We eventually escaped Panama. Actually it was the country which has given us one of  the most pleasant surprised so far – a good place with great beaches and nice people. They even upgraded us to 1^st class for our flight to Colombia! Just my luck that it was only a 40 minute flight and the plebs also got free drinks – hardly worth it.

Cartagena woman – lunch well balanced but she’s dropped the dog.

Our stay in Cartagena was only meant to be for a couple of days as the Wallenius Wilhelmsen ship, with our truck on board, should have sailed on the day after we delivered it in Colon. It was delayed. It was possibly re-routed. We had to find another cheaper hotel. All of this was pretty ruinous for our budget. Eating in cafes and staying in hotels might sound great (it does to me) but it is actually a bore.



Cartagena - back street Christmas decorations

 

Cartagena - plaza

 

Wonderfully decorated balcony

Cartagena is a very pretty World Heritage site, Spanish colonial walled city and is reputed to be the most beautiful in the Americas. It probably is and it is definitely not to be missed if one is in the area. Because of this it gets crowded, especially in the high season and we were in it; it was too touristy for us. If you do go, beware of the taxi drivers; they are a miserable bunch who, unlike the rest of Colombia, are rude, grumpy and aggressive and they have to be told the way to where you want to go.  My pics are rather misleading as they don’t show too many of the throngs of trippers – but they were there.



Umm ?

 

Saw this and thought of you (you know who you are)

 

Even more wonderfully ..........

 

Cartagena old and new

If either of you readers ever contemplate a trip like this then may I recommend a brilliant agent in Cartagena called Enlace Carribe? They are a small family firm whose main business is importing giant de-humidifier bags for packing in coffee ISO containers. As a side-line they act as fixers for obtaining the release of private vehicles from the port. This is not a simple thing to do and would have tested our ability beyond breaking point. In the end we had our truck back, undamaged, undamp and un-robbed.

I’m not going to bore you with family Christmas details but we hired a house on an unspoilt beach near Santa Veronica for a week and then stayed in a hotel in Taganga for another week. The logistics of us all meeting up at the same place and at the same time were complicated so we were really looking forward to this civilised break. The first house in Santa Veronica was a disaster.

Second Santa Veronica beach house with old man kipping in hamock

 We had paid the full amount in advance and when we arrived, late in the evening, it was a tip. No plumbing, no cooker, un-serviced pool, shitty paper in the bins etc – boo! Some Colombian friends took command and sorted it all out the next day, got most of our money back and found us a nicer and cheaper house nearby. It even had a Turkish bath; why on earth would one want such a thing in a climate like Colombia’s? I couldn’t work out how to use it.



Playa Sisiuaca fishing boats

 

Playa Nudista(?) Tayrona Nat Pk

 

Christmas on Playa de Concha

The hotel in Taganga – Casa de Mer – was great and was made by the amazing brothers who run it; Hector and Wilmar. The only thing they couldn’t control was the noise. Colombia seems to be a very noisy country, especially where people are on holiday or are having “fun”. In the evenings Taganga bars and cafes compete with each other to make sure their particular music can be heard. The result? Hell. A fair amount of the dancing is odd too. Rather uncoordinated and sometimes close staggering and wobbling about similar to a couple of epileptic sex-maniacs. I’ve never actually seen a couple (or even one) of E S-Ms but I have a healthy imagination.

On Boxing Day we set off in the truck (it was groaning under the four of us) to get to Bogota airport for a New Year’s Eve flight. This would have been straight forward apart from water in the diesel.  The nondescript town of Chiquinquira has only one diesel engine expert and we didn’t find him. Instead we found a chap who thought he was an expert. He drained the tank and cleaned the filter and fannied about with the jets and put it all back together and voila! – Still buggered. He did most of it again and there was a minor improvement and he thought we might get to the Nissan agent in Bogota. We didn’t; the next morning it was as bad as ever. The non-expert’s mate said “I’m an expert and you need new jets - £2,000”. To cut a long story short, through Colombian friends of friends, a saviour called Daniel arrived with a diesel expert who was. A new fuel filter and we were as right as rain. I did, however, have to stop en-route to reinsert one of the jets which hadn’t been tightened and was spraying the engine and road with a quarter of our precious fuel.

fixing injectors

 Colombia is a great country to travel through and seems to be safe if one is sensible and doesn’t go to known trouble spots. There are still grave dangers to travellers in some areas due to the drug war and to terrorist/gangsters. There is a large police and army presence; the police stop drivers and are fair and polite, the army (in the safer areas that we drove through) stand by the roadsides giving thumbs-up to passing motorists and waving. Hearts and minds, they call it. They all looked very smart and very young.



