1 March: Our concerns about location for last night were unfounded and we slept really well. Not a car on the road after 9 and until 5:30. Sadly we only made it about 1km up the hill before we needed to stop and attend to MrJ as he had no power. First suspect was a blocked fuel filter so we took down the box mounted on chassis and got a new one but then when we tried to bleed the system the fuel lift pump appeared to be broken. Thankfully we had purchased 2 in Brazil 2 years ago when we had a similar problem, so spent the next 1,5 hours changing that. Once going Mr J ran really well! In Barquisimeto we did a shop and then come out to this dam and are basically wild camping near the edge of the dam. The rangers (Parque Guardia) are super friendly. Feeling shattered after some hard days on the road.
4 March: Camped behind the police post at the Venezuala National Cathedral.
It has been another slow day through the mountains and so have broken the journey here. The stain glass windows of the cathedral are magnificent
5 March: Another long and twisty day but much better roads. Initially we thought we would stop at some thermal pools but the hike to them would be hectic and not practical for Tania so pushed on to Merida. In Merida hunted for diesel with no success and then wasted an hour driving out of town to a spot marked as a campsite which was not so come back to to town and got a hotel room. Supper is a picnic on the bed tonight
6 March: Another trucking day. With no nice options to stay in Merida (other than cheap hotel rooms), we set off in search of diesel and eventually had success but payed black-market rates of nearly double the official rate, so $0.95 per litre. With a full tank it was northwards through valleys and mountains and some huge tunnels. Only one short stop to try figure out why our one brake light was not working but decided not to fiddle too much on side of the road, so left it as a problem for tonight. In the last 50km the road split in a small town before the last huge ascent to San Cristobal and Stuart chose to ignore the GPS as it often leads us thru towns instead of around. It turned out to be the wrong decision resulting in a small meltdown between us – too tired and too many long days!
7 March: A hectic day and our worst border crossing in ages – roughly 4 hours as we went from Pilar to post. At the first border stop, we cancelled our TIP but then they couldn’t process as our passports as they had no electricity (only 200m apart) so we had to drive back 5km to what turned out to be a pedestrian border which mean no parking for Mr J, eventually just stopped him in the taxi parking! At the passport window, they wanted a printed copy of Tania visa even though it is an e-visa and this was the Venezuela guard so off we went to find a copier shop and then re-joined the queue. Then there was confusion over Stuart using his British passport (to avoid needing avisa) but that got resolved.
When we tried to drive over to Colombia, we discovered that this is only for pedestrians and motorbikes so got sent back to Venezuela but now Customs didn’t want to let us out and one particularly not bright individual was insistent that Stuart park in bay 1 not 3 even though we were the only car in the entire place, at which point all frustration boiled over and the customs guys got told exactly what we think of them – even did it in Spanish 🤣
Eventually got them to let us back into Venezuela so we could drive the 5km back to the first post. It was now lunch time in Colombia (time zone changes at the border) so we waited 90minutes for colombia customs but at least when they returned we got a sweet lady to check Mr J in.
For the final frustrations we went in search of insurance in the border town and SIM cards both of which we failed at. Insurance cause it was now 5pm and they closed and sim because they told Stuart an extrajaneiro can’t get a prepaid sim 🙈. After all that we checked into a hotel and had and had a nice meal out.
8 March: A much better day today! We only had to check out of the hotel at 1 so used the morning to sort out insurance and get a Colombian SIM card. Then enjoyed a spectacular drive into the mountains to a little roadside restaurant. Significnat change in temps, from steamy and humid jungle to cold and wet mountain temps. Should be a quite night as the road just twists and turns through the mountains for the next 100km so suspect most traffic will stop once it’s dark
11 March: A along day in the car but overall an enjoyable drive: good scenery, many mountain passes and overall good roads. Good roads come with lots of toll fees, each time it’s R53 and w e must have gone through at least 4 today. Campsite is a funky hippy spot with great vibe
13 March: a busy but successful day as we drove across Bogotá to meet Juan and discuss upgrades for Mr J. We removed the 3rd fuel tank, and in ten days or so hopefully we will have an identical water tank plus a grey water tank and modifications to the shower curtain and fixes to the charcoal bag as well. Outskirts of Bogotá make us think a lot of the English countryside but perhaps its just becuase its a little chilly, very green and there are narrow roads between villages/suburbs
15 March: a busy (jobs completed: blog post, rotation of Mr J tyres and painting of chassis behind old fuel tank location) but chilled day around camp. This little “commune” spot outside Bogotá has such a nice chilled vibe with big wide-open space, if only it wasn’t so chilly and had hotter showers we could absolutely stay longer.
21 March: Bogotá traffic is crazy. From our campsite into town takes about an hour where we then did laundry, then another 45 minutes to head out of downtown to a “quick oil change” spot which is possibly the cleanest garage we have ever been in. By the time this was all done, it was around 4pm and google suggested 45 minutes to do 9km to Cota, in the end it took 90minutes! Had a nice burger night out in Cota and are spending the night in a parking yard so that we are close to the body shop that will fit the water tanks.
22 March: Got the water and grey water tank installed today, took much longer than we had thought it would so have ended up back in the parking yard in Cota. Still lots of work ahead to complete all the plumbing but overall its looking quite good.
