El viaje

On our 110th day on the road we have, in total, traveled 27.700 kilometers thus far

(This is including the flight from Munich to Mexico Cityand since it is part of the journey , it had to be included in the stats)

and we have just gotten into our 11th country.

Despite all warnings Jim gave us, we still put him into a container and he, hopefully, will arrive in the cargo port of Cartagena in a couple of days.

So feeling slightly guilty for leaving him behind and betraying our preferred means of transport we boarded a plane to Barranquilla.

Having spend the last days in a city we could not bring ourselves to explore another one. Also excited as newborns for finally being in Colombia we had to go to where the action is at.

So we got a very weird but very cheap rental car to bridge the Jom gap and in the pouring rain drove to Santa Marta.

Upon entering the city we got greeted by the first Colombian impressions including INSANELY loud Salsa music from massive speakers on every corner and streets packed with smiling,happy and even louder people.

We retreated to a quieter plaza where we had some street asado meat sticks and mais while googling for a cheap hotel with our newly acquired sims. These sims got paddled to us by two weed smoking but highly motivated thugs. Yes we got ripped of slightly with the price but we had an a good chat with them and in the end they were extremely funny characters so we did not mind paying 5 bucks more then if bought in a normal store.

Having found a place for 20 dollars , we collapsed immediately. Happy but very tired campers.

Quick Colombian coffee in the morning

and off we went to explore Santa Marta.

On some of these plazas you can find some reminders of the brutal history of this place

And after roaming around and soaking in some colours,

it was time to hit the road again. Knowing there is Tyrona park, the Sierra Nevada, Cartagena and a whole bunch of undiscovered places, we drove off like two crazed maniacs!

The drive up the coast was beautiful.

Not really knowing where to go first we stopped in Palomino for a quick snack.

There we also found a dude by the road who makes clothes out of white linen. I left my favorite black Aladin pants with him so he could try and copy them. He will call us once he is done, i hope that i will get my original ones back , i also hope that the copies will be wearable !

When describing our mood, i think „crazed“ is the most fitting word i can find. So on we drove! After another 2 or so the deep jungle stopped and we suddenly realized that we are surrounded by nothing.

The occasional truck or cow of course

We stopped for a quick reality check. Which was a good thing because at this point we where out of gas and we also realized that we do not have enough pesos to pay for hotels or food. We needed a plan.

The concept of people not accepting credit cards or cash machines simply not working is mostly unknown to us westeners. But trust me, once you can simply not pay at a gas station , especially after having tried the 5th card at the only cash machine in a 100km radius , you start to get an unsettling feeling.

The sun was going down and after finally having had a look at the map we decided to turn around and go to the next biggest town to try to find a bank or a hotel or both.

We settled for the tiny salt salina town of Manaure.

The atm, of course, did not work but at least we found a hotel which we could afford. 70k Pesos is roughly 17 Euros. The entrance to the hotel

and the view from our room.

Sketchy as fuck… But at least we could pay. And even though happy with our first days performance overall, we knew the next day we had to put a little bit more thought into it. We are now in South Amerika after all.