Travel Diary: Colombia (March & April 2024)

In total contrast to our difficult exit from Venezuela (previous diary) our entry into Colombia went smoothly if rather slow, as thanks to all the delays in Venezuela it meant we arrived at the Colombia customs office just in time for Siesta.  Adding to the confusision was that by crossing the border also meant we changed timezones, with the clocks now being an hour different to Venezuela.   The lady that captures the Temporary Import permit for Mr J only returned to her post after 90 minutes but at least when she did, she was super helpful and gave us a laugh or two.

Once we had cleared the border we headed into the town of Cucuta hoping to purchase insurance for Mr J and get a local SIM card.  The purchase of insurance seemed quite complicated (even for Colombians) and after navigating a long queue Stuart got to the front just in time for the office to close.  The sourcing of a SIM card didn’t go much better with multiple service providers telling him that it wasn’t possible to register a SIM card for an extrajaneiro (a foreigner).  Eventually we ran out of daylight and with no camping options in the area, resorted to finding a value for money hotel for the night.  The upside of this, was that we went out for dinner and had some really nice burgers and beer.  We have generally rated the quality of a simple burger to be rather poor throughout South America, so this was a pleasant surprise.  The following morning, we took advantage of having safe parking at the hotel and went off in search of ATM’s in order to obtain some Colombian Pesos and a SIM card. For the SIM cards we took a different approach to the previous afternoon and simply purchased one from a little kiosk instead of an official store.  All we weren’t sure of now, was whether the online rumors would prove true that you needed to register the SIM card & the phone it was used in within 30 days or risk having the phone blocked!  Given that as an “extrajaneiro” we couldn’t purchase a sim card the day before it would imply registering one would also be an issue but we figured we had time to work that out and if in fact we did get blocked that we could just switch to one of our older backup phones and thus start the countdown clock again.

Having had a successful morning, we headed out of town hoping to find a supermarket and complete the last of the typical tasks required when arriving in a new country, that being stocking up on fresh food and getting a feel for pricing in that country. 

Our goal for the next few days was to work our way southwards to the capital, Bogota, where we for some reason needed to “verify” Tania visa status at the immigration offices and where we also hoped to get a water tank built.   We mentioned that while in Venezuela we had attempted to have one manufactured but that the material costs were prohibitive, Stuart had subsequently established contact with a chap in Bogota who had a good reputation for assisting overlanders and he had given us indicative pricing which was more in the price range we expected.   

Colombia is incredibly mountainous which means there is lots to see and do but it also means that travelling is very slow as you twist your way across the country.  Unfortunately for us, there were a couple of public holidays coming up which would result in many business’s closing for roughly a week and as we didn’t want the manufacture of the water tank to be delayed by these, we would need to move relatively quickly across the country to Bogota.

Leaving Cucuta we almost immediately started climbing on what was a spectacular road up into the mountains until 90 minutes and 70km later, we reached the little mountainside town of Pamplona where, based on iOverlander reviews, we hoped to overnight next to a football field but being a Friday afternoon, it turned out to be an incredibly busy spot.  A little bit of roadside research revealed another possible spot an hour further along, called El Oasis.   It wasn’t quite an Oasis but the owners of the restaurant were super friendly and we were able to tuck Mr. Jones next to the rooms they rent out and enjoyed a very peaceful but chilly night.  Being up in the high mountains it was quite the contrast from the jungle lowlands we had been in earlier that day.

The following day was once again a spectacular day of driving along mountain passes into Bucamaranga (3,5hours for 120km), including some steep ascending up the slopes surrounding town as we went in search of a campsite that was not to be and then another spectacular drive to a spot above Canyon Chicamocha.  The canyon is 2000m deep in places and 227km long making it the second largest canyon in the world.   With spectacular views from the campsite, it was the perfect spot to take a rest day and in between admiring the views finalize the plans and logistics for the new water tank.

