Heading towards Venezuela but going to Cartagena

 

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. Just to be clear we are heading north east towards Venezuala but we are not going there.

 

We depart at 07:30 after various disagreements with the hotel management. It started with Bumble being told not to have a swim because there wasn’t a life guard on duty. The fact that various people were swimming at 11:00pm the previous night and Bumble is an exceptionally strong swimmer held no sway. Barbara told the management that she had no hot water to be told that they didn’t advertise hot water. Chris told them that he had no water at all which rather stumped them. The small mindedness of the management seemed to have no limit. We quickly grabbed some breakfast and were on the road by 07:30am.

 

Medellin is 77km away and we immediately found ourselves cruising at speed up the new road, beautiful duel carriageway with fantastic new bridges and immaculate tarmac. When one thinks that something is too good to be true it usually is, and so it was once again that our pristine road turned into the ‘old’ road and we found ourselves once again crawling up vertical, narrow roads behind slow trucks. The 77km took 2.5hrs and tested the patience of the drivers and the capacity of the cars radiators!

 

By 10:00am we found ourselves dropping down into the outskirts of Medallin a city we had been advised not to bother visiting. This might be harsh but our plan was to shoot across (there is no bypass) the city and out the other side as quickly as possible. Perhaps it was because it was a Sunday but the transition across the city couldn’t have been easier. There wasn’t a single traffic light and not a single traffic jam. We were out the other side and cruising along duel carriageway on our way north east.

 

We stopped for coffee and not only had a reasonable cup of coffee but also acquired sandwiches to consume on the road. We headed north east towards Venezuela and the country began to change dramatically. The hills became less pronounced and we moved into cattle country. There were far fewer crops but lots of cattle and horses. The temperature also rose quite dramatically and by 02:00pm the temperature was around 35C. We stopped for petrol around then and treated ourselves to an ice cream. I can honestly say that I have never appreciated one more. The same applies to the ice cold water we purchased, pouring it down our necks to provide some respite from the searing heat. The sun just beat down on the cars and their passengers interminably.

 

We were in very different country by now. We were approaching Venezuela and the undergrowth was a rich collection of bamboo, coconut, eucalyptus, palms and all manner of tropical plant. It was very hot but it was also very wet.

 

As always 30km from our destination we ground to a halt. The Rolls was somewhere ahead of us but the two Lagondas and their crews let out a mutual cry of exasperation. How serious could this stop be? Luckily the answer was, not very. We drove on for the next 20km occasionally stopping but for no apparent rhyme nor reason. Then we turned onto the road to Barrancabermeja, finding our hotel easily and slipping quickly into the simple pleasure of air conditioning and a hot shower.

 

Tomorrow we sadly say goodbye to Didier who returns to Paris. He has been such a star throughout his time on the Ultimate Overland team and will be so sourly missed. We are planning another long haul tomorrow which will break the back of the journey to Cartagena and we should arrive in plenty of time to service the cars and complete admin before they get shipped to Panama.