Part Eleven

Colombia and Venezuela
February 23 / 1999

The rain is beating down relentlessly on the van roof as we sit in our van outside a laundromat in Popayan, Colombia. We have not done the laundry for three weeks as laundromats are hard to find so we stopped early today to get it done and to get some money from the bank. Panama seems so far away from here as I try once again to travel back in time through our notes and to put something coherent on paper. I am out of practice and it does not seem to flow as it has in the past.

Panama City, Friday, Feb. 6... We head done to the shipping office, after a leisurely breakfast and swim, to pick up our original bill of lading . The walk through the congested downtown has now become quite familiar and we are getting better as pedestrians (we dodge and weave through the traffic, running for our lives, as people on foot have no rights in Panama). The day is already warm and the walking increases our sweating... it is so embarrassing to go into anywhere, especially air conditioned offices or stores because our sweat mechanism continues to operate for a considerable time after getting into the cool and we are always dripping wet.

At the shipping office we are met with a questioning look... what original bill of lading? We thought you wanted it sent on so you could fly to Colombia right away. Oh well, nothing to be done but hope that it will be there when we get there! We headed back to the hotel to relax by the pool and for me to write the journal.

Diane had an interesting touch of the Latino male machismo when a fellow tried to chat her up and then ended up following her to our room where he indicated he would like her to join him in his room. With the language and cultural barrier she was quite flustered, not knowing if she had led him on by being her typical nice, polite, self. Anyway, it was good for a laugh and I'm sure she felt good that she was attractive to other men. Our time in the hotel had been a good break from the van and it extended us some privacy that we did not always have in the van. It kind of was another honeymoon (We have had lots of these over the years!).

Early the next morning, I rushed over to the Internet office and sent off my completed journal and then we bargained with a few cabs to get the most economical ride to the airport. We discovered that the date on our tickets was wrong, a day later than what we wanted but we decided to just go for it, hoping there would be room on the flight (they a flight every day). This was the third time we had to change our tickets and it was a good thing they didn't have a service charge for this.

By mid-afternoon we found ourselves winging over the lush jungle below. The flight was very short, under an hour, and suddenly we were stepping out onto the tarmac at the Cartagena Airport. We had thought Panama was hot but here it felt as though we were stepping into a blast furnace. The airport was small and going through customs was a breeze.

We met a woman (Julie) from the States who had been on our plane so we shared a cab into town and checked out a few hotels that were recommended by the cabby. We settled for a place in the tourist area of town that was close to the beach and services.

Our initial impressions of the city was that it was quite laid back and quieter than Panama however it appeared to be more expensive for everything and the general population appeared to be much poorer. We paid $42 Can. per night for a quiet room on the third floor (stairs only), cold water only, central air conditioning, tattered but comfortable furnishings and a TV that had a channel in English with Spanish subtitles. Before dark we had a chance for a quick walk on the long, windy beach and enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

We decided to hire a taxi the next day to go on a tour and orientation of the city. I awoke early and was restless so I hit the streets early (6:00) to wander around and get some prices from cabbies for the tour and tried about a dozen banking machines (unsuccessfully) to see if my card would work. I always find cities at their best when they are just waking up. Here, crews were busy cleaning sidewalks and streets, restaurant owners were cleaning up from the busy Saturday night and coffee and food vendors were setting up at every corner. We came to appreciate these vendors who provided us with our caffeine fix for the morning. The coffee was very hot, strong and sweet.

We settled on a driver for a tour and set off to see the sites. Cartegena is purported to be one of the nicest cities in South America and the vacation spot for wealthy Colombians. The more modern, developed area is on a small peninsula surrounded by beaches and walkways. The older city is within a walled area and is very well preserved and clean. We visited a giant stone fortress and a convent that was perched upon a high hill that gave us a wonderful 360 degree view. As is the case with most cities there was also a large poorer area that spread out around the city. It was such a treat for me to have someone else do the driving so I could gawk at everything! We had also asked the driver to show us where the port, customs and the shipping company were located so we were oriented for the next day. I had managed to buy a few city and country maps (my first priority in any new place) so we began to feel quite comfortable. For the remainder of the day we walked on the beach, swam, and enjoyed another wonderful, windy sunset.

