The Ultimate Overland

  Life on the road with old cars always throws up new challenges and today one of the biggest challenge arrived early. We were in no hurry to leave Mompox, firstly the hotel was comfortable and secondly we had a relatively short 270km to a small resort near Cartagena outside Baru. We retrieved the cars from their overnight parking space, packed them as usual with the company of locals and set off.   Within 5 minutes Ham’s Lagonda was boiling over, having been filled with water 30minutes previously. Not a good sign, to say the least! A pin prick hole on the bottom of the radiator caused by the battering of pot holes, gravel and bumps the previous afternoon was the culprit. Fortunately we had some K-Weld which, after a good shake, we poured into the radiator with new water and let it circulate for five minutes. It seemed to seal the hole and with fresh water we were off once again.   The first 100km was hard work with pot holes, gravel sections and...

    The plan was to put in a long haul today and break the back of our journey to Cartagena. It will provide us with useful extra time to prep the cars for our next leg through Central and North America. It is a straightforward run from Barrancabarmeja to Mompox of around 375km so, leaving at 07:30 we should arrive by 15:00. Sadly for the first time we saw the ubiquitous palm oil plantations for the first time on our travels.   The day started with our sad farewells to our Ultimate Overland team member Didier. He has been such a delight and we have been lucky that he found the time at such short notice to join us. Everyone, with perhaps the exception of the Lagonda’s gearbox, is very sad to see him depart and it means that Ham will be driving solo for the next two days.   The country is flat and the roads good so we made fast progress during the morning session. All the cars found the going easy and we cruised on to an excellent gas statio...

  We took as much advice as we could from locals and from Facebook groups focusing on travel in this part of the world. The consensus was not to travel up the E25 to Cartagena. Firstly it has been ‘under construction’ for years and therefore there are long parts of the road subject to construction delays. Secondly we are told that due to the Colombian Government banning certain illegal mining operations the locals have been protesting by closing the road. The police organise protected ‘caravans’ of cars and trucks to travel up the road but you often have to wait for such a caravan to be organised. All the advice is to find an alternative route. East or west were our choices. West takes us to the coast via Monteria, the east takes us towards Venezuela. We opt for east and decide to head for the oil town of Barrancabermeja. Waze tells us that this will add 4 hours over three days which seems a fair trade-off against the alternative of sitting for hours on the E25. J...

  We departed from the Boulevard del Rio Hotel after breakfast and the delivery of washing. On a trip like this it is difficult to understand the simple pleasure of getting ones washing done and once again facing a bag full of clean, fresh clothes. A choice of clean clothes tonight, what a simple joy!   The road out of Cali was very straightforward and we soon found ourselves driving at pace through the sugar beet fields of this part of Columbia. It must be an enormous source of wealth as acre after acre of thick sugar beet grows across the entire valley. We had some 270km to cover today to Bocas and the first 210km was faultless. We stopped for fuel, a cup of coffee and of course the inevitable police photo opportunity. Otherwise we ploughed on, driven by the simple promise of a cool pool and a cold beer at our resort hotel at Bocas, the Hotel Real Dinastia.   60km from Bocas we ground to a halt. By then we were driving up the valley besides the...