16, Here We Go Again

Time to get ourselves on to the next continent, and so we took a deep breath and joined the great unwashed on public transport… This included an excruciatingly long bus ride with an extremely loud and “passionate” preacher waving a bible around shouting about fire and death for 40 minutes much to the disapproval of the many parents with young children. But before long, after a short flight, we were in Colombia.

Well, Steve was and Jenny wasn’t. For some reason, Canadians, and seemingly only Canadians, have to pay quite a lot of money to enter Colombia. Being a Canadian tax paid, we were on our way into Cartagena, a cool colonial city on the Caribbean seaside. Every taxi beeped every 3 seconds, every other person on the street tried to sell you something and this even included cocaine on one occasion.

First things first, put on our shoe.

There’s a historic part of town, and a huge built up fancy apartment slash hotel peninsula that has sprung up in just the last 50 years according to the photos the man who rents kayaks shows us later on. Seemed like a good source of information to us.

Christmas is coming? It doesn’t feel Christmassy when it’s 30 degrees out and you’re trudging around in flippy floppies, but a sudden abundance of paraphernalia alerts us to the fact that it is most certainly December. Fancy that.

And what beautiful pigeons they have here! Can we adopt him? Lovely plump breasted pigeon, and speckled, we shall call him Speckled Jim.

So the sun sets on the old and the new town, and tomorrow we begin the process of trying to pry our home out of the metal box in which he’s been held prisoner for the past week.

First day of school! Steve and Simon set off to begin two days of offices, paperwork and walking between this place, then that place and back to the first place again. At least the offices were air conditioned and gave us coffee!

Day one complete, we meet up with fellow overlanders who are one day ahead of us in the process to gain useful insight into what day two entails. Oh, and to drink cans of beer sat beside the water like the homeless people we are. Well we were homeless living in cars, and then we don’t even have those now so we’re homelessless. We even squeeze in some local food and culture.

Day two, big day, unstuffing our beasty homes from their place of dwelling. Donning hard hats (in case a container falls on us?) and stylish high vis vests, we wander around a corner to see our very own container, sat all by itself. A weird excitement coursed through our veins, finally we would have our independence back! No more public transport, hotels or restaurants would be needed, we would be self-sufficient and free again. The security seals are severed, the doors opened and everything is just as we left it.

Steve hops in and reconnects the batteries, fires up the beast and reverses it out. Almost. Just before completing the great escape he is stopped and told that he isn’t allowed to drive around the inside the port and their driver must do it. So, with huge reluctance and a look of dismay across his face, he hops out the driver’s seat and let’s some “professional” finish the last 2 metres of backing up. So close.

A long walk to the customs office and back, a couple of signatures and several hours of waiting and suddenly we are free to leave.

YAY we have our home back! And he isn’t anywhere near as smelly or mouldy as expected. In fact he’s never smelt so good, I wonder why a lack of us also equals a lack of smell? Probably coincidence.  

First night back in the van, we park in a large mostly empty parking lot by the beach and go for a celebratory swim as the sun sets in the Caribbean (our last night at this ocean). And just in case you thought we look beautiful in every picture, we included one to let you know that is absolutely correct yes.

 

And we returned to find the car park had filled up somewhat. So we shuffled along under a tree what was too high for these monsters.

Right, so back to the road. We only had to sort insurance out, which by all accounts was a 10 minute in and out jobby. First place we try, systems are down. Second place, systems are down. Third? Well that was a 20 minute walk across town and just SIX HOURS LATER we had insurance. At least we had the same lunch break as the office, from 12 until 2... Two hours?! We made good use of the time however, continuing to take exactly the same pictures at the same time with our own phones, and chat to our fellow overlanders seeking the same golden ticket to drive.

Our way back across town included a trip through a park, in which it was rumoured exists the elusive sloth. Well apparently they were everywhere in Costa Rica but we never did see one. And tiny monkeys and giant iguanas!

The origins of our Coconut fetish became apparent, these tiny monkeys were equally crazy for that luscious white coco meat.  Its evolution, or lack thereof, baby.

During our trip we have come to realise that we are not beach people. It just doesn’t suit us, the sand, the ants, the salty water and immense heat. Our first stop on the road in Colombia is at the back corner of a huge truck stop where we find peace and tranquillity that we’ve been unable to find at the beach. Perhaps it’s because we always get stuck at the beach, or maybe because we can’t surf. Either way, we caught up on some much needed sleep and enjoyed some coconut just the way the monkeys taught us.

 

So no more beaches, we head towards the mountains in what turns into an 11 hour marathon through traffic, then some more traffic and a couple of road works before more traffic.

Want to hear something that will make you laugh at us? Well of course you do. So one hour of crawling traffic was endured. We even resorted to using a half finished parallel road and cutting the line to save 20 minutes (was Steve driving?). We finally found the cause of the traffic, it was the toll booth holding everyone up so they could pay their money for the privilege of being stuck on such smooth tarmac.

Mmmmm Ultra HD.

It got dark so we embarrassingly took a cheap motel room for lack of secure camp spots nearby, and the next morning finally the nose is pointing towards the hills.

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object? Or in this case, two lorries meet on a hairpin turn? Everyone waits for an hour, and we make coffee. We also manage to catch an entertaining habit which we have dubbed “Belly Shirt”, see for yourself this very common technique for cooling down.

Finally the traffic starts moving, and the gridlock begins to ease. Like a sadistic cross between wacky races and a sliding game puzzle the real show begins. Whilst the lorries try and squeeze past each other, cars shoot up the wrong side of the road to plug gaps along the way, despite oncoming traffic. Every corner the truckers hop out, discuss their plans and then eventually get back in and start crawling again. This goes on for another painful hour, but it is entertaining and the views spectacular. Oh and the coffee is great too.

The military and the police keep sticking their thumbs up, and whilst we initially thought perhaps they wanted a lift, apparently it’s to show support and imply that they’re on your side. They certainly have been nothing but nice to us, despite us never offering them that lift. They even painted a mural in case they aren’t at the checkpoint when you drive past, so nice.

Another reason why a small van is the way to go when travelling, you can squeeze up tiny ramps into cramped supermarket car parks in the middle of a town and not have to pay for parking on the outskirts. Like the evil people we are, we walked down into the store, straight out the front door and explored the town before returning to do our shopping. Way to contribute you guys, real nice of you. We almost had lunch in the car park too, but figured maybe that was a step too far so found a nicer lunch spot to watch the sun set. Yeah we’re not always on a normal time schedule…

Obviously it then got dark again, in the spirit of Christmas we were turned away from camping at the Inn so we found a small nook next to a GPS datum point off the main road round behind a spikey mound. The traffic that had been such a pain when on the road, suddenly became a mesmerising dance of lights and noises as vehicles wormed their way down the mountain. 

Ah yes, the mountains. Finally a lovely elevation where not everything sticks to you because of perspiration, where views are spectacular and the stars shine so bright. This is where we like to be, up here where the air is clear. You may be thinking “The chances of the air being clear anywhere near you, Bakers, is zero”. Good point.

So it’s been four months now, that makes halfway. Crazy eh? How did that even happen, and doesn’t the second half of any holiday always go faster than the first. Insert crying emoji face here. May as well look at some numbers while we dry away the tears.

We have done 18,000kms, 11,250miles, at an average of 146km, 91miles, per day. For 123 days. Consuming a grotesque 2300 litres of fuel at 22mpg.

M to the A to the P