The next two days were filled with the chore of getting the van back in our possession. I have a detailed description of that process in my trip report to the SAEC so I won't repeat it here other than to say the days were very full, numerous taxi rides, waiting in lines at banks and offices, and exhausting mentally dealing with the language barrier. Both evenings we barely had energy left to go for a short walk before going to bed. All in all, things went well and everybody was helpful and courteous.

The following day we said goodbye to our hosts at the Hotel Paris and set out to find a home for the night in our van. We parked beside the beach in a wealthy neighbourhood and unchained and reorganized the vehicle. It felt strange to be back in the van, kind of confining and exposed.

Soon, we met many friendly people who were curious about us. Most of them spoke some English and were very helpful in giving us advice on how best to travel in Colombia to avoid trouble. Several invited us into their homes and we felt very safe and welcome there. We had run into a German couple at the port who were also extricating their vehicle from a container and we met them on the beach and shared information. They were experienced, seasoned travellers who had spent five years driving around so they had some good tips for us. They were headed to Bolivia to live and said that Colombia was f....ing dangerous and not to drive even one metre at night. We were envious of their customized Landcruiser with a aluminum pop-top camper.

That evening we began to adapt to the noisy nights in the camper... with traffic and music blaring most of the night. The area where we parked was very safe as the President had a home at the end of the peninsula which had been incorporated into a military base and just down the road was a training camp for the elite commando units of the army. In the evening, they had a soldier posted at every street corner... remember this was an ongoing civil war. The commando units we saw training were all serious men in excellent shape.

We planned to go on a snorkelling tour to the Isla de Rosario the next day but we both were not feeling well, possibly because of all the great street food we had been eating so we spent the day running around doing chores (banks, Venezuelan embassy, VW parts and muffler places , unleaded gas research, and interneting). After much worry, help from friends at home on how to deal with leaded gas, and research we finally determined that all gas in Colombia was unleaded so we had nothing to worry about.

We spent another noisy, but safe night by the beach and early the next morning (Diane's birthday) left the van at a parquedaro while we took a taxi down to the tourist launch area where we signed up for a day trip to the islands. We paid the gringo price for the tickets and soon found ourselves crammed into a 30' launch with 25 happy, holidaying, Colombians. The launch had twin 150 HP outboards and moved very well through the water (good thing because we ran into some large swells and chop). It was a break to get out on the ocean for a change. We toured around some reef islands, stopped on one for a visit to an aquarium, and had a short stop at a beach for a swim and some poor snorkelling.

The beach was crowded with hawkers and Diane was forced into paying to have a massage by a couple of ladies. She still hasn't learned to say no! We went for a walk to escape but soon saw our launch leaving without us... so we hurried back and they came back to shore for us... a little embarrassing. From here we moved onto a fort at the mouth of the bay where we were served a nice fish lunch.

The setting was quite unique and interesting so I will endeavour to give a little history of the place. Cartegena was the city where most of the gold from the Americas was shipped out to Spain so it had a history of being attacked continuously by other countries and pirates. The Spanish built a tremendous fort in Cartegena and to protect it from having anyone enter the bay (which only had two small entrances) they built an underwater rock reef across one entryway so that ships trying to enter would have their hulls ripped open, and on the other entrance they built a fort on either side with a gigantic chain stretched across the opening (almost a kilometre). Ships would run into the chain and then be caught in a crossfire from the forts. The forts were incredibly well built, with walls 10' thick, a moat filled with sharks, and a tunnel that connected them to the main fort in town so they could resupply at ease. This tunnel was over 3 kilometres long , of which over 2 km were under the water. An immense task, especially in that day, ...all for gold.

We arrived back to the van at dusk, tired and happy that there was a shower there we could use to clean up. We when settled in we discovered that in reality, yesterday was Diane's birthday... oh well, what is a day here or there?

