Chris writes:
I have always prided myself in having been able to work in ambiguous circumstances, a skill that has proved to be very useful on several occasions during the past weeks and no doubt in the ones to come as well.
With John and Mike heading off to test their ability to think, work, drink, eat, avoid muggers, police dogs and ogle at gold collections at altitude in Bogota (see separate blogs for days 26 & 27) I had planned an ace couple of days for Maria and I.
However frequent persistent thunderstorms prevented the execution of such plans which needed to be rescheduled virtually every hour.
Last night we had an excellent meal in Cartagena at a Lebanese / Columbia fusion restaurant named Zaitun (www.zaitun.com.co) where mobile advertising really worked and we were tempted to explore inside.
Maria noticed that the trio playing Salsa and the restaurant used a classic ‘Marshall’ amplifier. Having had a remote connection with Jim Marshall ‘the Lord of Loud’ as he was known, as he had rented our house in MK village for a number of years (including the period of time when he courted and then married his son’s wife) I went to take a photograph of one and was immediately surrounded by virtually all the staff who wondered why I was doing that.
A classic Marshall amp / speaker and some other known brands.
We then stuck up a conversation with Fabian the owner who asked what route through Columbia we would be taking, when I mentioned one of the nights would be in Caucasia he immediately pleaded to change the route as even he wouldn’t go there due to ongoing security issues. He recommended another town but then confirmed that the rest of our planned stops in Medellin, Manizales, Buga and Cali all the former territory of Pablo Escobar were all now (relatively) safe.
We took Fabian’s advice, staged a few photos and Maria and I headed back to hotel Santa Clara.
Overnight John, Mike and I had conferred, cancelled the original hotel, changed route and rebooked – we are flexible and quick thinking if nothing else.
The next activity to be rescheduled occurred this morning when after being woken by extremely loud thunder and heavy rain in the night which had not abated by breakfast time, we had to confirm cancellation of the private boat I had chartered to take us to the seven islands that make up the beautiful Rosario islands some miles out in the Caribbean from Cartagena. This was a great shame as I was going to score lots of brownie points for such an excursion day with Mrs L.
There was a gap in the storms at about 10.00 am so plan B was hatched, a walk round the ancient city walls.
This was certainly the opportunity to see both the old and the new Cartagena
This walk did proven to be hard work as with heavy rain for past the hours combined with temperatures in the early 30’s humidity was recorded at 83% . The effect was just as bad as standing in the rain and a retreat to the hotel was required for a change of clothes.
However over the 2 mile walk, I did observe that Colombian drivers being of Spanish decent, adopt the no hand-brake / gear in neutral approach and box each other in knowing that a little back and forth shunting will eventually create sufficient space to exit the line of parked cars when required.
The rest of the day has been spent dodging storms.
Tonight we plan to have our gala dinner as our rest time in Cartagena is drawing to a close.
John and Mike are en route back from Bogota, Maria is packing for her return flight tomorrow to the UK, Paul Dolman is already en route from the UK to join us tomorrow morning and we are beginning to get our minds around the fact that the ‘warm up’ as we referred to the first 29 days is almost over and we are beginning to think that the next stage from Cartagena to Quito is nearly upon us.
Having said that we still have over 1000 kms to go across some of the hardest parts of the Pan-American Highway in one of the most high risk countries in South America. It seems to be reforming now, but are all the people en route more welcoming to visitors than they were 20 years ago? We shall see.
We certainly need to keep our minds on the task and the roads ahead.
Our America’s Challenge Drive 