Colombia II

Next destination: Jardin.  This delightful oasis was like balm for a tortured soul.  Well, we weren’t actually feeling tortured, just upset about our roof.  This charming town is set high in the coffee growing region and it certainly taught us what “Mountain Grown” is all about.  The fields are right to the top of the mountains and tended by the toughest farmers we can imagine.  Getting to work must be a horrible ordeal and if you lose concentration at any time you would likely tumble for a long way.  This is not an exaggeration.  The town, on the other hand, is nestled in the valley and has several flat areas.  Again, it is colourful and delightful.  I know that I will miss all the lively colours when we go home.  Monochrome Medellin with its red brick looks shabby compared to Technicolor Jardin.  We rode La Garrucha, an antique cable car installed to help workers access the banana and coffee plantations.  It felt like a miniature cattle car but provided us with a fabulous view of the town and the mountains enclosing it.  After a tasty snack and pictures of the paragliders on the opposite mountain, we headed back down.  Our next stop was the Reserva Natural for the Gallitos de Rocas.  This lovely garden is home to the endangered Cock of the Rock birds.  These striking birds look like Little Red Riding Hood with their red feathered cloaks.  We were able to observe them quite closely, unlike our other bird-watching endeavours.  Totally happy with our touristing, we spent the rest of the day living like the locals.  This meant sitting on the colourful, painted chairs, beer in hand, watching the world pass by.  The warm evening was perfect, the view of their distinctive brown and white church was breath-taking and the local men were on parade.  At times, it just feels obtrusive to take pictures, but the men were handsome.   Traditional hats were paired with a folded, thin poncho draped over one shoulder and accessorized with a hand-tooled leather purse.  Chic!

More fantabulous scenery on our way over the mountains towards the Valle de Cocora.  We need to leave the country before I run out of superlatives.  Once again, I missed some wonderful signs that you never see at home: Squirrel, Rat, Cat and Zorro (a fox).  They also make their fenceposts look like giant crayons, the “sharpened” end in one colour and the post another colour.  Sometimes, every post is different.  A lot of meticulous work for just a fence.  We stayed at a mirador (viewpoint) overnight and met some Brazilians heading to Alaska.  We warned them about their roof-top tents in September.  Their enthusiasm was infectious however and they will not return until they see a grizzly, Northern Lights and the derelict bus from the movie “Into The Wild”.  I know they will have a wonderful adventure.

The Valle de Cocora was surreal.  I felt like we had just driven into Dr. Seuss’ book “The Lorax”.  The tall, spindly Wax Palms are scattered haphazardly throughout the valley, always with a lot of space between them.  These 60 metre giants dwarf everything around them, horses grazing around them look like toys.  Although they are the national tree, they do not seem to be found anywhere else.  Curious.   All the more reason to savour the experience.  The other unique sight here are the Jeep “Willys” that were given to Colombia after World War II.  They are meticulously maintained and even warrant their own parade once a year.

Up and over the next mountains, we got up to 3300 metres in elevation.  Again, single-lane roads, hair-pin turns and speeds averaging 20-40 kmph.  Displaced Venezuelans attempt to assist traffic flow for tips, but this is hard.  You don’t dare stop so they have to sprint alongside until you can pass over the money.  I feel so sad for these desperate people.  We saw more strange road signs; sloths, caiman, rodents and possums.  We also added fields of rice, corn and cotton to our agricultural observations.  Indeed, there isn’t much that will not grow in this country.  That is why we are going to the Tatacoa Desert.  This is a total anomaly in lush Colombia.  The entire desert is a mere 330 square kilometres.

Now comes part two of the “worst of times” in our trip.  Following the GPS, we turned onto an impassible street in Villavieja.  Realizing the consequences, Doug decided to back up and get onto a larger road.  I jumped out to watch for oncoming traffic, he turned the corner too tight and a metal bar on an awning punched through our largest window.  It also bent the window frame and gouged the side of our camper.  Oh, unhappy day! The mess from the double-paned, tempered glass took many hours (in extreme heat I may add) to clean up.  Now we had a bigger issue, the frame of the window was damaged.  So unfortunately, repair was not just a case of replacing the glass.  Thus, we were faced with having to obtain a window from the United States.  It will be difficult.  To add insult to injury, the ‘desert’ is no more than scrub pastureland which is less than exciting for us.  The stunning rock formations were just small, eroded dirt hills.  Yes, we were both stressed and underwhelmed.  We did the long drive through the desert and decided to head south.