That night we began to prepare ourselves mentally for getting back on the road. We were quite nervous about venturing into guerrilla territory, as everyone we had talked to said the potential for danger was always there and the route we were going on was one of the worst areas. Also we had not driven out of town at all so we did not know what to expect for road conditions, signage, or traffic in this country.

Things went well for a while until the first town we hit where we were stopped by the police for allegedly going through a red light. He reached through Diane's window and unlocked her door and pushed her into the back quickly and told me to drive to the police station. From the corner of my eye I could see a fellow in a restaurant behind the cop giving me a signal that the cop was bad and to watch it. I drove ahead for a couple hundred metres and when he wanted me to pull off behind some buildings (supposedly towards the police station), I just stopped the van and took out the keys, put them in my pocket, managed to grab my International Drivers License back from him and then we began the negotiations. I ended up having to give him $2 to get out of the car (ostensibly for gas for his motorbike).

In the next town, we were again pulled over at a police check and again had to pay a 'collection' fee of $1 to pass through. All the highways were toll roads and they turned out to be quite expensive. It ended up that toll costs in Colombia were 50% of our road expenses (including gas!). Driving in Colombia was not turning out to be fun!

Anyway, we came to Santa Marta, the town where we had been told to stay as it was the last safe place on the road, found our bearings for getting out of town the next morning and backtracked a bit until we came to a beach area that had several large apartment complexes fronting it. We spoke to a security guard there about spending the night and in the process ran into an English speaking fellow who lived in one of the apartments.

We were so blessed, our Higher Power always placed just the right people before us at just the right time. This fellow was a wealth of information about the guerrilla situation and guided us on how best to proceed and also arranged for a safe place for us to park for the night. This area was heavily targeted because of the oil production there and the pipeline that shipped it to Venezuela for refining. The guerrillas thought this was a rape of their country by the capitalists so they bombed the pipeline an average of once every five days. Anyone who worked for the oil companies was on their hit list and many assassinations had taken place. Workers servicing rigs were flown in by helicopter as the crew busses had been attacked so many times. The oil facility which was just down the road from us was like an armed camp, with bunkers, pillboxes and barbed wire everywhere.

Also, since they had been mainly financed by the Russians and this source had collapsed several years ago, they had taken to extortion and kidnapping as ways to finance themselves. They were well organized and at their checkpoints they had computer access to government files as to who they had in front of them. Definitely not a place to travel without some caution. Our friend suggested that we leave by five in the morning and drive straight through to the border, not stopping for anything. It appeared that after dark, the guerrillas had total control of the countryside while any military withdrew to encampments. He also indicated that all checkpoints looked the same, you never knew you were in trouble until it was too late. He said it would be better if we had tinted windows so they couldn't tell that we were gringos...

Needless to say, we did not sleep well and by 4:15 we were up and getting ready to roll before 5:00. It was very eerie driving in the dark, the only ones on the road and not knowing what to expect. We were very happy to see the dawn and the beginnings of a few (very few) other vehicles. The road was good and we made better time than anticipated so within 4 hours we found ourselves passing through the tough border town of Maico, a smugglers hang out, and definitely not a place to stay for long as it had a reputation for being a lawless town.

The border crossing from Colombia to Venezuela was amazingly simple compared to our experiences in Central America, within fifteen minutes we were through (they didn't even search the van) and we breathed a sigh of relief as we started driving down the guerrilla free highway of Venezuela. The change in the atmosphere was significant. War is a terrible burden on people and it definitely showed in the face of the Colombians. People here were still poor but far happier, you could see it in their faces, everywhere. The countryside was flat, with salt marshes dotted by huts on stilts. The indigenous people wore patterned dresses similar to mumus or nightwear.

