Posts From Colombia

We both woke early this morning, I assume partly because we are anxious about what lies ahead but also because at about 5:00 am a rain storm started with the most amazing heavy rain that sounded like jumbo jets over head. It lasted for a couple of hours. The rain, and its impact on traffic caused the driver taking us to the airport to call and suggest we leave half an hour earlier than planned; and then he arrived 15 minutes earlier still.

We had an organized walking tour of the old city this morning. And even though the guide did not speak very much English, and heavy rain accompanied us and wet us for most of the tour it was a good introduction to the walled old town area. Even from this short introduction we can see why everyone we have talked to about Cartagena says it is a lovely place.

We had a tour booked for today to a place called Islas Del Rosario. It had been suggested by the travel agent in Panama but we really did not know much about it nor what to expect. But as instructed we were waiting down in the lobby of the hotel at 8:00 am where after a while we were picked up by a bus containing a number of other tourist and taken to one of the tour docks near the old city. Eventually we got seated in an open boat with seating for 30-40 people, issued life jackets and told that we had a ride of about an hour to the Islas.

No tours today. We simply spent some time walking on the beach, visiting the old town and researching the route we will take through Colombia.

We spent a restless morning waiting around the hotel and shopping at nearby stores for groceries and buying some additional minutes for the Colombian phone chip . Unlocking my Blackberry to work with any phone chip is turning out to be a good move.

First task this morning was to try Citibank in Cartagena to do the money transfer - no such luck, only if we had a Citibank account - even though the money was going to another Citibank account in the US!!.

By 8:10 this morning we were in the office of the customs agent, and then out to the port for a customs inspection and other formalities that we did not understand. It took all morning with Nina and I sitting in the waiting area while Betty (the agency representative) talked to various officials getting papers signed and stamped. Back in the agency office just before lunch we found out that the customs officer decided not to physically inspect our vehicle and that all we needed now was one more signature at the customs house near the agency's office, Columbia car insurance, and then we could get the Tiger. So come back after lunch.

Not a very exciting day. First thing this morning we did some repacking of the Tiger, in particular I put the storage pod back on the roof-racks - turned out to be much easier than I had feared. Then we visited our customs agent office to get the insurance. We are now set to travel.

Checkout was 13:00 and we stayed at the hotel until almost that time doing a variety of packing, computing and shopping chores.

Our first night camping in Colombia was without problems; though the local roosters got active about 5:00 and ended our nights sleep earlier than we might have liked.

The road started to climb almost from the start of todays travel and after we crossed the bridge over the Rio Cauca the climb was on in ernest. You might notice in the photo of the bridge the sand-bagged machine gun post at the far end of the bridge. We climbed from 500ft to over 9000 ft in less than 100 miles and got to 7000ft in about 30 miles.

After a relaxed start we set about driving south through the center of Medellin. Our goal was to at least traverse the city using the main north-south road to get a little flavor of the place. As a goal we set ourselves a Texaco station on the southern side of the town that we had heard about as a potential over night stopping place. It was hectic following the traffic and trying to read the signs, but we were helped by the GPS and the free Colombia map we got on the internet. We found the Texaco and also got stopped by some transit police, they gave us the most thorough review of any police so far but in the end we were on our way with no troubles.

After our goodbyes this morning the road continued a winding climb. The streets in some of the villages were so narrow that home owners had erected posts made of 10 ft sections of railway track in front of their houses to protect then from passing trucks. In a couple of places there was a man with a flag to ensure that only one vehicle at a time tried to negotiate a particularly tight corner. Twice we were forced to back up to allow tanker trucks to pass. All very exciting!! And this is a toll road.

Our first destination today was the town of Giron said by our guide book to be noteworthy for its cobbled streets and white washed Spanish colonial buildings, and its beautiful central square. Our first effort to turn off the highway into Giron was less than successful, we turned into a nice cobbled one-way street the wrong way. Needless to say the street was narrow and took us about a dozen back and forward moves to get turned around while the local drivers encouraged us by sounding their horns, and squeezing around us while we tried to turn. Our second effort to turn in Giron ended in another nicely cobbled street, but a dead end. This time Nina asked a pair of moto (small motor cycles) riders where the entrance was and rather than explain one volunteered to lead us there. Well, the correct turn was a sharp 330° corner that we could only negotiate with a K turn. But the fun was not over. This town was founded in the early 1600, well before motor homes were thought of and the streets are narrow - at one point we passed between a pedestrian and a moto rider and both of them had to duck so as not to be hit in the head by our side mirrors.

