Finding a bicycle in Venezuela and riding beyond...

Nice, very nice discussion :-)

As much as I agree with iviehoff about the mentioned dangers for tourists (those were some really scary horror stories!! but pretty similar to the stories told in other countries/continents ;-) it seems to me that at least the three of us here on this thread are what travelinhobo called "long-term travelers", and with this experience in mind I must confess I am right now watching Venezuelan TV and it looks like a pretty normal place to me -- by this I mean it's not a war zone with constant crossfire.

From my part, this is one of the main reasons I'm looking for a run-down, old-looking and simple bike and not the latest titanium-alloy, disc-brakes type of ultra-expensive machine. I also travel with one very small backpack, no electronics whatsoever and my clothes are usually so badly sewn (by myself) that it is easy for me to fend off beggars just by comparing my shoes to theirs. Also I'm pretty much always sober and my first sentence when meeting locals is usually where can I eat/sleep the cheapest, so I have had the privilege (and good luck, of course) of having never been robbed, assaulted, threatened, kidnapped, etc...in the past 8 years of tripping off-the-beaten-track :-D

This topic reminds me of a few months ago in Dominican Republic, where somebody told me a spanish guy had just been shot dead by two teenagers in Santo Domingo -- news like this are obviously frightening (ask my mom about it) but then I get to thinking: "How did it exactly happened? I heard the guy was a 40-something businessman, and I could picture exactly the type: single-while-on-business male, with money to throw and flash around, probably drunk or high on hard drugs, walking alone at night in the city back to his hotel when he meets these two nervous kids and instead of "cooperating" gets typically spanish-cocky and gets shot". Now, that looked to me like a much more realistic and sad picture of what tourist tend to do over there -- in my limited 2-month experience of that country -- than a place where people go around shooting others all the time for nothing. I also met an Austrian guy who had live there for 20+ years and claimed shooting at some local from his car one night, while high on alcohol and coke, because he was frightened the other guy was going to assault him...an endless circle of fear and violence. I once read somewhere if you give people a "bad look" or a "frightened" one you might be just attracting or provoking the very same violence you were trying to avoid. I certainly wouldn't like being sat with my friends in a park in Madrid while tourists hurried by looking afraid of me...it may even make me feel angry x-(

Of course, it all comes down to personal fears, choices and life philosophies, but accidents do and always will happen. Such is Life, as they say!

By the way, I'm curious now -- which places are those that you do not go to in Colombia? :-)))) Darien Gap by any chance?

If the OP has common sense and maintains his awareness of what's going on, he'll most likely be okay.

Quite so. The point is, there are still some parts of Colombia, rather more than Darien, you don't go to. I'm warning OP against switching off his common sense. Nigel (see below) switched off his common sense: he was enjoying being in Colombia so much, with the warm welcome foreign cyclists usually receive, he found it hard to believe that not very far away there was a high risk of getting kidnapped, despite what everyone said. So he just followed an attractive looking remote road on the map and got kidnapped. But fortunately, the areas where this happen in Colombia, are a lot less than they used to be.

know not to listen to the friend-of-a-friend story

These are not friend-of-a-friend stories. The most remote was brother-of-a-work-colleague, and was being related with quite considerable distress as "what just happened to my brother yesterday". Disbelieve if it you like, I don't. The rest were all people I know directly, and I believe them. The kidnap I mention was reported in the mainstream British press, the sufferer was Nigel Breeze, you can check that out, here's one report http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-110873646.html there are others. The chucked-out-of-the-bus and dead bodies by the side of the road took place in/near Puerto Asis, or on the road to Puerto Asis. The person who went on that journey used to post on this forum under the moniker Backyarder or similar, and published a weblog of it at the time. The person who had a gun pulled on him is a friend who gave a slide show about his cycle travels in Colombia to the Anglo Colombian Society in London, and who is happy to be introduced to people who wish to talk to him about proposed travels by bicycle in Colombia; he is an executive at BP who lived in Colombia for some years and seeks to minimise rather than exaggerate the dangers of travel there.

I haven't told you about how my wife got the scar on her hand because someone cut into her tent with a knife while she was in it, in Peru. Or my close friends whose D-locked bikes were stolen from outside their tent in a snowstorm in Peru, it recorded on their website. Because those are Peru stories.

which places are those that you do not go to in Colombia? :-)))) Darien Gap by any chance?

I don't tell you because it changes all the time, and you need to do the research and get the latest info. It's a lot, lot more than Darien, Darien alone doesn't explain several million displaced people. The referred kidnap above occurred in some remote part of Meta province, which is not far east of Bogotá. I don't know how unsafe Meta is these days, a while back it was definitely a no-no. Almost certainly going to Villavicencio by major routes has long been completely safe, as in general are most major routes. It's the remote little roads through the national parks and other attractive regions that look so tempting on the map that need a little research before you just cycle off onto them. Puerto Asis is in the far south of the country. The recent kidnap of a general in Colombia took place in the western highlands, which has long been a favourite area for kidnaps.

But this is not intended to put the frighteners on you. Colombia is a much safer place than it used to be when Nigel was kidnapped, and perhaps as much of 80% of the country is now reasonably secure. There are places in Guatemala where you can rely on the fact that you will meet a bandit who will separate you from your valuables if you go there without someone who has paid them off. But most places it is a bit more complicated than that, bandits usually don't have a sufficiently reliable business to be there all the time and quite often people get through, but they are taking a risk. Murder and kidnap rates in Colombia, although now lower than several other countries in the region, are still many times higher than well-governed countries.

So, I posted this a month ago and now...I´m in Tucupita, Orinoco Delta, and have been bike-hunting for over a week! :-)

The good news is that we´ve managed to find lots of cheap/free frames just by talking to everyone on the street. Most people in Venezuela are very nice, hospitable, generous and eager to share what they have just like anywhere else in the planet. It also came as a pleasant surprise the price of brand new spare parts (not Shimano or anything very high quality, but unused nonetheless) in such a small town, with at least 3 dedicated bicycle shops, in fact we are building our bikes with old 26" mountain-bike frames and just buying and assembling all the rest with the help of some friends -- all for around 35 EUR/ 50 USD per bike! Just to give an idea for anyone else coming to Tucupita with the same idea:

• Complete Rim with spokes --> 4,5 USD
• Tyre --> 3 USD
• Inner Tube --> 1,5 USD
• New Steel Fork (steering) --> 2 USD
• Seat --> 2 USD
• Chain & Sprocket --> 4 USD
• Rear Transportation Rack --> 2,5 USD
• Brakes Set --> 3 USD

Comercial Manamo (Aurelio's shop) by the riverwalk front, Tony's Bikes right on the corner of the main square and Lino's Bikes close to the public market are all worth a visit and if there's a shortage of anything in one of them, the other should have it.

And as a bonus, Tucupita is the home of a local legend, national cycling champion Ernesto Bueno "El Sapo" who has given us lots of free spare parts, invaluable mechanical wisdom and the warmth of his home, family and friends -- a true bicycle lover :-)

There are places in Guatemala where you can rely on the fact that you will meet a bandit who will separate you from your valuables if you go there without someone who has paid them off.

iviehoff
which places in Guatemala exactly.
I am asking because I plan to do some cycling in Guatemala next month.
Like pellopower said I want to find a used bike, ride it around Guatemala for some weeks, ... .. maybe someone will buy it from me when it is time to go.

which places in Guatemala exactly

They change. You need to research it yourself.

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