After a productive day of rest, it was another long day of stunning scenery and many mountain passes as we made our way to a little hippy commune style camp outside Bogota.  We immediately felt at home, which was a good thing as this was to become our “on & off” base while we set about the task of upgrading Mr. Jones for the new water tank along with all the ancillary jobs and upgrades associated with that.  The only downside was that Bogota is a rather wet and chilly place, something we were not used to after so many months in the hot lowlands of Brazil’s eastern coastline, the Amazon and then Venezuela, but in some ways, it was quite refreshing.

Bogota with a population of nearly 8million people is Colombia biggest city and its traffic congestion reflects this.  In fact, they have had to implement a congestion reduction plan whereby only certain vehicles registration numbers are allowed into the city on each day of the week, fortunately this does not apply to foreign plated vehicles and thus allowed us to roam freely but it did influence some of the logistics around the water tank as Juan (our water tank facilitator) could only travel into the city to meet engineering shops and so forth on every alternative day.

We had also discovered that Amazon deliveries to Colombia don’t incur any import duties or delivery charges so Stuart had created quite the cart of items (mostly all the auxiliary items required for the water setup) and was having these delivered to Juan as well.   It did require some ingenuity and figuring a way to work around the system as on his first attempt with all items in one basket he got hit with “customs handling fees” of nearly half the order value, but with a little experimentation he discovered that orders under USD190 did not attract this fee.  Needless to say, multiple orders under the $190 mark where placed!

In the meantime, while we waited on both the Amazon deliveries and the manufacturing of the water tanks we decided to escape the cold and wet of Bogota and head into the lowlands for a few days.  We chose to set off for this “escape” on a Sunday in order to hopefully avoid some of the crazy city traffic and while we were successful in avoiding the cars we instead discovered that Colombians are cycle crazy and the mountain pass we had chosen to descend down is a very popular cycle route on the weekends.   When Stuart was still very much into his cycling, we would always watch the Tour de France and in particular enjoyed the coverage of the mountain stages.   Having now witnessed the sheer size of the mountain passes in Colombia and seen how many cyclists are out traversing them, it is no wonder that many of the superstars in those TdF mountain stages where the Colombians.

It was a bit ironic, considering that we had come looking for warmer weather, that after our first day in the lowlands we decided it was a little too hot for us, even though where we had camped had a river to cool off in and so after only one night we started climbing back up the pass we had just descended hoping to find a place midway up and a “compromise” in terms of temperatures.

It turned into a bit of a mission finding somewhere, with a few trips along tight narrow and twisty roads only to find that the camping was either exorbitantly expensive, not suitable for vehicle camping or closed, until finally in the late afternoon we stopped at Laguna el Tabacul.  The camping was very simple but peaceful and the nature reserve around the lake had some nice little walks.   The only downside was that, there was nowhere to plug Mr. Jones into electricity and with the thick forests surrounding us, running off solar for more than a single night was not practical.

Fortunately, by this time the majority of the Amazon orders had arrived in Bogota and so we decided to use our time wisely by collecting the orders from Juan and then going back to our hippy campsite in order to begin installing the items that would eventually connect up to the water tank. 

When the fresh and grey water tanks were ready we packed up for a night or two away and headed back across town (on a good day a 90-minute commute) to get them installed before coming back to La Calera in order to complete the remainder of the installation ourselves.

The list of upgrades is quite extensive and Mr. Jones can now truly boast to be  “glamping on wheels”:  a 55litre fresh water tank (in addition to his existing 60L tank); a 15l grey water tank to collect our sink water; a secondary pump system for the new tank; changes to the gas geyser setup so that we have instant and automatic hot water on tap; a flow meter in order to monitor water usage and tank levels; a second tap in the sink; a new “shore power” battery charger due to us now being in the 110v hemisphere; modifications and improvements to the shower cubicle curtain and finally a quick release connection for our shower hose and head.

In total we spent 15 days in the Bogotá area which when considering the extent of the upgrades and that the manufacture of the tank could only start once we had removed the old 3^rd fuel tank, was not a bad timeline.

In between our hard work we enjoyed socializing with both the overlanders that passed through while we there or with the semi-permanent residents, and as a result made quite a few new friends from as diverse a places as Canada, Russia and of course Colombia.