As you can see we did not travel far today.

Back into San Gil this morning for a bit more internet business and to discover that yesterday we had missed the center of San Gil and its almost stationary traffic, and multitude of road works. There after we followed the highway through Barbosa towards Tunja and Bogota until early afternoon when we arrived at Arcabuco.

We had a quiet day looking around the town, lazing around the campground, and simply enjoying the place.

I think it would be accurate to say that today was a full day.

The camping ground was much quieter this morning, with many of the cars of last night having departed sometime during the night. The campers that were still present were in the process of packing indicating that the holiday weekend was coming to an end. The road down out of the mountains was also much quieter with only a little bit of local traffic.

We got really lucky today when our hosts Gloria and Miguel offered to take us into downtown Bogota to see a few of the sites.

Our hostess Gloria and her family have opened a bilingual school for their own and other local children. This is probably what would be called a Charter School in the US. We spent much of the day at the school meeting the children and hearing the story of its creation, about current activities and plans for the future. It definitely threw Nina back into Teacher mode and we have had a number of conversations about what would I - Rob - do if we came down here for a few months so that Nina could work at the school.

At the start of the day it seemed like it would be an easy 200 miles or so today, so we did not rush to depart and sat with our hosts, Gloria, Martha, Miquel chatting until well after 10:00 am.

The first task this morning was to get some minutes for my cell phone and lookup the internet for directions to Hacienda Bambusa. We found a Comcel shop on the road into Armenia and parked in a side street nearby. It took me about 20 minutes and when I returned to the vehicle Nina was nowhere to be seen. Then I heard a voice from a nearby house. Nina was inside talking to Deisy, the lady of the house, who was preparing hot chocolate and food for us.

A second day at Hacienda Bambusa. In the morning we drove into Armenia to do some shopping and internet. The town was bigger than we had expected and we were pleased with ourselves that we found a parqueadero close to an internet store and large enough for the Tiger.

Leaving Bambusa was like jumping back into the fray after a nice respite.

We headed back into the Southern fringes of Cali this morning to visit Jardin Plaza on Carrera 100. An impressive modern mall with a Carrafours supermarket, a very large hardware store and many other clothing stores. Very up market. Wifi in the outdoor food areas. We stayed there much longer than expected as I was trying to buy some parts for the propane system as the time is approaching when I will have to figure out how to get our propane tank refilled or use a local gas bottle.

We headed north and then east along a minor road to the village of Silvia to see the Tuesday market. The Lonely Planet guide book suggested it. The road was another one of the now familiar twisting mountain roads that followed the side of a valley. However this road was not complete and we eventually came upon the road crew that is building the last few miles.

This morning was wet and somewhat miserable. Last night there had been some discussion about leaving both vehicles here for the day and catching a bus to San Agustin but Nina and I decided we would drive and Sandra and Bernie opted to come with us.

This morning we made an early start on retracing our steps along the slow road back to Paletara. The weather was better but the road was not. About 60 miles in all back to Paletara, the last 40 over dirt and the total trip took 5 1/2 hours. Lots of low range over big pot holes. There was more traffic on the road today almost all of it trucks carrying cattle or sacks of something. One truck driver stopped to warn us that there were guerillas on the road - at least that's what we think he said. But we had no problems.

As planned last night we were up and moving by 7:30am and made good progress south on slightly less twisting road than yesterday. The drive was simply spectacular as it passed through wide and deep valleys. There were sheer drops mere feet from the road way. As has been the case on most Colombian roads the scenery is spectacular but there are no places to pull off the road so any effort to enjoy the scenery has to be done from the moving vehicle. This does not make for good photographs.

The border crossing was straight forward. The young Colombian lady that took the vehicle details was new at her job and was a bit slow and we needed to correct some of the details after her first efforts. One of the money changers had a calculator that produced the following calculation when I asked to change US$100.

As we passed Popayan today we took a detour and made a return visit to the market town of Silvia and its Tuesday market. We were pleased that the timing was such that we could again visit this town and market.

Today was only a shortish drive north to Hacienda Bambusa. Finding the place was a good deal easier this time. Firstly because we knew the way, but also the directions are less complicated coming from the south.

We spent a pleasant day on the porch of the Hacienda doing accounting work. I took the opportunity to update my fuel consumption log which I have not done for many months. I discovered that we have averaged 13.5 mpg, paid an average of US$3.08 per gallon, and bought 3640 gallons of fuel.

The simple statistics of todays road journey are impressive, if more than a little frustrating.

