7th March Taganga – Riohacha 111 miles (over 12000 total now)

We finally left Taganga about lunchtime having finally got the blog to load up and also extract our bikes from the hotel having been boxed in by a car and have the owner disappear.
As we were about to leave Martin checked all the tyre pressures and discovered his new rear tyre has a nail in it, we need gas so will sort it there. Having stopped at the gas station there is no air line so we will stop at another a bit further up the road. Well that was a long time coming as the first few also had no air, however we stopped at a place that had a tyre place on the forecourt. Having removed the nail we put in a plug and pumped up the tyre and it took about 10 minutes in total, we think the chap in the shop was impressed.
It seems to be carnival everywhere and we come to a village where some guys have dressed up and in order to ensure you stop to potentially contribute to their coffers they have strung a rope across the road, we get through no problem.
We came across an accident where a beer truck has gone off the road and overturned and hit a tree which has bent the truck in half. This happened about three hours ago and miraculously the driver is OK. The battery from the truck is about 30 – 40 metres away and there is a beer crate half way up a tree, what a mess, thankfully most of the bottles were empty.
We now arrive in Riohacha and first impressions are not good and on our couple of laps of the town we cant even see any hotels even though we know there are some here. The police tell roughly where some hotels ar and having found a casino the building above it looks like a hotel but there is no signage. Having investigated Martin books us in on the 10th floor with a view over the Sea, we have a garage, a pool and Wifi.
There is a long wooden pier so we go and investigate, at the end of the pier there are two boats which look like pilot boats, but for what? When we get back to the the seafront there is once again another parade going by, nothing like the size of yesterdays affair but a small scale replica, some great costumes and make up and a couple of ladies insist on having there photo taken with each of us and they are covered in some sort of oil or grease, not sure what they were supposed to be but they certainly entered the role.
We are now almost at a turning point, tomorrow we will head a bit further North East but expect the road to run out and we will will then head back to Santa Marta and then turn south towards Bogota. The bikes are now booked for their return and we need to be in Bogota on 15th March to get them sorted. Oh dear its nearly over!!