Minca to Medellin

Colombia 2nd week

(I can't seem to edit this, so when I push "publish" I'm stuck with what I get.  Sorry if the layout is bad.")

We have been in a very non-touristy part of Columbia, going south from Santa Marta on the coast down along the central/eastern coast.  

Our laundress and cook of wonderful chicken and rice empanadas

Flower vendor outside church and playground in Minca

Kids alongside the road on the way down from Minca.

The night before we were leaving Minca a guy drove over the bottom step of our aluminum folding stairs to the back door of the camper.  At first he was convinced it wasn’t broken, then that he didn’t do it (he really didn’t think he did!).  Actually, a nice young man with a family; he left us $10 US equivalent.

Next morning, in town we hired a taxi to find a welder for aluminum in downtown Santa Marta.  While that was being welded, he took us to a phone store for a Columbia “chip” and minutes —only to find that we it doesn’t work for calling out of the country.  More to story, but not worth it.

All told, $60 US for the welding and reassembly (which took the welder, Mike and the taxi driver to do).  Then $18 for a phone that won't work except in Columbia, and $60 for the taxi driver who stayed with us for 4 hours.  We needed him!  Ah, well. . . 

Worse, was trying to find water.  No 5 gallon bottles to be found, no water from a hose, then when found; no pressure.  I had hoped to use drinking water for the camper tank, but now we’ll have to use chlorine in the tank and dish water, and buy 5 liter bottles of drinking water.  About like camping on the river.  Then we began having trouble buying anything more than 1 liter bottles!

At first, trying to understand the money was seemingly overwhelming, until I figured out:  $20,000 Col, is about $10 US.  $50 mil(lion) Col is a twenty-five dollar bill, and so on. Just knock off the last three zeros and divide by half.  Not bad.

“Eddie” saw us beside the truck and said hello.  He is from NY, been in Santa Marta a month and has a food truck with Mexican food.  Invited us by, but regrettably, we were leaving town (not wanting to drive downtown anyway).

Speaking of driving —everyone does — speak of it, I mean!!  One Australian’s comment was, the pedestrians have about as much road sense as a blind goat! Another couple wrote, the truck drivers own the road and they only agree to let you use it at their leisure.

Then there are the motorcycles — everywhere.  Hundreds.  Weaving, bobbing, passing every which direction.  I told Mike, I’m amazed they don’t run right over the top of our camper.  They do everything else!   When visiting with our friend, Jim,  we commented that we can’t believe there aren’t dozens of accidents every day.  “Oh, but there are!”  he commented, “They just breed faster than we can kill’em off!”  I’m sure most don’t really understand the complexities of driving a large rig as they dart around.

Line of cyclists without cars or trucks, for once.

Heading south, we saw some of the most beautiful pastures and spreading-branched trees I have ever seen.  Made some shots through the windows, but the traffic makes it impossible to stop. 

We really miss our ATV’s and Tracker.  This country is PERFECT for them in the mountains.  We’ll have to make do with taxis when we  want to go into town centers or markets.

There are many Brahma cattle, of course, but this afternoon we saw a herd of really black, weird African-looking cattle.

The Magdelena Valley is hot, hot, hot.  Ninety-eight this morning.  Hotter later.  We decided on a hotel room with AC — a real rat-hole, but cool.  The next night decided to go up into the mountains to gain altitude.  We drove 20 miles up into the mountains. This took one hour on tight curves to go 20 miles, from 300 feet elevation to 4200 feet,  but the views in this canyon were fabulous. 

 We stopped at an outdoor restaurant on a curve overlooking this canyon.  Very simple little place, but she was the most fabulous cook.  We had a tasty better-than-beef beef soup, very thin perfectly fried pork, cooked yucca, fried plantain and excellent beans and rice.  These pinto beans were the first we’d seen; no black beans  at all in Columbia, according to a friend.  We had enough leftover for a huge meal the next day.

The beautiful valley which drops right off their back patio at the restaurant.

Our great cook (right) and sister.

Burros for hire for delivering firewood and groceries up in the hills, after
people come home on the bus.

Pat giving yet another tour of the "casita"

A nice breeze came up and we stayed the night.  Had coffee and toast (and rice and pork empanadas and another delicious plantain (a special banana, fried). 

She and her daughters enjoyed asking us questions.  The eleven year old daughter is already a stunning beauty, dark eyes and hair and dimples.  I didn’t get very good pictures as she was curious, but shy.  It’s encounters like this that we love and travel for. 

Our travel across the Magdalena Valley  was lovely, but hot.  Cisneros was a trip.  Big pueblo, not city, in the mountains with narrow streets.  We wound around corners and up hills, following 2 trucks at 20 mph.  We finally pulled off, on again and caught up; pulled off again.

Burro train ready to hit the trail.

Unusual church in Cisneros in Magdalenga Valley

The next 60 miles were hair-raising turns in beautiful country.  In the city of Medellin (may-day-jean’), we were lost more than found.  I couldn’t tell from the GPS whether the signal was for an upcoming curve in the road, or if we were supposed to turn off!

Getting dark, spent the night in a Texaco, then moved to semi-truck parking lot. Lots of noise and trucks coming and going all day.

View from the back door of our camper in the truck parking lot

First Week in Colombia

Greetings from Mike and Pat in Cartagena, Colombia, South America!  We have our pickup and camper here that we shipped from Colorado, to Houston, then via boat to here.

You might ask what prompted us to visit here.  Well, at the end of our New Zealand trip in March, 2013, Mike asked, “Well, would you like to come back here —or maybe go to Australia?”  “Well,” I answered, “you’ve mentioned South America one time.  I think I’d like to go there.”

Well, let me tell you, Mike grabbed that idea like a starving dog with a bone — and ran with it!

