We are leaving Barichara on Friday and we have forced the issue by making a doctor appointment in the town of San Gil. The owner of the campground had an upset stomach cured rapidly by a visit so we figured a check up after the bug (identified accurately I thought by one reader as novovirus) swept the campground. Medical care in Colombia is not eye wateringly expensive. A fellow traveler told us they had an MRI in a private clinic for $50. In any event we have to be in San Gil Friday afternoon so Rusty will be bitterly disappointed that we must leave.
We arrived at Guaimaro March 1st so two weeks in one spot measures the enjoyment we have had sitting here baking in the shade and chilling under blankets at night. Layne found good company with a fellow chef, Greg from England and they have worked together on recipes for his restaurant planned to open soon on the coast of Colombia. Lacking traveling neighbors we have found people to share ideas with here at the campground and that has been lovely. Greg on the left, Alex from New Zealand on the right at one of our communal dinners in the kitchen.
Julia and Joep (“Yup”) from The Netherlands, owners and builders of the campground over the past 14 years.
Mark from Massachusetts, a thinker and builder and anti-technology mechanic who understands the value of simplicity. It’s his second visit here and he’s learning to fill a niche in Barichara.
He’s learning to build human powered agricultural machines like this corn husker. The locals have done it by hand forever but Mark is learning to build machines that can make tedious hard work easier with technology easily accessible like bicycle parts. It really is lateral thinking genius.
The basic application can be used to do any rotary task with leg power instead of arm effort and faces light up when the tool is explained to big armed locals.
The prototype went to its new home and Mark is working on version number two with his new partner in town. I walked around Barichara one afternoon and on every street someone popped out and greeted him like they’d known him for years. He is full of surprises and I suspect Massachusett’s loss might soon be Barichara’s gain.
Holidays and weekends are the curse of the retired classes as they say and up next to haunt us: Semana Santa. Holy Week is a blow out time across Latin America and even though this is our first one in South America we’ve seen the ravages several times before. Stripped of its religious connotations the week before Easter the holiday is a ten day stretch of family vacation time.
Typically accommodations fill up, even campgrounds become zoos and all the tourist facilities, national parks, wilderness, water parks and so forth get unbearably busy. It’s a time for people like us to reflect the amazing privilege of a life of endless vacation.
The other side of the coin is that we usually try to hide up somewhere remote not least to relieve Rusty of the anxiety of day and night long firework festivals. This year we have rented an air b and b apartment between the towns of Mongui and Sagamosa at ten thousand feet altitude.
The idea is to be off the roads during the rowdy time but also to start trying to acclimate to high altitude. The fact is our future is filled with very high mountain driving and we are flat landers. We are going to spend ten days before the apartment rental touring various places of interest around Villa de Leyva and Tunja and Aquitaina and after the Easter break we will be going to the capital city of Bogotá which lies at 8600 feet. And get this: among the capital cities to come 8600 feet is practically sea level by comparison.
The more time we spend in South America, and we’ve only been here a month, the more planning we try to do, the more vast this undertaking becomes. We want to be out of Colombia in a couple of months and our route is to follow the PanAmerican Highway to Quito the capital of Ecuador at 9400 feet. 
The road south of Cali to the border with Ecuador has its dangers and I’m not one to hype danger. The PanAmerican has suffered many landslides and enormous roadwork between Popayan and Pasto. Our traveler app iOverlander is full of warnings about unfriendly locals. Wild camping is out of the question for us.
A couple wild camping a couple of months ago were woken up and robbed at gunpoint off the highway in a field. We are doing our research and using common sense and hoping we can convoy with any other travelers passing through here. But it makes you think.
So we then move to Ecuador, the country that sits astride the Equator and they have been in a state of emergency for a couple of months as the government tries to sweep up the gangs and cartels and restore order in the heavy handed and effective manner of the job recently completed in El Salvador where we felt completely safe and welcomed. The coastal areas of Ecuador where the drugs are transported are said to be the most dangerous so once again we will stick to the main highway in daylight and camp only in secure guarded areas. It takes some planning.
I think of South America and I think of ostriches and llamas and Incas and astonishing mountains and canyons. I think this drive to Ushuaia will feel like an accomplishment hard to relate once we return to the ease and simplicity and fun of wild camping in the US and not having to think in two or three languages.
And yet, had we not come here we’d never have seen soap nuts which we use in the washing machine here at the campground. Peel the shells and toss them in like nature’s detergent. Weird but true.
We make no pretense of being pioneers or of being adventurers seeking out back road wilderness. Just driving the main road around here seems excitement enough. I hope the van holds well at altitude, that our brake renewals serve us as they should and that when things go wrong we shall continue to keep our heads and find the lessons to be learned in the experiences.
Were we to drive in a straight line we would have 6,000 miles to go just to reach the end of the continent. It does seem a long way from here. I can hardly wait to see what we will find, but fortunately Layne knows how to put the brakes on so we shall see more than road signs flashing by.
4 comments:
We have soap nuts here as well! I got enthused by the idea of them and bought some at a local farmers market. Found a recipe online for making shampoo with soap nuts ,lemon juice and other things. It took every single molecule of oil out of my hair. Do. Not. Recommend. Ha
Can see how that could be good for laundry though.
On another note, have you considered getting a stash of a altitude sickness meds? I don't think I could handle where you are going without help🤔
The soap nuts are okay in the laundry but they are eco friendly so the campground owner requires them in the laundry.
As to altitude I have my concerns too. Florida is terrible preparation for the Andes. Tylenol is much favored by mountaineers oddly and in Colombia cocoa leaves are called Hoya. They sell them in baggies at high altitude and you make tea with them or chew them to offset the headaches and weakness at altitude. It’s the leaf used to make cocaine but minus the processing of course. It’s an Inca remedy for feeling like crap. We shall test them and see.
I have enjoyed your travels immensely, so thanks for composing all the blogs. You will have traveled over10,000 miles to reach your goal. Will you return the same long path or simply ship the van back and fly home to meet the van?
That’s a really good question. I think we’ll only know the answer when the time comes. We have discarded the shipping to South Africa option from Uruguay. Partly because of Rusty and partly because there is truly unbearable poverty along the road. I traveled Africa by motorcycle as a youngster but somehow it made less of an impression on the young me. We might ship to Europe if we feel like it. Or we could ship home. Either option requires crating Rusty as excess luggage for ten hours….or we might well drive back crossing the route we went. At this point no idea but I’ll keep the photos coming!
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