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Well FARC me!
Finally arrived at Cartagena, Colombia on the 30th June. We broke the trip up into four legs, Melb to Syd, Syd to Santiago, Chile, Santiago to Bogota, Colombia ("Colombia not Columbia", as the locals have printed on their T shirts, to educate ignorant barstards, like me), and Bogota to Cartegena.
This was a futile attempt, as it turned out, to lesson the impact of such a long trip on two pension aged Aussies.
I tried to explain the trials and tribulations we went through to a Colombian I happened to corner in conversation. He quickly lost interest when the Hilton Hotel name was mentioned. Clearly he didn't think a night at the Hilton to be much of a burden. But really, the whole experience was horrible, horrible, horrible!
Four days of forking out money, whilst conversing in kindergarden Spanish, with the aid of facial expressions, hand gestures, and confused jabs at the phone translator keyboard thingy, to what appeared to be anybody loosely associated with the shipping company, DIAN (Customs) and the port authority saw us liberate our truck from the its container. Much to our disappointment during this process, Colombia reached the point of what appeared to be imminent victory in the football. So,”hay presto”, Friday afternoons work is cancelled.for the game.
Through all this however, the Colombian’s we were in contact with were lovely and very, very, patient will us. But the system is appalling. Even in Africa (Namibia) the same process took mere hours. But in the end there is a positive. The Colombian import system employs more beautiful women per metre of office space than I thought possible.
From Cartagena we’re headed north east up the Carribean coast stopping at Tayrona Nat Park for two nights in a nearly deserted camping ground. They didn’t sell achohol! It was here that I developed my usual head and chest cold.
From the coast we have moved up to 750mtr in the mountain s to a place called Minca. I don’t know what’s here as I have been flat on my back, but Gael walked the kilometre down the hill into town for some shopping catching a motocycle taxi back up to camp. As a senior citizen she shows no fear.
The minor road conditions up until now have been as bad as Africa. Badly potholed bitumen, but with large volumes of traffic, to make things more interesting.
Back to bed for me.
PS Don’t forget Gaels snaps at the bottom of the page.
Finally arrived at Cartagena, Colombia on the 30th June. We broke the trip up into four legs, Melb to Syd, Syd to Santiago, Chile, Santiago to Bogota, Colombia ("Colombia not Columbia", as the locals have printed on their T shirts, to educate ignorant barstards, like me), and Bogota to Cartegena.
This was a futile attempt, as it turned out, to lesson the impact of such a long trip on two pension aged Aussies.
I tried to explain the trials and tribulations we went through to a Colombian I happened to corner in conversation. He quickly lost interest when the Hilton Hotel name was mentioned. Clearly he didn't think a night at the Hilton to be much of a burden. But really, the whole experience was horrible, horrible, horrible!
Four days of forking out money, whilst conversing in kindergarden Spanish, with the aid of facial expressions, hand gestures, and confused jabs at the phone translator keyboard thingy, to what appeared to be anybody loosely associated with the shipping company, DIAN (Customs) and the port authority saw us liberate our truck from the its container. Much to our disappointment during this process, Colombia reached the point of what appeared to be imminent victory in the football. So,”hay presto”, Friday afternoons work is cancelled.for the game.
Through all this however, the Colombian’s we were in contact with were lovely and very, very, patient will us. But the system is appalling. Even in Africa (Namibia) the same process took mere hours. But in the end there is a positive. The Colombian import system employs more beautiful women per metre of office space than I thought possible.
From Cartagena we’re headed north east up the Carribean coast stopping at Tayrona Nat Park for two nights in a nearly deserted camping ground. They didn’t sell achohol! It was here that I developed my usual head and chest cold.
From the coast we have moved up to 750mtr in the mountain s to a place called Minca. I don’t know what’s here as I have been flat on my back, but Gael walked the kilometre down the hill into town for some shopping catching a motocycle taxi back up to camp. As a senior citizen she shows no fear.
The minor road conditions up until now have been as bad as Africa. Badly potholed bitumen, but with large volumes of traffic, to make things more interesting.
Back to bed for me.
PS Don’t forget Gaels snaps at the bottom of the page.
- comments
Foster Good to see that the LR made it to the other side of the planet
Foster Looking a little malnourished Bob!
Foster What a stunning trailer park... and no lining up for the showers!
Foster Ahhh, fresh coconut juice. What a treat!
Poor baby Need your chest rubbed by one of those beautiful SA woman you mentioned? Keep dreaming!
Stephen Keefe Ahhh.....theres nothin quite like columbian coconut milk :)
Stephen Keefe WOW Like something out of "raiders of the lost ark"