Not far into Venezuela we began to run into frequent police stops that increased so that there was one at every road intersection. They were very polite and seldom asked for papers but they slowed us down as we stopped for more than thirty before we got to Maracaibo. We later found out that this was a festival weekend and that Venezuela had a serious problem with drinking and driving that the government was on a campaign to curb and that was the reason for all the checkpoints (we had assumed they were looking for drugs, guns or illegals).

We were headed to Maracaibo, the second largest city in Venezuela, in hopes of obtaining a libretta (vehicle travel document for South America). We were going in blind, no map, only an address. Thank goodness it was Sunday and traffic was at a minimum.

The most noticeable change from Colombia was seeing large American vehicles (most of them old) everywhere. We supposed this was because gas was so cheap here... we filled up for $6. All of the taxis were souped up old 'muscle' cars, Malibus, Cameros and the like but most of them looked like they had been in a demolition derby!

Again we were blessed, we just drove aimlessly into town until I was tired and decided to stop for a break. We pulled into a bank parking lot, tried my Visa card (it worked) and began to chat with the two security guards there. It turned out we were only a few blocks from where we wanted to be! Then to top it off, a fellow came into the parking lot to use the machine and he overheard us and came over to introduce himself. He was a gregarious American oil executive who had lived there for over twenty years and enthusiastically showed us where to buy maps, found the address we were looking for (even though we found out later that the office was obsolete) and gave us a lot of local knowledge. For a safe place to park he offered his place (well out of town) or suggested outside of the National Guard depot or at the bank where the guards had said they would look after us.

Apparently, the city was having some problems and car-jackings and armed robberies were very prevalent, that is why two guards at the banking machine. So we took a tour of the city, found a fashionable mall to stroll around, a small lakefront malecon to stretch our legs on and then we returned to the bank for the night. The guards were very friendly and one was trying to learn English so he could get a job with an oil company. His wife, with their young daughter came to visit him for a while (it was a holiday) so even though we ready to call it a night we had to do some entertaining.

We found out from a book that the Venezuelan Automobile Club (which issued librettas) had an office in San Cristobal, so rather than going to Caracas we opted to go there. It was a long drive on good roads through ranching country until we hit the foothills of the Andes. It felt really strange to speed along at 80 km/hr, it seemed as though we were flying!

As we began the twisty ascent the weather got wetter and hotter and the vegetation turned to a lush tropical rain forest. Descending down the other side we were treated to beautiful views of different valleys with villages dotting them. We again had good fortune by stopping (after touring the town for an hour or so) and setting up camp beside a 24 hour gas station that turned out to be one block away from the office we were looking for! However, when we went there the next morning it was closed and after asking around we determined that some businesses took several days off for the fiesta so we decided to take a test run up to the highest paved road in Venezuela to see how the van performed at altitude. We didn't want to find out that something wasn't working properly when we crossed back into guerrilla territory in Colombia and began climbing the steep roads there!

The main road going up to Merida was washed out by the rains so we went the older, more scenic route that climbed and climbed before it reached the university town. It was amazing how the surroundings and people changed as the elevation increased. The rivers ran red from the rains, strawberries, potatoes, and flowers appeared to be the main crops. All this farming done on steep slopes by hand or with cattle pulling wooden ploughs. Soon every vehicle was a 4 wheel drive Toyota or Jeep. Within a day we had moved from the hot and humid tropics to the cool and wet mountains.

That night we parked in a well to do suburb and it was cool enough that we had to use all of our blankets. From Merida, the road climbed even more steeply (first gear for more than an hour), passing mountain villages nestled along the river bank, enchanted forests and the vegetation getting smaller and more stunted until we were in the alpine. On the way up we stopped at a village with a stone church, bought some sweet breads and a large round of smoked cheese that was the areas specialty.

The top of the pass was poor weather, heavy rain and mist, and we didn't not get so much as a glimpse of the five peaks of over 5000m that were there, so we turned around and set off on an alternate route hat would take us back to San Cristobal on the other side of the range. Going down the van began to acting up, after using the engine to brake for a while, it had no power and would stall when we pulled over. This happened about 5 or 6 times so finally we just coasted down (with the engine helping to brake us) for about 25 km. Then the van magically began operating normally so we carried on.

