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