Kerching!!!

 

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 bumps all the way. The constant stop/ start was hard on the cars and the drivers and as ever the heat began to rise. There was a little cloud cover today which perhaps took the edge off the eviscerating heat for a change. A small plus, but a plus none the less!

 


About 30km from Cartagena we were once again stopped by the traffic police. This time it was because the first police officer thought Nigel looked like Harrison Ford who happened to be his hero. Bumble explained that her daughter had once cooked for Harrison and the police officer let them on their way delighted to have got so close to his celebrity hero. Ham and Chris weren’t so lucky. The two officers who stopped them wanted all the paperwork, including for the first time our vehicle insurance which we had purchased for the whole of South America. Unfortunately we had screwed up and Colombia wasn’t included in the countries on the insurance document. They let them go with a warning to update the document, then they stopped them again and said there was a ‘fine’ to pay. That ‘fine’ remained unspecified! Chris made it very plain that in his view their wasn’t a hope in hell of paying any ‘fine’ and before we knew it we were allowed on our way once again.


 

 




About 20km from Cartagena we turned left to travel down the Baru peninsula to the resort we had booked for a couple of days. It will give us time to finalise admin on shipping and hopefully service the cars. Firstly we travelled through a serious industrial area with huge chemical and petrochemical plants which didn’t bode well however we soon left them behind and turned onto a dirt track running alongside the shore. Fernando, our host, was there to great us and we arrived in a nice little resort on the shore line each with our own room. Supper was fresh shrimp and rice and we all fell asleep to the sound of lapping waves and the sure knowledge that we had just driven 10,000km from one end of South America to the other. Happy days!

 



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