We drove south from the chaos of the capital city on Tuesday with a very excellent plan. Layne had found a gas station half way to our next tourist destination and they had what we needed most: laundry facilities at the truck stop.
It was less than a hundred miles to Melgar but in Colombia’s winding mountain roads that could be an all day drive. We planned to get to the truck stop with enough time to do a load of clothes and a load of sheets, mats, and seat covers in a self service laundry as all are in dire need. Colombia had other plans.
They are upgrading the main road through the mountains south of the capital and by next year it will be magnificent with three lanes in each direction over the 9,000 foot pass. This year it was a little…trying.
To save the brakes I put our Promaster into manual mode and we drifted downhill at 12 miles an hour in first and second gears enjoying the scenery. Even at the end of dry season much of this country appears green and lush and the Andes provide a magnificent back drop.
No police checks, at least not for us as the few we saw waved us through each time, I think mostly they stop cars to make sure they have insurance and so forth and we have no option but to buy insurance ($80 for three months) to be allowed to enter Colombia so checking us is pointless and if we don’t speak Spanish they must figure it will be frustrating. They wave us through and pull over the locals.
This isn’t bandit country either. Driving these roads is completely normal and peaceful. We stopped to buy some delicious peaches now in season and Layne likes to make lemonade so she bought a giant bag of limes for seventy five cents:
We half pull over where we can and traffic just pulls around us as we conclude the transaction. It’s very easy though sometimes we have no clue what we might be getting. It’s a cultural experience and we spread the money around.
Ecuador is three days drive that way (due south) but we have a couple of appointments back in Medellin first. A tooth cleaning in early May followed by a check up with a dermatologist before we hit the high Andes and the ferocious sun at altitude. Plus we are going to get a visa for Brazil as we are now required to have one for that country. Our efforts to secure one electronically have failed as the website is dreadful so we are going old fashioned and will stop by the consulate in Medellin in a few weeks to see what we need. I have long wanted to see the Amazon River.
More immediately we need laundry and wasn’t Layne surprised when the gas station attendant said the laundry had been closed for years. We did what had never been done, and updated the iOverlander entry on the travelers’ app.
Well, that laundry was a disappointment but we are used to things not being as they seem and my ever resourceful wife had a back up plan. 15 minutes down the road was the town of Melgar complete with laundry (according to Google maps) so off we went.
We dropped off our huge pink bag loaded with almost all our clothes ($12) and she promised they’d be done by nine the next morning. What to do? Melgar is a noisy busy little town and we weren’t in the mood so we drove back to the gas station truck stop. Most overlanders dislike truck stops because of the truck noise and so forth. In our well insulated van we don’t hear the noise much and as we can run our rooftop a/c off our batteries we slept well despite the high heat of our present low altitude. Oh and free (cold) showers in the morning!
The facilities are focused on truckers, described by the gas station as heroes. They even have a heroes breakfast only available to Colombian truckers. My curiousity was piqued, but I got a lesser meal of scrambled eggs hot dogs and ham. It did the job. Oh and the soup apparently comes with…just another funny little surprise.
Main roads are nicely maintained.
Toll booths are more frequent stops than police checks, $3 or $4 a pop. At least they mend the main roads.
Ninety degree day driving through the flatlands of the fertile Magdalena River valley. Down here we are at about 1300 feet.
And then the road to our destination.
It’s twenty two miles to the desert according to Google Maps. That took us about three hours and we started around noon with the temperature well over 100 degrees.
The first order of business was to deflate our tires. “Airing down” is a technique to improve grip in dirt but it also increases the suppleness of the tires to help smooth the ride.
We had put new tires on the front in Bogotá as we want more flexibility in dirt. I dislike driving off road in our van but sometimes we have no choice and it seemed sensible to get knobby tires on the front (drive) wheels to help pull us through.
We went for the gold standard, $250 each for BF Goodrich KO2 all terrain tires. On the pavement they are a bit noisy and won’t last as long as road tires but on anything else they pulled us through with no slipping or sliding. They inspire confidence.
The tool is the ever popular ARB tire deflator which allows you to pull out the core of the valve and measure the inflation of the tire as you let the air out. I decided to go from 70psi at the front to 35 and from 80psi at the back to 45. We could go lower but this is a rough dirt track we faced not soft sand or deep gravel.
This section of the road to the desert appeared to be a former railroad bed complete with two narrow tunnels…
And the Golondrina (“swallow”) Bridge. It’s solid but noisy as the steel plates move under you. Trucks drive this road so we anticipated no catastrophic failure but it was high up. I drove slowly.
The mighty Magdalena River flowing to the Caribbean Sea to the north. It was down here Simon Bolivar the Liberator floated to his eventual death outside Santa Marta on the coast.
One plate was bent up but we had no choice but to pass over it in our low clearance van. It was no problem but in any event we go have a steel skid plate to protect our engine and transmission. It dings occasionally on bumps in the road.
We had expected to be in the desert at this point and were g we disappointed to be surrounded by normal everyday agricultural scenes.
Rainy season would make this track impassable to us.
The track through the villages was paved in cement. I’d have preferred the whole road like this!
It started to look more desert like but it was still not what we had been expecting.
iOverlander showed a campground with a swimming pool off the main track and sure enough…
We drove down the sand side trail to a locked gate and saw no one around. We tooted the horn and woke up a barking dog and saw no one at Finca Turistica San Jose (Saint Joseph’s Toutidt Farm).
We put out some dog treats for the guard dogs and drove off. Bummer. We tried another campground but the only human figure we saw there flitted away into the shadows and never reappeared! We were left to assume these places operate on weekends only in low season and we weren’t surprised. We saw no other tourists or - god forbid! -foreigners on the road.
Lots of trucks were running through and we pulled aside carefully each time. They are merciless and don’t pause.
The Valley of Desires, a rather strange spot filled with rock cairns and nothing else.
It was too hot for Rusty, he took a quick tour and popped back inside. Smart dog. We offered him water at every stop and he drank a lot more than usual.
How did it get to be three o’clock we asked ourselves? Time flies on the road. We started wondering if we nought not do better in a hotel for the night when we got to the town of Villa Vieja the gateway to the supposed Tatscoa Desert. Before we arrived we passed a lovely looking place. We stopped and checked Google as phone service close to town had returned.
We found it was pet friendly, had a pool,
…easy parking…
…and a restaurant. $65? Done!
We wanted to try a local delicacy and we got goat stew. It was delicious, even the corn and potato mash with goat sweetbreads was delicious and not at all gamey or tough. I am trying to broaden my culinary horizons as I know guinea pig is in my future.
It was hot into the night but a swim had cooled us off and our cabin was air conditioned. Rusty was none too happy with all the dogs but after we showed the staff our home, always fascinating, they told us how the hotel has rescued seven abandoned or abused dogs so that made me feel good.
I slept well and hopefully today we shall find the elusive Tatacoa Desert.