Camplife @ La Calera, Bogota

We thought we had timed the completion of our “to-do” list perfectly when it meant we could leave Bogota part way through holy week (Easter) as we thought everyone would already be on holiday and so largely off the roads.  Our initial crossing of the city seemed to confirm this, with very little congestion and easy flowing roads but only an hour out of the city we realized we were horribly wrong as we encountered roadworks and worse congestion than we had ever experienced in the city itself.  It seems that many people had not taken holidays for the whole of holy week and were instead trying to squeeze in a trip home to family over the long weekend – 250km took 8 hours and ZAR500 in toll fees, we will never complain again about South Africa holiday traffic!

To add insult to injury, the spot we had planned to stay at near Cajamarca turned out to be a little disappointing and was definitely only good for a single night so the next day we were back on the road and heading in the direction of Medellin, hoping for a quiet commute based on everyone having travelled the day prior and that even if there were late weekend travelers they would be going in the opposite direction.  The area between Cajamarca and Medellin is quite popular with “coffee” tourists and it was a sure sign that at this stage we were travel weary when our attitude was: we have already visited coffee plantations and attended demonstrations of the process to create the perfect cup of coffee, so why divert from the main road.

Medellin sits in a valley at 1500m above sea level and is surrounded by quite high hills and like all big cities offers very little in the way of camping, there is however one well known overlanders destination just outside of town called Al Bosque and that was naturally where we were headed. It was only when we started to head out of town that we realized how steep those surrounding hills are! Al Bosque sits at an altitude of 2600m (so 1 kilometre higher than town), poor old Mr. J was not impressed with this and forced us to engage low range just to pull-off from some of the traffic lights. Thankfully the roads were quiet otherwise it would have been quite stressful.

The cities altitude gives it a rather pleasant climate of around 25degC all year round, the some cannot be said for Al Bosque which being so much higher was quite cold and wet, especially in the mornings and evenings.

The major attraction for us of an overlander campsite was the opportunity to hopefully meet like-minded souls and enjoy some quality interactions and perhaps even make a few new friends.  

Of course, this is not always guaranteed as even though we may all have the same passion for travelling independently in our own vehicles, we are all still different personalities and just like in life you are not guaranteed to like everyone you meet who has a common interest.

Thankfully in this case we did meet a few couples who we liked, chief among them being Sue & Hugh from Canada, the fact that they drove a Landy probably also helped.

On one of the days we accompanied them into Medellin to visit the very popular tourist attraction of Communa 13. In the 1980’s and 90’s Communa 13 was a notorious neighborhood occupied by drug gangs and rebel guerilla groups along with the turf wars that naturally followed. At that point it was considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world, until in 2002 the military conducted a number of operations (which included the use of tanks and helicopters) to “clean it up”. While partly successful, the subsequent military occupation was also controversial in that many citizens literally disappeared.   Finally, in 2010, a rejuvenation project was started and the result is now a peaceful, but still poor and densely populated area, which feeds off its notoriety as a tourist attraction.  Sue and Hugh had been on a guided walk through the barrio a few days prior but felt they had missed out on certain aspects so they were happy to go back and also be our informal guides.    For us it was interesting to see but ultimately was way too touristy and commercialized for our tastes, a sure give away was the abundance of fridge magnets and T-shirts declaring “I have been to Communa 13”.  Another indicator that it was perhaps going to be a fool’s errand should have been that we visited on 1 April – for more insight into the shenanigans of the day, see our Captain(s) log for 1 April 2024.

After a few days and couple of nice evenings socializing, on which we introduced everyone to a braai, we felt it was time to move on.  Sue & Hugh had raved about a little beach camp they had spent quite some time at when they first arrived in Colombia and so that was were we headed for.  Our plan was simple, we had 1 month until Mr. Jones was due to be shipped to Mexico and we intended to spend it lazing on Colombia’s Caribbean coastline.   

To get there however required 2,5 days and 900km of fairly hard driving with each night spent in a truck stop.  Over the course of our time in South America we have spent many nights in truck stops, Colombia was the first country where we were often the only people sleeping in our rig. In Colombia the drivers sleep in a simple hotel or set of rooms that is attached to the truck stop.

