda Nápoles, Pablo Escobar’s former estate.”

To many Americans, Escobar is Colombia’s most famous son, cocaine its biggest cultural export. While the drug-related warfare of the ‘90s has largely subsided, drug trafficking is still a major problem in Colombia. Accordingly, the US State Department gives Colombia a level 3 (out of 4) travel advisory. “Violent crime is common in many areas in Colombia,” the advisory states. “This includes murder, assault, and robbery. In some places, organized crime is rampant. This includes extortion, robbery, and kidnapping. There is risk of terrorist violence, including terrorist attacks and other activity.” Not exactly the ringing endorsement I’d hope to use to assuage my wife’s concerns ahead of the trip. The travel advisory made it sound like we’d accidentally ride through some small town run by a cartel and end up on the nightly news pleading for mercy. But the reality is cartel activity is geographically isolated, primarily near the Venezuelan border and along inaccessible regions in the Amazon. You’d pretty much have to look for trouble to find it. “Colombia does have some issues,” Micho conceded, “but over the last 20 years, tourism has grown at an incredible pace and it’s a safe country to visit. There used to be a cool slogan from Colombia’s tourism board which best summarizes it: ‘Colombia: the only risk is wanting to stay.’”Into the Jungle

From Doradal, we rode 50 km off-road before hopping on a ferry boat to cross La Miel River. A few miles deeper into the jungle, we parked our bikes in a clearing by the river’s edge. Soon, a motor boat arrived. The driver grabbed our luggage as we clambered into the boat and offered us cold beers from a styrofoam cooler. A few-minute ride downriver, he dropped us off at Eco Hotel La Cazacha in the middle of the jungle. Inaccessible by road, La Cazacha is a rustic resort with open-air bamboo guest houses on stilts overlooking the river. In the canopy of tropical plants, exotic birds flitted, and the jungle filled with strange sounds—whether bird or insect or animal, I didn’t have a clue.

After a hot bowl of Sancocho, a beef and vegetable soup with herbs and giant-kerneled corn, we got back in the boat and motored further upstream. The driver deftly navigated the shallows like a steamboat pilot in “Life on the Mississippi.” As we drifted into a scenic gorge, the sky was squeezed out by a tangle of foliage the deep green color of indomitability. There was a mystic lost-to-time aura to the place. The sunlight was diffuse. Waterfalls trickled in slow-motion down rock walls. “That waterfall is fake,” Micho joked. The boat driver dropped us at a swimming hole at the base of a waterfall hidden in the jungle, one of Micho’s favorite secret spots. We swam behind the fall’s cascading veil, hooting and hollering like school kids, the water crashing on our heads. Afterwards, Micho tossed us inner tubes and we floated down the rapids, our Club Colombias hoisted safely above our heads. We had the river all to ourselves. We looked at each other in disbelief.

A hell of a rest day. On a typical motorcycle tour, maybe you get to stroll through a tourist trap on your day off the bike. With Elephant Moto, we lived like kings in the jungle and pretended we were the last men on earth.“What could ever come close to topping this?” I mused.The World’s Most Biodiverse CountryI woke up to this ghoulish noise. The mosquito net around my bed sagged in the heavy air. I froze and listened. Maybe it was just a lucid dream, a side-effect of my malaria pills. But there it was again. A grotesque, angry roar.“Pantera,” Daniel whispered from the other side of the room.Then I remembered: not panthers, howler monkeys. Yesterday, Daniel, who told us the story of waking up terrified by their howls during a motorcycle trip in Peru, warned us that howler monkeys are nature’s heavy metal band. “Like the ‘90s band Pantera,” he said. “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Ted—who, as a matter of fact, lives in Kansas—said, rubbing sleep from his eyes.Howler monkeys are just the beginning. By area, Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries on the planet, with 314 distinct ecosystems (Brazil is more biodiverse but it’s roughly seven times as large). Colombia, which is about two-thirds the size of Alaska, is home to about 10% of the species of the Earth, including over 1,900 species of bird—more than the number of species in Europe and North America combined.

