Every day Layne hopes to wake up ready to travel and every day she is disappointed by her symptoms, a head cold, coughing and herself bed bound. It’s a good spot to not feel well with all the facilities in a good campground but life is stationary.
Colombia has quieted down, the guerrillas are promising to kidnap more rich Colombians to fund their lifestyle and the government says in that case no more peace talks. The two sides are meeting in Caracas Venezuela in order not to talk.
Rusty and I lounge around and then go for walks. The air at 8,000 feet is cool and crisp and bursts of sunshine alternate with threatening black clouds of rain. I told a Spanish overlander who just arrived here that rainy season is officially over. I guarantee it and she laughed at me. And yet no rain has fallen lately.
Rusty is going gray and he freaks me out but he runs and jumps and plays the sand as always. I worry too much.
We have some packages coming via Amazon, a new laundry bag and a dog food bag and an accidental camera lens for me and a new camp chair for Layne and they are supposed to arrive next week.
Layne has a plan to double back to Medellin for a visit to the city we accidentally bypassed on our way south but we can’t leave until she gets well.
I take my small Panasonic camera for walks with my new tiny telephoto lens and I come back to our Starlink and upload and wonder how long we shall wait to do something.
The giant green French truck left the campground yesterday returning to Ecuador but before they got to the border they were flagged down as their brakes were on fire. They had fire extinguishers but the last I heard they are sitting in Colombia pondering their next move.
The Spanish van, the Peugeot Jumper on the right below with their awning out, is waiting to see the RV mechanic nearby. It’s a diesel version of our Smerican Promaster with similar low clearance. They went off road and whacked a rock so hard they have bent the frame at the rear. The estimate for repairs is a few weeks.
The silver colored Fiat van on the left above, the Italian version of our Promaster, was also in the shop apparently removed their pollution control devices as modern diesel engines bog down at high altitude. They left yesterday after saying not a word to us and swept out as I walked Rusty covering us in their new free flowing exhaust. This is why modern diesels have pollution controls:
That was also why I wanted a gasoline powered van when we left the US and the Ford Transit is a complicated machine with turbo charging and all wheel drive where I wanted simplicity.
So here we sit waiting. Just another part of driving the PanAmerican Highway. Me hoping to stop hearing Layne coughing up her lungs soon. It sounds very painful.