The route down beside boulder strewn river beds, through pine and eucalyptus forests gradually transitioned into a steamy arborarium that reminded us of Hawaii. We passed trucks overflowing with cantaloupes, saw kids playing baseball with bottlecaps for a ball, appreciated the hundreds of orange and purple flowering trees beside the road, and were accompanied continuously by the shriek of birds in the forest.

Just before dusk we were lucky enough to come across a balenario (bathing/camping area) beside a river. It was a wonderful setting that we had to ourselves as the carnival crowds had returned to the city. The owners were very friendly and made us feel welcome. We enjoyed the fireflies, the stars and the soothing sound of the river as we relaxed in our lawn chairs. Surprisingly, there were almost no bugs.

Well rested, we headed out early back towards San Cristobal on a fast, good road through ranching country. We marvelled as the dawn arrived, turning everything a wonderful orange color with the mountains in the background. How lucky we were! What a wonderful place to be... cruising across the plains of Venezuela at dawn. We arrived back in town in time to start the process of getting our libretta and decided to find a motel as a home base.

We met several students the next day (two had been Rotary Exchange students) who were anxious to practice their English and one volunteered to be our guide to show us around town to various places we wanted to go (Internet, fax, malaria medicine, VW dealer, laundromat and such). This was a great help as the town was large and confusing and built on a steep hill. I wondered if the van was going to make it up some of them!

After finishing our business and being issued our libretta we headed out to the border town of San Antonio. The town was only a short distance away but the narrow, windy road climbed over a mountain and it was heavily travelled by busses and trucks. The town was as expected of most frontier towns, busy, noisy and dirty. We found a parking spot at the airport that was secure and prepared ourselves for the return to Colombia. While hanging around we met a Canadian girl who was on a Rotary Exchange Program and a retired American who was living in Colombia. We taped over anything on the outside of the van that indicated we were from Canada and joked that we should buy one of the many carnival masks we had seen people wearing, to disguise ourselves while driving in guerrilla territory (which according to CIA reports, was 60% of the countryside).

Saturday, Feb. 20 / 1999 we crossed the border without any problems and began the steep ascent up and over to Bucaramanga. Colombia is a majestic country and if not for its internal troubles would be an excellent place to tour. The road was steep and dramatic with no traffic (worrisome for us). When I say steep, I mean it climbed up a near vertical face for what seemed an eternity. Each time we thought that this had to be top, we came around another switchback that led still further up! I clocked 38 km in first gear with no levelling out at all. We also noticed the complete absence of military or police, another indicator that anything could happen here.

The road finally levelled out at about 3800m on a broad hilly plain. It was cool and all the locals we passed were wrapped in woolen ponchos and had toques and rosy cheeks. The surroundings were like being on the top of the world, barren hillsides that reminded us of the road to Inuvik in the NWT. The main product here seemed to be onions, one of the few things that could withstand the climate. The air was filled with their smell as we puttered along.

For the locals, the principal means of transport was by horse and we saw horses everywhere. At the crest there was a small village of stone houses, with the name of Berlin. We descended into clouds and rain on the other side, passing numerous men and boys racing down the road on home made go carts loaded with firewood . They hitched rides up on the back of trucks and then gravity pulled them back home! The road down was a tortuous descent in heavy fog and rain (something we were to see much of on the coastal side of the Andes). A line of trucks crawling down forced us to use our brakes rather than the engine for braking and we found ourselves stopping to cool them down before they began fading.

We reached Bucaramanga without incident and drove around looking for a place to camp. We walked around the colonial suburb of Giron, got lost and frustrated a few times before finally settling on a parking lot that belonged to a motel/convention centre that was closed for renovations. It was set high above the city with a beautiful view and was very quiet... something we really appreciated.

We awoke to a wet and cool morning and after a relaxing breakfast we joined the hordes of cyclists on the road out of town. Colombia is renowned for its cycling community and it is a national sport that a great many people participate in. They have to be extremely fit to make it up the incredible hills!