Since we made such little distance yesterday we made a very early start today, and planned on making it a long day, in the hope of recovering some of the wasted time of yesterday.

This morning we visited the village of Raquira about 30 km from Villa de Leyva. Nina wanted to buy some more souvenirs, and this is a colorful town that is composed almost exclusively of souvenir shops.

Today we headed north from Villa de Leyva starting the last leg of our South American travels. By this time next week we will be in Cartagena and starting the paper work to ship the Tiger to Panama.

Much of the morning was spent winding through jungle covered mountains on a narrow two lane black top. The 40 km from our gas station stopping place into Bucaramanga passed through the gorge of the Rio Chicamucha and then up and over a small mountain range. It was slow as there was a lot of heavy vehicle traffic. From Bucaramanga the mountains continued for 100 km before the country opened up into wet jungle lowland with rolling hills.

Our plans changed again during the day. We did not find anywhere that we liked to stop for the night along the highway so we pushed on to Santa Marta and Parque Nacional Tayrona.

As soon as the park gate was open at 8:00 we travelled the few miles to Gayraca beach. The road was in even worse condition than the one we traveled last night and at the rate it is deteriorating it will be non-existent in a few years.

Today we drove to Cartagena, the port from where we will ship back to Panama, and checked into a hotel. Our South American journey is over.

After a somewhat tedious wait in Cartagena the ship has finally arrived and we have completed the necessary formalities. We dropped the Tiger at the port on Saturday and today(Sunday) returned to the port so that Nina could attend (and unlock the house part of the vehicle for) a narcotics inspection. That took a couple of hours and Nina had to take all of our stuff out of the vehicle while inspectors searched through it and the vehicle looking for drug hiding places. Nina said that the police where polite, and helpful, but thorough.

Not much to say about today. We picked up the final Bill of Lading - the main document we need to get our vehicle in Panama - from the shipping agent, had Pisco sours and pizza for dinner at the only 5 star hotel in Cartagena.

We made an early start this morning in order to cover the distance to Boulder by lunch time. We had arranged to meet up with some friends of ours (John and Ursula) who are now living in Bolder. We last met up with these guys in Munich in early 2014. We had a nice visit and were particularly interested to hear why they chose Boulder as there retirement location.

We spent most of the morning at the Earthroamer factory in Dacono CO. After the usual greetings I spent an hour or so with Spenser (ER's head of all things technical) and got a some good insight into some maintenance things I have to do on the camper (like adjust the door, and replace the town water valve). We met a few of the customers that were dropping off or picking up vehicles and at the last we had a good catch-up chat with Bill Swails including a look at the (in progress) build of an Earthroamer on a Ford 750 chassis - sorry no photos allowed - not surprisingly.

We got an early start this morning from Limon in order to make our way to La Junta CO where we had arranged to spend a few hours and have lunch with our friend Rob Pickering of Terry Lee Enterprises and renowned Unimog fixer and finder. We had a great visit catching up with developments in Rob's life and business.

Today was another longer day of driving than we prefer but there was a goal and it was the Bisti Badlands also known as De-Na-Zin. Nina heard about this area of hoodoos and weird rock structures at this years Overland Expo West and was determined to visit and take photos. So mid afternoon we found ourselves heading south on 371, south of Farmington NM looking for the turn east that would take us to the first of the access areas. Once in the parking lot we set off on a hike of a couple of hours east into the heart of the "badlands".

This morning brought another hike to explore the badlands, however this time we went rugged up as the morning temperature was 32°F. We spent another couple of hours this time walking across the plateau of the badlands to a couple of lookouts. After our walk, and over breakfast, we decided to devote the remainder of the day to visiting Los Alamos and its Science Museum.

Before getting underway this morning we could not resist a few more photos of our pleasant camping spot. Then it was "onward" with the plan of getting to the Denver area so that we would be within easy driving distance of La Junta for tomorrow. Along the way we made an extended stop at the Wyoming Visitor Center just before the Colorado border. Quite an impressive building and facilities.

We spent the day making our way to La Junta, a long run east along I70 and then at the town of Limon south on state route 71. The run south along 71 was notable for the dryness of the country side. We would later hear that moisture (rain or snow) has been scarce in this part of the country for over a year. AS you can see from the photos we are in grain growing country.

Late today, Friday, all the work was done and our "week of truck stuff" came to an end. Compared to the last time we were here in 2014 Rob's business seems much busier (which is good) with a number of other customers or at least customer vehicles requiring attention.