Santa Cruz de Mompox, a World Heritage site!

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 station forecourt which offered good coffee and air con. Just what everyone needed as the sun began to beat down in its usual remorseless manner.

Nigel and Bumble departed first with Chris, Barbara and Ham following on about five minutes later. And that, sadly was the last the cars saw of one another until they met again in Mompox. The road ran true and straight until a left hand turn to Mompox. The turning wasn’t marked, indeed there was a partial barrier across what looked to be no more than a local, dirt track.

Nigel and Bumble arrived first and stopped to ensure the other two cars didn’t miss the turn. They found themselves mobbed by locals and decided to go on around the corner to wait, which was unfortunately out of view for the oncoming cars. None of this would have been a problem had any of the following two cars had any form of viable navigation. Ham’s phone had given up the ghost, completely shuting down because of the heat (Paddy his co-driver at the time will remember exactly the same thing happening in 40C in the middle of Varanasi, certainly at the time less than ideal!). Chris’ phone had lost its track on Waze and because of the sun shinning directly on the screen, he couldn’t see anything anyway. All in all a complete navigation disaster! The two cars sailed on past the vital turning and into oblivion!

In the meantime Nigel and Bumble were being looked after by a patrol of the Colombian army who were delighted to break up the monotony of their patrol with a chat with the crew of a Lagonda. A local told them that two old cars had gone down the main road and indeed showed them video taken some 15 minutes earlier. They decided that there wasn’t anything to be done and departed for Mompox.

40km further on the Rolls and the Lagonda stopped for a cold drink and an ice cream and learnt of the error of their Waze (get it?). They turned around, retrode those 40km to the turning and headed for Mompox, a further 67km away.

The road was full of pot holes, bumps and poor gravel sections. It was hard work after already having done the extra 80km. The cars took quite a battering particularly when we arrived in the town of Santa Ann. There was little traffic going in, less coming out but in the middle of the town it was mayhem and it was 38C!! I have no idea how that happens but it always seems to happen just when you want to get to the end of a long hot days driving. Chris had to fill up in the middle of town and he did so not only in the searing heat but also with a sizeable crowd that appeared around the cars. Everything was chaotic but eventually we managed to disengage and get on the road once more to the charming World Heritage Site of Mompox.