23 March: An Admin morning (shopping, car wash,etc) then back across Bogota to the “commune” campsite in La Calera so that we can complete Mr J’s upgrades. Spent the afternoon working on these and hoping we can complete them in max 2 days.
25 March: its been a long and hard few days of installing the plumbing for our new water system and around 4pm we switched it on, only to discover massive leaks at the “wall through” connectors. Stuart had specced a certain diameter and style which wasnt followed by the “facilitator” that organised everything but he was adamant it would still work – guess not! So now we have another day ahead of us of trying to find a solution – Bliksem!!!!
1 April: A bit of a “fools day”!! We decided to join some fellow travellers (Sue & Hugh from Canada) on a trip into Medellin to do a walking tour of communa 13. First error was not knowing the cable car metro from this part of the world doesn’t run on Mondays, then we caught a bus down into town but there were major roadworks which caused a 60minute delay and meant we would miss the start of the walking tour, so we proceeded to Communa 13 on our own via metro and bus as Sue & Hugh had been before. Communa 13 turned out (for us) to be a major dissapointment as it is just one huge tourist trap and nothing reflective or authentic of a favela. It had been a long day so we opted for a late lunch and beer in a local restuarant of the communa, stupidly not asking the price of beers to only discover they were more than the food (ZAR120 for a beer). Eventually caught an Uber back up to camp. Lesson learnt/confirmed – we don’t like tourist attractions/traps
7 April: We have been back on the coast for a few nights now and loving it, camped just metres from the Caribbean with a 500m walk along the beach to an okay surf spot. Warm days, sundowner cocktails and falling asleep to the sound of waves makes for happy campers @ HippySquared (and we don’t care about sandy feet :). )
10 April: Feeling quite chuffed at how much we got done this afternoon especially considering the consequences of not succeeding. The one gas strut for the roof blew its seal when we arrived at camp and so lost all its oil. What should have been a relatively simple job turned into a big one while trying to change it today as the attachment point broke! As it was a welded piece this could have been a big deal but thankfully Stuart was carrying some suitable spare attachment
points which meant we could bolt on a replacement. But FIRST, he had to remove the second gas strut which resulted in the roof wanting to close so he had to quickly revert to a gym leg press position to hold it up while Tania scrambled around to find a piece of wood which could be wedged into place…. Once that was done, Stuart could remove himself from the bed and then wedge our tyre bottle jack in place, to both lift the roof further and act as a stronger support. With the bracket removed, we sourced an angle grinder from the campsite along with its worker, so Stuart and said worker then ground off the broken piece (Stuart in shorts only but wearing safety glasses). After drilling a hole for the replacement part and cutting the bolt to a precise thread length (not even a mm excess space available behind bracket) with only vice grips and a mini hacksaw it was time to re-install. The long replacement strut for the one that leaked went on quite easily but the shorter one requires compressing with a ratchet strap and special bracket Stuart had made for this purpose while still in ZA but even so it was a major mission which resulted in much cussing. Just before sunset, all was back together and we could enjoy a slightly later than usual cold beverage on the beach as the sun went down.
12 April: Last night we ran out of cooking gas (hadn’t replaced our spare a month ago becuase we need to present empty bottles when we ship) and so today did a 160km round trip errand into Santa Marta to refill our small bottle. Overall was a good day though, as we combined it with a grocery run, some lunch out and Tania visited a funky clothes shop and bought a new dress, t-shirt and a costume.
17 April: It’s been a fanstastic time at Bernabe beach, we really like the chilled vibe and its nice to have some quite good shade. Sadly, there is no surfing around and so we have decided to head back to Casa Grande and it will be nice to change the scenery.
18 April: Had a lekker surf this afternoon followed by a really nice evening & dinner with a German couple (Werner & Brigitte) who we had lent our gas adapters too a few days prior. They have a fixed tank on their Motorhome and it requires a bayonet connection to fill which they didnt have but we had in our adapter kit (amazing how prepared we are versus some). They had to drive all the way to Cartagena (12 hour round trip) to use the adapter but now have a fill tank and so treated us to dinner last night as thanks. Conversation was easy and free flowing with some laughs thrown in for good measure.
21 April: Best surf session of the whole trip this morning. Walking down the beach to the surf point I wasn’t too convinced as waves looked very mixed but it turned out to be perfect; not many people in water, glassy conditions and with a bit of patience some super nice waves. Got to mix in both lefts and rights with quite a few nice turns for good measure.
29 April: it has been a really good and overall relaxed time on the beach with Stuart getting some really good surfing time in and claiming to have improved quite a bit but both of us are now more than ready to move. It is an interesting dilemma, we have felt the need to be stationary a lot more than normal in Colombia and have thus done so but after a couple of weeks we get antsy which raises the question how will we cope with going home for “holidays” where we will spend a lot of time in one spot and in spots we are familiar with. We hope the big difference will being around “our people and culture”, but time will tell.
30 April: After the initial delay of 3 extra days the ship now seems to be on time so after 26 days on the beach we are off to Cartagena tomorrow. The cupboards are nearly bare, as is is the fridge/freezer as we last shopped 20 days ago. It will be a big day tomorrow as we have quite a bit we want to get done before moving closer to Cartagena.