Port Of Cartagena

The only good thing about retrieving GANNET2 from the container was the ease of removal. 

It was a tight fit, such that the young man whose job it was to remove the front straps and chocks had to climb up a ladder onto the roof of GANNET2 and slide carefully to the front. 

Getting the  rear chocks and straps out was tough enough.

You will also notice there is a full sized metal plate that butts perfectly against the lower edge of the container. 

As long as I followed the hand signals and backed gently it was fine. I got out and was relieved to find no damage anywhere.

Layne had thought to hang Damp Rid bags and they collected tons of moisture so that had been a good idea. There was no musty smell in our home at all. 

Everything was as we had left it down to the odd extra dog hair donated by the Chief Security Officer. 

I cannnot describe the required process to get our vehicles released from the bonded area of the port, as I shall try to illustrate. Our shipping agent did it all behind the scenes and out of sight and we just went where we told when we were told. It was decidedly weird.  This is what we found on arrival for instance: keep out! Serious stuff. 

Our vehicles were in Colombia but at the sane time they weren’t. The seal had to be broken in our presence and only then could we look at our cars and as mine was at the back I got to crawl in right away! 

All this took place on Monday. Our containers arrived in port Thursday evening. Our shipping agent Ana Rodriguez had a notarized power of attorney to act on our behalf dealing with customs and she started the paperwork on Friday to allow the vehicles to be removed from the containers, which are much in demand these days. 

I immediately started to inflate the tires which is a slow steady process with our DeWalt, as I didn’t want to drive on almost flat tires. The yellow tape on the hood is some port authority code describing which container our vehicles are bonded from. 

The rules to enter the port are laborious and strict. Long sleeves, long pants closed toed shoes ( in 95 degrees and 100% humidity!) a high viz vest and hard hat provided by Ana’s office and a special pass visible at all times. Thus:

Also the day you drive out you must have contractor alcohol on their breathalyzer I’m told thus no drinking the night before. I didn’t care but my French fellow travelers were shocked by that news.

The paper trail was made more mysterious by the shortcomings of our shipping agent who I’m sorry to say has no communication skills or training in customer service. The worst of it is you are helpless and her lack of attention to detail makes the process much more stressful. I never felt I was in the hands of a trained professional. She misspelt names, sent us to incorrect or incomplete addresses and never kept us apprised of progress or what was to come next. It gave me a foul mood a headache. 

To her credit she got the job done and pretty quickly too. I could have taken GANNET2 out of the port on Tuesday but my insurance policy didn’t come through because she said her agents couldn’t find the brand: RAM. I sent her an ad for the main Jeep/Dodge/Ram dealer in Colombia so I think my van is now branded a Dodge which they do have in their files. But you can’t get instant coverage here. The policy takes two days to go in effect! 

Also the work of the customs (DIAN) inspector gets emailed to Bogota -seriously- for approval before we could get our temporary import permits. The main office doesn’t trust the main port to do it right I guess. This sort of bureaucracy you never see in the US do next time you think you are suffering at the DMV just remember Colombia..!

So there it is. Done in some confused manner and now hopefully we wait till Wednesday. Then we park GANNET2 in a city lot until Sergio arrives from Panama Friday lunchtime. Then we install the rooftop a/c and by the weekend I hope we are on our way. Somewhere. 

Cooking Rusty

Mompox is hotter than Hades, and Rusty doesn’t like that. But we have dragged him out on the streets with us and just to prove that I have some pictures of Rusty, hotter than ever, with a beautiful city as a backdrop. While this is going on I’m hoping I shall be driving GANNET2 out of a container at the docks in Cartagena. More on that tomorrow; meanwhile Rusty in Mompox. 

The waterfront: 

I have a photo of Rusty staring out at the St Lawrence River when we took him to Québec City a few months after we rescued him in 2016. Now I have a picture of him strolling past Colombia’s Magdalena River. Cool. 

I hope it looks as hot as it felt. I washed my shirt in the sink when we got back to the room to rinse the salt out. That’s how hot it was. 

Lunch: a Mompox sausage patty with a soft fried sweet plantain on top and a corn cake-arepa-on top. 

Rusty was on a water diet which he appreciated deeply. 

Staying well out of the sun: 

A water mark on the river front shows where severe flood level in November 2010 wrecked the city: 

Be surprised: this is a famous tourist attraction in Mompox and everyone comes by. Here? Yup this is the Bolivar Rock (“Piedra de Bolivar”).  

It lists the dates he visited the city starting with the visit that made him

and Mompox famous. 400 men volunteered to march with him to capture Caracas and demand freedom from Spain which took a few battles to achieve. But it started here. 

Every single visit noted, which gives you some idea of how he was viewed. 

He arrived May 18th 1830 before continuing downriver to die in Santa Marta months later. 

These two nice women were sitting in the heat and sold Layne some earrings and a bottle of local wine made from a fruit with a tart dry flavor similar to passion fruit. We had some at lunch and I liked it. 

Filigree silver, where filigree is thin strands woven into lovely designs. 

The ladies said the guy panning for gold had no chance but I hoped he struck it. Mompox has a history of gold and silver art. 

Rusty wanted to rest back where we had lunch. No chance…we wanted air conditioning and we are the humans here. 

We shocked the kids when we addressed them in Spanish and the boys nearby laughed and the girls laughed and it was a moment we never had in Panama. 

I’m dropping off a Longmire novel I brought from the Boquete campground  and I’m picking up a Bourdain memoir I found in the German dominated bookshelf here. 

Goodbye Mompox it was nice knowing you.