Leaving Neiva, we headed towards Popayan as it is the largest center in the direction we were traveling.  This entailed going up and over the mountain range again.  Hopefully, there would be less traffic here and we could travel quickly.  A couple hours later, the pavement ended, and the road became narrower and considerably rougher.  We began to climb in earnest and the road became a one lane, rocky, disaster.  Surprisingly, buses and transport trucks would still appear, but it was increasingly difficult to pass them.  Now we were totally committed to this disintegrating road; there was no place to turn around and it was getting dark.  The small villages offered no respite.  The few roads there were small, steep tracks and they had no flat places large enough for our rig.  This was the closest we have come to feeling panicky.  As darkness folded around us, we entered the town of Belen.  There, like an oasis, sat a Terpel gas station.  Amazingly, it also had a flat, empty space where we could park!!! We asked the owner if we could park there for the night, he agreed to our request, so we topped up our fuel and began to set up.   It was then that the third disaster struck.  A local pointed out a strange space between the cab and the box of the truck.  Doug checked and confirmed the ugly fact: the frame of the truck was broken clean through.  We did not rest well that night.

Morning did not promise much.  We are now very remote, in a tiny town with no cell or Wi-Fi coverage or ATM’s (yes, we didn’t have much cash).  Finding a tow truck that was large enough to carry both the truck and camper was going to be a big challenge.  In all likelihood we would have to leave our windowless camper behind and have just the truck hauled to a repair shop.  Guess who was going to be left behind with the camper.  Things looked bleak.  That is when we discovered that there was a small welding shop directly across the street.  Could he fix it? How long would it take? What would the quality of the work look like? How would the alignment be affected? Well, desperation dictates, so we hired the welder immediately.  He dropped everything to work on it right away.  Five hours later, it was fixed.  Doug then had to drive back to La Plata (over two hours away) to get cash to pay our welder.  Our second night at the Terpel station was more relaxing than the first.

After learning that continuing, on this road to Popayan, would be another eight hours of pot-holed winding hell like the last section, we opted to backtrack and take a better (well, different) route.  It would still be a long drive, so we planned to hit the road early.  Our bad luck was not finished with us yet, however.  Doug reloaded the camper, only to discover that one of our front jacks when swung into place, would not lock.  It was ten o’clock by the time he had it sorted out.  Doug’s fourth drive over the road to La Plata was not any smoother or quicker.  We finally reached pavement and had a glorious half-hour of smooth road before the construction sections began.  Soon, we were experiencing the bone-jarring, single lane nightmare that is highway 26.  We crawled through washouts and landslides for hours until we finally reached the finca after five o’clock.  

Despite Doug’s emails regarding our size, the hosts of the Finca did not realize that our camper would not fit under their gate.  The black cloud was still tied to our bumper.  After much angst, they asked their next-door-neighbours if we could park in their yard.  We literally squeezed through that gate with centimeters to spare.  At that point, we were too tired to function anymore.

Luckily, the next week worked out better than we could have imagined.  Our hosts did everything to make us feel comfortable and welcomed.  Colombian hospitality is a family affair, everyone contributes and participates.  They have brought over coffee, fresh squeezed fruit juices, fresh papaya and mango and even made us lunch one day.  An uncle provided taxi services in and out of the city so we could shop and do errands.  He also took us on a walk to explore their property.  This resulted in a huge bag of lemons as well.  The cousin loaned us her phone so Doug could call the U.S. to talk to window companies.  On our last day, the uncle and his wife took us on a tour of Popayan and even bought us Colombian treats.  The father allowed us to use his business address in the city as a delivery point for the window.  We would have had a difficult time dealing with all the complex issues without their help.  When we left, the neighbours gave us a good-bye lunch and our host family gave us their home-grown coffee and a kilo of cane sugar.  Colombians are lovely people.

Doug had spent the week trying to locate and contact window suppliers in the U.S.A.  The frame and partial window needed to be removed so accurate measurements could be made, and then replaced again.  He finally located a RV glass company in Indiana that would build a new window and frame.  He sent the measurements several times as each time the recipient claimed that they had not been received or wanted to reconfirm the information.  We realized that we needed to get a new phone plan so we could talk to the States directly.  We were told that they could build a window in three to four weeks and ship it by UPS which would take another week.  So, by late August we should be able to hit the road again.  Not perfect, but we could handle this.

As pleasant as our current location was, it was not ideal for a long-term stay.  Doug located a more suitable finca not too far from Popayan, so we headed there to wait for our window.  This was a mere 45-minute drive on good pavement and towards Silvia which was another tourist destination.  We were met at La Bonanza, next door to the Ponderosa, by a pair of young Frenchmen, Ben and Jojo.  Luckily, Jojo spoke some English so we were soon happily ensconced in our new home.  It had a large home with wrap-around furnished decks, a big property, water, electricity, Wi-Fi, a washing machine and hot showers.  Awesome!  