I should point out that Colombian drivers are very stupid, even by Latin American stupid standards. Even driving most defensively, there is little one can do when faced with three on-coming lorries and busses overtaking each other on a bend, on a hill etc etc...

Drying beans on the Pan-American Hwy

 The border crossing into Ecuador is meant to be efficient and simple. It was simple but beware of crossing at the end of the New Year. We queued on foot for 12 hours to get through formalities – in the rain. Luckily there were thereof us still so we could take it in shifts and then shelter in the truck.

Fine art-work - Bolivar town Statue

We had been invited to stay with a regimental friend’s grown-up son and his family in Quito. We hadn’t seen him for nearly thirty years and had never met his amazing Mrs. It’s not always that I like other people’s children but the four of these were charming; there was even a wicked great aunt! (That’s wicked in the modern “wick” sense). Poor them, little did they realise the demands we would make upon them and where they were probably expecting us for a night or two, we stayed for five. It was great to be so spoilt, well fed and welcomed.

Our generous hosts managed to find a chap to fix our written-off computer. The hard drive motor had seized and the drive had to be replaced. He managed to recover most of our files so we are now up and running again.

Ecuador PanAm start of the Andes

 

Proof

 

Wrong place

Ecuador, by the way, is called that as it’s on the Equator. Before Quito we passed a sign saying something like “this way to the Equator”. They had a large tower and sort of mystic lines round it (and even a couple of scatty American women waving their arms around and chanting). The Nav – who is dead-on at navigating etc – discovered with the aid of our Garmin gps that they had the monument in the wrong place. Needless to say, when I pointed this out to the man on duty, he got huffy and said that Garmin used American satellites and they weren’t accurate and he charged us $2 each to enter the site! Huh! Anyhow somewhere above or below should be a couple of snaps – proof.



See, the Nav knows

 

Don't do anything and pay $2 each

 

Quito

 

Fuel tanker – still motoring

 Back on the road we were quite keen to press on as we didn’t want to arrive in the deep south in winter and it’s a long way. The problem is that there’s so much to see. Ecuador for instance is a wonderful place – very civilized, charming people and modern. It also has some very tall volcanoes. The first that we camped on, Cotapaxi – about 18,000’, is a classic snow topped cone but is unfortunately often covered with cloud.

Cotopaxi summit

 

Cotopaxi -a rare cloudless view

We spent a couple of days there at 12,500’ where the effects of altitude make even a shovel recce an exhausting task. As luck would have it the clouds parted and there it was. There was a lagoon nearby with many species of native birds. Most seemed to be called Andean ... such as Andean gulls, Andean coots, Andean teal etc; why could that be?

Nothing daunted and seemingly able to survive without oxygen masks, we pressed on to the even higher Volcan Chimberazo – a mere 20,500’. While visiting the Hernando Refuge, 15,500’ up a rough track, a taxi turned up and deposited a couple of Austrian climbers, complete with all their gear. It’s not how I would imagine going mountaineering. (Actually, I can’t imagine going mountaineering at all.) Tomas und Anna were on a seemingly quick tour of parts of South America climbing the very high bits. We slept at about 14,500’ where our central heating won’t work! Brrr! We woke to a crystal freezing morning with frosty vicuna around and a great view. -6c outside and a toasty -3c in.

Chimborazo– frosty vicuna

 

Chimborazo cold clear dawn

A very bumpy and fog/cloud bound drive, in the dark with closed roads and potholes, eventually led us to Ecuador’s most important archaeological site at Ingapirca. If it’s so important, why not put some signs up to let poor tired explorers like us find where it is? We eventually found a village with the same name so parked in the square/parking-lot/tip and went to bed. In the morning, there it was, outside our kitchen door.

Riobamba market

 

Incapirca from the truck

We pressed on. A very pretty town called Cuenca is famous for Panama hats and I was going to have one. I had tried one on in Quito but as it was $600 I couldn’t really justify it.