Sundays are days where whole groups take off for the day so the traffic on the highway is quite congested. We soon found ourselves dodging cars coming down the wrong side of a divided highway. The only traffic rule that stands in Latin America is that there are no rules! I am beginning to drive just like them, passing against oncoming traffic, passing on corners and driving through stop lights and signs. Another cause for joking between us is the confusing highway signs (if there are any). A lot of the time they put the directional sign after the intersection so you don't find out you are going the wrong way until it is too late. Trying to get back to the same intersection is sometimes a test of patience. Last night we had to drive for over half and hour until we could get turned around and only because I finally turned the wrong way on a one way street and pulled a U-turn in front of the honking, oncoming traffic.

We climbed out of the valley and dropped over the other side of the mountain into a completely different climate zone. It was very dry, with cacti forests. The canyons were steep and deep, with muddy rivers rushing down the bottom. Trails were cut on the hillsides and people eked out a living somehow in that desolate country. The road climbed up onto a ridge and snaked along it giving us breathtaking views on all sides. It reminded us of the Grand Canyon and the Yukon.

It was still horse country and at every little bar and restaurant along the way, the locals had their horses tied up to a hitching rack, just like the old West, while they chatted over a beer. We have found Sunday to be a very social day here, where everybody is out and about visiting or playing games. We passed many roadside shrines where the truckers left one of their headlights for luck (we figured in lieu of lighting candles which was more traditional in Central America). Each shrine had hundreds of lights around them, looking like diamonds.

The weather turned foul and the rain beat down intensely, swelling the many waterfalls to giant cascades. People still carried on about their business but covered themselves up with thick wool ponchos and hats.

The road levelled out and improved (it actually had new pavement) and traffic began to increase as we approached Bogota. A good word here for the highways maintenance crews in Colombia, they were out everywhere, always working hard when we passed by, doing seemingly impossible tasks (clearing landslides, digging drainage ditches, cutting vegetation from right of ways) all by hand. They were all decked out in bright yellow/orange uniforms.

We had found that Sundays were good days to head into or through the larger cities because traffic was at a minimum. We had really not expected to get this far in one day but since we arrived about 4:00 we decided to see if we could make it to the other side before stopping for the night.

Bogota, a city of about 5 million, had grown far faster than its infrastructure and the small valley is completely developed now, spilling up over the mountain ridges. From what we saw, it was not a pretty city, the old and new side by side and many desperate people living in the streets. We almost made it out without getting lost but as it was getting dark and we were not in the best of neighbourhoods, we hired a cab to lead us back to the main road out of town. He offered to do it out of the goodness of his heart but we insisted on paying him. Having the guide was great as the way out led through a rabbit warren of one way and diagonal streets where we never would have found our way.

We had heard many stories about how dangerous it was to drive around Bogota, especially at night. This was reinforced when we saw motorists beside us at streetlights who had passengers openly displaying guns to dissuade car jackers!

By now it was dark, the long day, terrible fumes and heavy traffic (mostly going the other way from us) had worn us out and all we wanted was a safe place to stay. So at the first (and as it turned out, the only hotel sign) we pulled in and took a room at the Kancun Hotel.

I should note that the roads within the city were atrocious... they had giant potholes, many storm and sanitary manholes that had no lids, and drivers, especially busses were extremely aggressive, pushing you off the road. The hotel was, of course, a love hotel but we were pleasantly surprised at the price ($32) and the room. It had a private garage under the room, spiral staircase, giant Jacuzzi, glassed in shower room, sauna, dance floor, color TV with cable and XXX channel, stereo, mirrors everywhere and an electric fireplace. The downside was that there was only freezing cold water, the Jacuzzi and sauna did not work, and the fireplace barely took the chill off! But the place was secure and that was the most important thing.

Part 12

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Copyright © 1999-2001 Ron Lussier. All rights reserved.
This page last updated January 16, 2000.