Within days, other travellers arrived.  Now the fun began.  Silvia is famous for it’s Tuesday market.  So, on our first Tuesday at the finca, all ten of us piled into the pick-up truck and went to the market.  This is the day that the Guambino (one of Colombia’s 68 indigenous groups) come down from their reserve to buy and sell at the market.  Men and women dress in their traditional skirts and ponchos.  These are royal blue wool, edged with bright pink.  Black felt bowler hats complete the outfit.  Often, women wear a hand-woven straw hat with symbolic designs.  These hats are totally flat but can pop up a few inches when worn, quite ingenious.  The market had a huge variety of produce, all very fresh and clean, as well as numerous bags of spices which we didn’t recognise.  We explored the town and had some coffee and treats.  We were impressed with the decorated buses and marvelled at the quantity of cargo they would carry.  I was impressed when they strapped a huge piece of furniture to the bumper.  Hope it arrived safely.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, more families continued to arrive.  Twenty-five of us were now camped there, I loved all the activity.  We had a pizza party and exchanged travel information.  A young German couple suggested a horse-back ride so off we went to Silvia again.  It was a fun afternoon, even though I got the bossy horse who insisted on being in the lead (this led to some blocking and pushing at times).  The trail was very scenic, and the ride was great.  The company was even better.

As a result of our delay, we needed to get our visas extended as well as our TIP (Temporary Import Papers) for the truck.  We off-loaded the camper, packed a bag and drove to Armenia 300 km to the north.  The extensions were not a problem so that was one less worry.  We celebrated our anniversary with a lovely dinner, a pretty hotel and stocked up on luxury groceries.  Don’t laugh, dill pickles, Ghirardelli brownie mix and decent shampoo are important! The ride back was entertaining as well.  We spent the time counting the number of wagons on the Cane-Trains.  Some of these trucks were very long.

By the time we returned only the two Argentinian families were left.  The big surprise came a few days later when the Moroccan family returned home.  The Atmani family, even their three teenagers, speak four languages and are the most caring, kind and helpful people that I have ever met.  Life had just taken an upward spiral.  Within a few days, we had another influx of travellers.  Twenty-five of us again filled up the campground.  Most of these were French families which certainly made me regret my lack of language skills.  Nevertheless, it was a festive time.  Huge pot-luck lunches were organized, Moroccan tea was served every evening and camaraderie was everywhere.  Loved it!

As the wave of travellers washed away, we found ourselves settling into life as a local.  We spent our time with our host family who were very helpful and interesting.  We had our cushions in the camper reupholstered, the foam was worn out and I disliked the vinyl seats.  We now have some colour in our fabric and firm seats again.  We attended an authentic Colombian BBQ with our hosts.  We also went to a Science and Social Studies fair done by the local children in Silvia.  I really enjoyed listening to the kids explaining their projects to me although I understood very little.  They were so earnest and proud of their work.  The daughters from La Bonanza were involved in organizing traditional games for children on another weekend so we also attended that.  The games included marbles, skipping, spinning tops and rolling tires with sticks.  Everyone got involved, even the police took their turn at spinning the tops! It was a very pleasant outing.

  Kika loves to cook so she has introduced us to Moroccan and Colombian dishes and treats.  We have appreciated and enjoyed everything so much.  The girls have worked with me on my Spanish as well.  They have been very patient and encouraging as they helped with my pronunciation and vocabulary.  I have learned a lot but the amount that I don’t know is staggering.  I will definitely keep studying and practising once we head south.  The weather was consistently sunny in the day, cool and refreshing at night.  Perfect for doing laundry, lying in the hammock and working on the truck!  We ventured into Silvia, Piendamo and Popayan occasionally but spent the majority of our time just hanging out at the finca.  The pastoral life is all good, the four dogs, attack cat and chickens and ducks kept us entertained.  Every evening Kika prepared her delicious Moroccan mint tea, accompanied by fresh baked treats of course.  Luckily, losing weight was not a goal for this trip.  We have been adopted as unofficial grandparents and I have to say we could not have chosen better grandchildren.  They are kind, helpful, intelligent, outgoing and talented.  Just as our future biological grandchildren will be!!!