$600 panama hat

 However, K. Dorfzaun of Cuenca had just the one and he gave us an informative (if short) tour round the factory. I was pleased to note that the Prince of Wales wears one of Dorfzaun’s, or at least he did when he visited Ecuador. The most annoying thing is that he almost certainly didn’t have to pay for his and he can afford one. We tried explaining to the chap looking after us that I was quite important too and that I went to school with HRH. He hadn’t a clue what we were on about.

Our South American Handbook (that we don’t have any more, but more on that later) told us to try the Sunday market at Saraguro, so we did. The local Indians there wear all black. The men have black hats, plaited hair, jackets, shorts and, usually, gumboots. When dressing up for special occasions, the wear strange long white chaps, very odd. The women are similar but with neater hair and no shorts. (woolly skirts instead). They are all quite short and reminded me of umpalumpas. They were all very picturesque but I don’t really like taking snaps of the poor, long-suffering locals because they either don’t like it and look grumpy or they expect payment and it makes me feel more like a Gringo than I am.

Seragura church flowers

 

The girls in Saraguro spend hours and a huge effort making large double-sided circular flower arrangements for the church. Each uses hundreds of flowers and several women to make. They weigh so much that it takes two sturdy umpalumpas to carry them up to the altar.

Yum-yum 1

 

Our last Ecuadorean adventure was a trip to the east of the mountains to Podacarpus (a kind of tree) National Park in the Amazonias region.



The road to Amazonias - Zamora

 

 - blocked by large landslide (double-click it to see tiny diggers)

 

Podacarpus– thick jungle

 

just like in the filums

The drive in was prolonged by some hours as the new and wonderful paved road had been swept away by a large landslide and all the traffic for the area had to detour for twenty Kms or so down a very narrow and precipitous track. At least it was dry – Lord knows what it would have been like if it had been raining!  The park was brilliant; thick jungle with rivers and waterfalls, weird birds (including one called Cock-of –the-Rock, look it up) and plants. We nearly killed ourselves by tackling a seriously steep hike up a mountain to look out over the surrounding hills and valleys. In the night it rained, hard. The detour track back was all that it should have been – still, we made it.



Last legs& miles to go - it's steeper than it looks

 

The top

 

Lunch - an odd but strangely good banana

 

Bath (this bathing in steams isn’t all it’s cracked up to be – it’s always VERY cold)

 

Our camp –end of the track – no one for miles

 

posing vultures

 

The dodgy drive out of Podacarpus National Park

I know you like the odd dose of local names, so here are few (real) Ecuadorean places: Ludo,  Jilili, Pongo, 27 Apr, 24 May, 9 Oct, 12 Dec, Sigasig, Zamb and two places called Ponce.

 

 

And so on to Peru. Trip Advisor states that driving in Peru should be regarded as an “Extreme Sport”.  I say they tie with Colombia for stupid driving.

Northern Peru desert - like this bit, it's scattered with crosses where people have hopped their twigs

We had fond memories of the country as we had been there nearly thirty years ago and seen some of the famous sights. We didn’t want to spoil our memories of that trip by going back and braving the crowds. Machu Pichu, for instance now costs about $160 to visit and one goes in a special tourist train in which they play piped pan-pipe muzak – you know the sort of thing, El Condor Passo etc. Instead we wanted to drive through bits that we couldn’t visit before due to the irritating and dangerous Shining Path terrorist group. (They are apparently making a bit of a come-back.) A most of the country between the Andes and the sea is desert and once the novelty value has worn off, very dull it is too.

where the desert meets the sea - a great place to camp (despite the unknown plant)

 

Arty sunset pelicans

 

Either a lot of these in Peru of this one had been following us for days

 

More spectacular Pan Americana desert

 



Nik-An citadel Chan Chan



One of the highlights of this section was the pre-Incan city of Chan Chan just outside a city called Trujillo. We arrived quite late and the guard said we could stay in the carpark and visit it afterhours if we wanted. Yes we did. It was great and not too restored. The city covered over 20 square kms, housed 30,000 people and was built from mud. It must have impressed those invading Incas when they eventually defeated the Chimu residents as they didn’t destroy it but added to it. The Chimu king was such a good chap that the chief Inca (whose name escapes me) took him with him when he toured his empire. Unfortunately for the king they met the Spanish Conquistadors who mistook him for the Incan boss and promptly killed him. So, just goes to show then, doesn’t it?