Our rest day was like a vacation unto itself. But we were excited to continue the ride and explore the varied ecosystems that each day’s ride took us through.“Okay, amigos,” Micho said as we climbed into the boat to be delivered back to our GSs, “we have another nice ride day to Villa de Leyva, a colonial town known for its cobblestone streets and townsquare, one of the largest in South America.”The day’s riding was highlighted by a couple of hours off-road, skirting the ridge of a mountain and plowing through milkshake-thick mud pits. One of the best aspects of riding off-road is the feeling of nowhereness it gives, a view into a lesser-seen side of the world. I never cease to be amazed where this big GS can take you. We felt like real tough hombres riding these big touring bikes through rocky and rutted passes in the mountains—that is until some dude on a scooter with his grandma on the back passed us from the opposite direction.Crumbling RoadsAfter a day in the mountains, coated in sweat and caked in mud, we arrived at Casa Terra, a beautiful boutique hotel in Villa de Leyva. Enjoying a cup of Colombian coffee on the stone terrace in the morning, I said: “In the US, this place would cost, like, $1,000 a night.” We all agreed it’s the kind of place we’d love to bring our significant others.

Too bad my wife isn’t willing to ride pillion at this stage of life (we have two young kids at home) because I can’t imagine traveling in Colombia on anything other than a motorcycle. Because of the lack of infrastructure, getting around in a car would be incredibly frustrating and time-consuming. There’s not even an interstate connecting Bógota and Medellín. While these two metropolises are only 140 miles apart as the crow flies, Google says it takes nine hours to traverse the winding two-lane road that connects them—or considerably longer if a landslide makes the route impassable—which is what happened days before we were there. While infrastructure is increasing, Colombia is still a place for the traveler—not for the tourist looking for a cellophane-wrapped vacation. That makes the regions we traveled through mostly-undiscovered gems. A Trip on Motorcycles

On the penultimate evening of our trip, Micho took us to eat at Elvia, a fine-dining restaurant in the colonial village of Barichara in the mountains north of Bógota. As we watched the chefs navigate the open kitchen, tweezing microgreens onto intricate dishes and pulling meat from the wood-fired grill, we began to reflect on the trip. “It’s unbelievable,” I began, “that one minute we’re riding all-time great paved roads through a cloud forest, the next minute we’re off-roading through the jungle, and then we wind up here—at one of the best restaurants in Latin America.”“The idea is to give an unforgettable time,” Micho said. “I want to give customers an authentic experience so they can really discover the best of Colombia.”

For Micho, every lunch stop, every hotel, every experience is a chance to show off what makes Colombia so special. He understands that it’s not just about the journey—though the riding is some of the best imaginable—it’s also about the destination. And what a destination. I’ve never been on a trip in which the riding and the not-riding are equally unforgettable. Always tight-lipped about the day’s itinerary, Micho allowed Colombia to tell its own story, leaving us in a constant state of discovery and wonder. “I’m notoriously…opinionated,” I admitted to Micho and the guys. “When I travel, I don’t want to eat Italian food in Spain or hamburgers in Croatia if I can help it. It doesn’t have to be fancy like this,” I said, motioning to the table as the waiter delivered an earthenware pot filled with croquetas nestled on a bed of smoldering straw, “but I love when food—and off-the-bike experiences in general—are unique to the place I’m visiting. I could never have planned a trip like this on my own. In a lot of ways, it feels like more than a motorcycle trip.” “At the same time,” Melis said, “we’re only here because we all love motorcycles. If BMW didn’t do the Trophy, if we weren’t up to doing stupid things on GSs, we’d never have become friends in the first place.” I looked around the table at my friends, grabbed a croqueta, and said: “What could ever come close to topping this?”

For more information:www.elephantmoto.comInstagram: @elephantmotocoFacebook: www.facebook.com/elephantmotocoTo initiate your custom Elephant Moto Tour: https://elephantmoto.com/create-a-custom-tour/ Gearbag:Helmet: Arai XD-5Bluetooth Communicators: Cardo Packtalk Edge and Packtalk ProJacket: Mosko Moto BasiliskAirbag: Alpinestars Tech-Air Off-RoadPants: Mosko Moto Kiger Mesh PantBoots: Rev’It! Expedition GTXGloves: Racer Pitlane