Towards the end of our stay, Kika took eight of us to visit the indigenous reserve outside of Silvia.  A native guide explained traditions and some of the history of his people.  He answered our questions and even took us to a sacred rock which was a very special experience.  We were then treated to a fresh trout lunch, very fresh as we watched them catch our food from one of their trout ponds next to us.  Our final spot on the tour was the native university.  Here, the students learn the traditions, language, skills and beliefs of their people.  They are then able to teach others about their traditional lifestyle.  It is hoped that many youngsters will choose to stay and maintain their ancient culture.

So, about the window… The day finally arrived, August 20, when the window was ready for shipment.  Hooray!  We received notice that the window was shipped along with the UPS tracking code.  That evening, Doug checked the tracking code to see if it was correct and to get an update on the progress of the window.  Then he noticed that duties were owing and that he could pay online, how convenient!  He clicked on the pay button and was surprised to see that he could pay in Canadian dollars, how nice!  It was about then he took note of the delivery address, OH SHIT!  Our new window was on its way to Canada, to our home address.  Whomever did the packaging and addressing of the window had used our billing address.  Doug messaged the window company first thing in the morning.  They did an immediate recall on the package but told us it would take a week for UPS to retrieve the window.  Then the next day the window arrived in Richmond, BC where it remained for 24 hours before starting the return journey to Indiana.  Unfortunately, though, the window only got as far as Redmond, WA where it stayed for about an hour at which point it was sent back to Richmond, BC.  It was now Saturday and the window company was closed for the weekend.  On Monday, Doug messaged the company bringing to their attention the fact that the package was moving in the wrong direction.  No response. Hello!!!  Just me, the customer!  Where we were located had very intermittent cell service.  So phoning was a bit of a challenge.  Doug managed to get a call through the next morning and left a message.  They finally did react and manage to contact UPS in time to stop the delivery that was enroute.  However, the window sat in Richmond for another week.  Finally, after three weeks the window was returned to Indiana.  Great (so we thought)!  Four days later, we received a new tracking number and a notice that the window was relabelled for delivery and ready for pick by UPS.  Doug quickly looked up the details to make sure they got the address right this time.  Arrrrgh!!!  Unbelievable, it was wrong again.  Doug immediately contacted them to stop the pickup and was met with defiance, informing him that they had addressed it correctly.  Well, they did have the correct country this time, but it was going to end up in a city 800 km. to the north of us.  Eventually, he was able to convince them that they had it wrong.  So, another week passed and finally on September 30, FORTY days after the initial attempt, the window was addressed properly and sent.  Doug picked it up four days later in Popayan.  He had the window installed by the end of the day and we celebrated that evening with a couple bottles of champagne.   A memorable experience for all the wrong reasons.

We spent the next week completing projects and getting ready to go.  I had been painting fall Maple leaves as thank-you gifts for the two families who had helped us through this ordeal.  We also did a huge shopping trip as prices will jump up as we proceed south.  Doug cleaned and waxed the camper so we will look good as we hit the road.  This was quite fortuitous as he noticed a crack in our doorstep.  Once more, Anouar helped us, finding and taking Doug to an aluminum welder for the repair.  Finally, we are ready to continue our travels.

The last few days were very special.  Meissa, Maya and Mehdi prepared a fabulous sushi lunch in our honour.  It took them hours, but the quality and quantity of sushi and sashimi was extremely impressive.  What an amazing treat.  What an amazing surprise. 

Kika bought us some sweet spreads, Coffee and Maricuya which were delicious.  She gave me Verbena tea from her garden.  The girls and I had manicures from a talented woman and then Kika and the girls joined me for tea in our camper.  On our final night we were inundated with lovely gifts and the next morning we received even more.  We now carry with us some very special treasures from this remarkable family.  After 74 days at their campground, we truly feel that we are part of their family, they will never be forgotten.

We drove south to the border and spent our last two nights in Colombia at Sanctuario Las Lajas.  This is a stunning cathedral at the bottom of a gorge.  We thoroughly enjoyed being tourists again.  The church is a Gothic wonder combined with an architectural feat as it spans a lovely river.  The surrounding grounds and walkways are delightful despite the steep climbs that were required.  We were very aware of our lack of exercise at La Bonanza.  Fortunately, a cable car carried us from the parking lot to the church and we only had to hike around the cathedral.

We then said goodbye to magical Colombia.  It honestly was the best time in so many ways.  The enchanting places that we visited, the stunning scenery, and most importantly, the wonderful people that we met.  Yes, there were the worst times too.  The long window-wait, the holey roof, the broken frame and all the smaller “issues” which are to be expected when a truck and camper hit the road.  “Asi es la Vida”

Our Route

Medellin – Belen

Belen – Ipiales