Short these pre-Inca boilers, even by my standards



We had to brave Lima in order to get some propane gas. Without going into too much detail, it’s sometimes quite hard to get. We ended up the proud owners of a slightly Heath Robinson adaptor which would enable us to fill up from a LPG point in a garage. We couldn’t wait to try it out and in my excitement whilst uncoupling the hose, a jet of flame nearly wiped out the truck, fuel station and a large chunk of Lima. The VERY worried and scared attendant didn’t know where the key to the fire extinguisher padlock was and didn’t want to break the glass! By the time I had wrestled ours from the camper the fire had gone out – thank God. I’m not sure my German insurance man, the very good Herr Nowag, would have understood, let alone coughed-up.

Sierra Blanca from our back-door 13,000'

As I have mentioned we wanted to see bits of Peru that we couldn’t in the 1980s so we planned a large loop on relatively newly surfaced roads from Nazca across the Andes to Cuzco via Abancay then Southeast past Lake Titicaca to the Bolivian border at Desaguardero and the back across the mountains through Peru to make for the border with Chile south of Tacna. We gave Bolivia a miss; it can sometimes be very hard to find fuel there and we didn’t want the hassle of an unnecessary border crossing if we could travel through equally spectacular scenery in Peru. Hardcore overlanders might consider us wet, but we had had a fair amount of high altitude and the road south from La Paz is prone to heavy rain and even summer snow and landslides.

We had a fantastic drive which was the highlight of our time in Peru; high passes, herds of alpaca/llama and vicuna, ah condors, Andean geese, giant coot and other varied fauna. We took some great photos.

South Peru Andes

 

Cuzco has changed much more touristy with its own herds of gringos, Japanese, Chinese and hairy Europeans many of whom seemed to spend the day in things that looked like their pyjama trousers! Idle buggers – what’s wrong with corduroy?

Upon our arrival back in the lowlands, feeling oxygen-rich if not financially so, we decided to buy some speakers for our ipod. We had been using the radio to plug it into but that has packed up. Tacna is famed for its duty free zone so off we trotted. In less than 10 minutes a screwdriver had been hammered through the passenger door lock and loads of valuables stolen; my big Pentax and lens, Nav’s Olympus, the air compressor, my prescription-lens Ray-Bans, our guide books, dictionary and our bag of rather dirty laundry and my 1958 pattern haversack. My non-christian hope is that the thieving bastard’s vision is so blurred by my v cool shades that he wanders under a truck. We had taken all the precautions that were practical, short of leaving one of us in the truck. I’ve had to buy a very expensive replacement camera and lens etc and we have had to buy shirts etc. Not what we needed when we can hardly afford the next tank of fuel. Our insurance for this trip is pretty basic otherwise the premiums are out of reach, so we shall have to put it to the fine aforementioned Herr Nowag and see what he comes up with. (He could be pretty wilco having escaped having to buy a new Lima.) Nissan in Tacna did a good and quick bodge-job on the lock so the truck is lockable.

A tasty snack

 

Yum-scrum 2

We left Peru into the very civilised arms of Chile with a sense of relief. The country feels that it has changed since we were here before. The people don’t smile readily but are fine if you talk to them. The countryside is still spectacular but the desert in the north has piles and piles of junk, rubble and rubbish just scattered along the main Pan-American Highway. The towns are run-down and shoddy. I can’t show you most of this as .... see above - and I hadn’t downloaded the whole country’s pictures onto the laptop. Most of the Peru pics you see here were taken on the Nav’s phone.

Before I leave you I have the sad duty to report that our blue aluminium camp kettle has sprung a leak and is BLR. This may not sound so tough to most of you but consider this; that kettle has been used by us since before we were married and before that, my intrepid explorer mother had used it all round the Himalayas, well, Ireland (nearly the same thing). We need to sort out a fitting end to it – cast into a volcano? – floated out to sea in the Pacific? Sold to a Patagonian Welshman “as good as new guv”? I will report back.

I’m bored with writing this and you would be with reading it if you had reached this far, so hasta luego and maybe one more episode to come.

silly cow