So, six months of planning and work, here we are.  I refused to let Mike consider taking our really good camper and great GMC pickup, and insisted we buy another set, to be resold after we get back.  We needed a tougher combo with no slide.  We purchased a 1999 Ford 350 pickup truck and an older 2005 Bigfoot camper.

Mike spent the entire summer retro fitting the camper with solar panels and electrical equipment, and a luxurious!? porta-potty to replace the stool in the 2005 camper bathroom.  The rig is entirely self-sufficient, though not as roomy as our other Bigfoot — but a better set-up for rugged roads and scattered campgrounds. 

Before shipping the rig to Houston, we had to remove ALL of everything from the cab, down to floor mats and windshield wipers, leaving absolutely nothing.  (They needed keys to move the rig, of course, but the camper was triple locked).

So, now we are here, our fifth day actually, but the FIRST that we feel truly HERE.  Cartagena is a city with unbelievable traffic with motorbikes dashing in and out, taxis galore, and frequent jams with horns beeping. 

The first day was spent sightseeing in “Old Town” Cartagena which was within walking distance of our hotel.  It is a rather large area with shops, restaurants, old colorful buildings, and narrow streets.  A fun day.  

Two views of "Old Town" Cartagena 

Containers at the dock, a few of many

Tuesday, the fun began.  Documents, taxi rides, papers, waiting, purchases of life insurance

for 5 days so Mike could go in to the yard to get the truck, paying expensive dock fees.  Personnel were all friendly, but the system sucks.  Not efficient.  Take a taxi rather than make a phone call.  Two days, 9 hours each, of this, but at the end of the second day, the little customer service gal said, “Here are your papers!  Go!  NOW!

Mike and I freaked.  It was nearly 7 in the evening.  We don’t drive after dark. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast.  All of our things were back at the hotel and not packed.  We were having problems with BOTH ATM cards and I needed to send more emails while I still had wifi.  We were tired.  We wanted beers.  AND, we had no place to go with the truck!  

Our panic showed.  She had never asked us WHEN we wanted the truck; she assumed immediately.  We were thinking the next morning. We begged off.  She was not happy but cancelled the appointment and rescheduled for the next morning.   (And the next morning, the dock guy wanted to know, “Why weren’t you here last night!!” )  Oh well. . . 

So we picked up the truck/camper rig.  I walked out and saw the truck and camper for the first time and much to my surprise, I choked up.!  I guess I was so relieved, and down deep, I feared never seeing the rig in one piece again.  But, no damage.  Nothing stolen.  All in good shape. Even my colorful little moose sticker was still on the back door!

Next, diesel, water and propane.  Then find our way out of town — the quickest, shortest way possible.  We hadn’t gone far when we talked of lunch, found a large truck lot near a restaurant, and stopped.  Wow, we had space and we had shade! 

So during lunch, we decided to remove all of our things from the camper, back to the cab of the pickup.  HOT WORK.  Sweat was literally pouring off us.  But in two hours, we were back together.  Time for more of the delicious lemonaid we’d had for lunch, and we decided to stay the night.  The people who lived around the restaurant loved coming up and visiting and asking questions.  Marta thought our lawn chairs were absolutely swell!

Pictures of conveyances on the road

The following day, we drove to Santa Marta, where I had a taxi take me to a supermercado.  Then the fun began:  an hour drive up into the mountains on a pot holey road to Minca.  We went up from sea level to 1800 feet elevation.  The drive through small-town Minca was hair-raising, with me walking backwards through most of town guiding Mike around cars, trees, wires, roof edges and satellite dishes. A couple of locals had to move their vehicles.

After finally arriving at the “grande” parking space we were sent to, we were not allowed to stay.  The gentleman didn’t want anyone sleeping there.  If it hadn’t been for our lovely benefactress who spoke excellent English, I would never have know WHY we couldn’t stay nor where we COULD park —a real issue as it was getting dark. 

She then went back up the street to a woman who had already told us we couldn’t park.  I told her we would be glad to pay— that did the trick.  Then Mike had to BACK up the street between a tree and a car.  Tight fit and it wasn’t going well.  After a bit, the car owner moved it.

I asked our cute new friend where she learned such excellent English.  “My husband is from New York.  We just moved here three years ago. I always tell him to keep his sunglasses on until I’ve negotiated a price.”  I laughed and said, he must have blue eyes!  “Yes, he does.” she agreed.

A Short Pre-Trip Report

Red Mountain on the way from Ouray to Durango, CO

We've been gone from home the last three weeks, but we’ve been visiting my sister, Kathy and Richard in Scottsdale and sightseeing in CA. 

We drove from Tom and Deb’ home in Prescott, AZ to Sequoia Nat’l Monument, Southern Unit.  There, we found not only beautiful large, tall sequoias, but a wonderful scent in the mountain air. 

 A snow storm, several days before, was a bonus of beauty.   And it was possibly the moisture of the melting snow in the sunlight that gave off the most intoxicating smell. . . I breathed deeply a smell that put a smile on my face for nearly an hour as we walked among the towering trees.

The road down out of there to Porterville was a horrendous number of tight curves that could be negotiated at no more than 15-20 miles an hour.  A full hour of  probably 15 curves a minute was just too much! 

The next morning Route 245 to Badger on the way to King’s canyon was equally bad (shown as a straight road on the map).  Because of these two roads, we went to King’s Canyon, but not Sequoia National Park whose roads looked even twistier for even longer.

King’s Canyon is a very long, very deep canyon with stunning Sequoias, as well.   We drove deep into the canyon and camped near the end of the road.  Perhaps not a spectacular place, but interesting and enjoyable, nevertheless.

We fly out tonight at midnight, land in  New York, then on to Cartagena, Colombia, South America where our pickup truck and camper should be waiting. . . . 

         And our South American adventure will begin.