Over the next 4 weeks we mixed up our time at two beach camps roughly 80km apart, the one had decent surfing close by and the other a nicer vibe.  So just as we started to get bored at one, we would move to the other and then a little while later back to the first one.  It was a pretty idyllic life with your feet in the sand and a lovely azure blue ocean on your doorstep but not entirely without its challenges.

The first challenge was when we switched camps and on opening the roof the one gas strut that holds the roof up, blew its seal and leaked hydraulic oil everywhere. In principle this was not too big a deal and just required a replacement one to be installed, which we had in our spares as the lengths are very specific to the roof design.  However, while trying to remove the strut the bracket it attached to sheared off as it was badly corroded, which added a little bit of extra stress to the equation but Stuart had in his box of tricks (aka “random spares”) a similar style attachment which he thought we could probably fit onto the bracket.  To do this however would require removing the whole bracket from the car and to remove that meant removing the second gas strut on that side of the roof.  The roof is held up by two gas struts on each side and the moment the second one was removed the roof wanted to sink down into the closed position.   At this point the stress levels went up ten-fold as Stuart now had to support the roof in a “lying down gym-style leg press position” while giving instructions to Tania to find something suitable to wedge into the roof and provide temporary relief.  A little bit of improvisation with the bottle jack which we use for changing tyres allowed us to lift the roof back to normal height so that the bracket could be removed.  Then all that was required in order to modify the bracket was to find an angle grinder, which Stuart had seen the camp workers using to sharpen their pangas a few days prior.  

Sundowner drinks, that evening, overlooking the ocean felt well deserved and went down a treat.

The second challenge was when we ran out of cooking gas (we had been trying to run our gas bottles as low as possible as in principle you cannot ship with gas) and had to go off in search of a place to refill one, this resulted in a small round trip of 160km one day.  Our gas search was at least easier than a German couple in the camp, whom we assisted with adapters for their gas setup as they had to make a 12 hour round trip into Cartagena to fill their tanks.

Our time on the coast was great but after 4 weeks we were starting to get itchy feet and looking forward to the next stage of the adventure which was a good thing as the cupboards were nearly bare.  We had been deliberately running them down, knowing that you can’t ship with fresh foods.  We also had a full laundry bag and while there are no rules against shipping with dirty laundry we wanted to get laundry done on our way to Cartagena and Mr. Jones date with a boat.  This resulted in us breaking our cardinal rule – never to drive at night! For more on this, see our Captain(s) log entry of 1 May.  

For this shipment to Mexico we were once again going to use RORO so prior to arriving in Cartagena we stopped at one more campsite where we knew it would be possible to source and cut a piece of plywood for making the barricade.  Once the barricade was installed, we removed all items from the roof and stashed them in the back away from potentially light fingers.  The final task before Mr. Jones could be taken to the port was to get him washed at what is without a doubt the scariest car wash we have ever been to!

Our last week in Colombia was spent in a hostel close to the historic district of Cartagena while we waited for the whole shipment process to be completed, part of which involved Stuart having to go to the port a few days after dropping Mr. Jones off in order to participate in a very thorough drug inspection.  The inspection involved an almost complete unpacking of Mr. Jones which was not fun in the hot and humid conditions but was also one of the reasons we felt comfortable shipping RORO again as once the inspection is done, all doors and openings get sealed with tamperproof security tape, further adding to our own security measures. 

Cartagena’s old city is very beautiful and so in between completing the procedural aspects required for shipping, we made the most of city dwelling by enjoying some time walking the streets, enjoying the sights and searching for the large door knockers that are to found on many of the old doors and for which Cartagena is well known for.  The knockers come in a variety of shapes and traditionally indicated the nature of the owners employment, for example a “lion head” would indicate the head of the house was part of the military whereas a sea creature meant the household had business in the maritime trade. 

On the 14^th May, we boarded a flight for Mexico City, it had been 798 days (342 different overnight locations) since we first arrived in South America with many adventures, trials, tribulations, highs and lows but undoubtedly the thing that will stand out for us most from the travels, was all the wonderful people we got to meet and often subsequently call friends. 

Hasta Luego South America.

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