HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting to our destination
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Taking 7 hours to travel 200km
WORD OF THE DAY: landslide
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 200km
We are now in Colombia for the next 16 days. Today is just an en-route day to get us from Cucuta to a funky place called Bucaramanga. Because Gray had to take the truck back this morning for the customs check, which I don’t get as he could have off loaded anything he wasn’t supposed to have during the night (not that he did but just guessing this could be a small hole in their procedure) and Mark had some food shopping to do for our lunch and dinner tonight we had a departure time of 11am this morning!!! The latest one we have had I think I can say all trip and it was great to not wake to an alarm (we got up on our own accord at 7.30am anyway) have a leisurely breakfast, repack (we were supposed to be camping ) and be in the lobby by 11am.
As we left the hotel we were certainly the center of attention with people waving, yelling Spanish at us (in a nice way) people taking photos of the truck as we past and some of them just had a stunned expression on their faces. Tucan only run a tour through Venezuela and Colombia once a year and there aren’t too many other companies that come to these countries, so the Colombians aren’t too used to seeing a massive yellow truck with gringo’s passing through their town.
The weather had really turned and we were driving through a lot of rain. I didn’t realize at the time, but we were stull travelling through the Andes for the whole day today, so even though we only had 200km to drive, the windy, curvy, bad conditioned roads and bad weather it was going to take us a long time to get to our destination. The Andes is the longest continental mountain range in the world. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about 7,000km long, about 200km to 700km wide (widest between 18° south and 20° south latitude), and of an average height of about 4,000 m. The Andes extend from north to south through seven South American countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador,Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, and I have traversed all of them on our big yellow truck over 5 months! The so-called Altiplano plateau is the world's second-highest plateau following the Tibetan plateau. The Andes range is the world's highest mountain range outside of the continent of Asia. The highest peak, Mt. Aconcagua, rises to an elevation of about 6,962 m above sea level. The peak of Chimborazo in the Ecuadorean Andes is farther from the center of the Earth than any other location on the Earth's surface. This is because of the equatorial bulge that results from the Earth's rotation. The world's highest volcanoes are in the Andes, including Ojos del Salado on the Chile-Argentina frontier which rises to 6,893m and over 50 other volcanoes that rise above 6,000m.
The Andes Mountains form the most populated region of Colombia and contain the majority of the country's urban centers. They were also the location of the most significant pre-Columbian indigenous settlement. Beyond the Colombian Massif in the south-western departments of Cauca and Nariño, the Colombian Andes divide into three branches known as "cordilleras" (from the Spanish for Mountain Range): the Cordillera Occidental runs adjacent to the Pacific coast and includes the city of Cali; the Cordillera Central runs up the center of the country between the Cauca and Magdalena river valleys (to the west and east respectively) and includes the cities of Medellín, Manizales and Pereira; and the Cordillera Oriental extends north-east towards the Guajira Peninsula, and includes Bogotá, Bucaramanga and Cúcuta. The climate and vegetation of the region vary considerably according to altitude, but as a general rule the land can be divided into the tierra caliente (hot land) of river valleys and basins below 1,000 m; the more temperate conditions of the tierra templada (temperate land, approximately 1,000m to 2,000m) and tierra fría (cold land, 2,000m to 3,200m), which include the most productive land and the majority of the population; and the alpine conditions of the zona forestada (forested zone, 3,200m to 3,900m), páramos (3,900m to 4,600m) and tierra helada (frozen land, 4,600m and above).
The roads were in really bad condition and I mean to a point that they were literally swept away, no road left and it became single lanes to share with ongoing traffic. When I am overlooking a massive hole from where the road used to be as we drove past looking 1600m below at the raging river that we followed for half of the day, it was a little hairy. I must say that there were a lot of roadwork’s happening as well and the missing roads were well roped off, but I wouldn’t want to drive through any of that section at night time, let alone in the fog and in rainy conditions. The whole day was spent climbing and descending the Colombian Andes with toilet stops every few hours driving through small villages that make their living above 3000m above sea level. It must be a hard life as most of the villages are on the side of mountains, their crops also on very steep inclines in trying weather conditions. The Colombians have a very distinct look about them with wide faces that remind me a little of the Mongolians.
It was dark when we arrived into the Bucaramanga metro area just after 7pm. The city has the fifth largest economy in Colombia, and has the sixth largest population in country, with 1,212,656 people in its metropolitan area. Bucaramanga has over 160 parks scattered throughout the city and has been given the nickname "La Ciudad de Los Parques" ("City of Parks") and "La Ciudad Bonita de Colombia" ("Colombia's Beautiful City"). It is internationally recognized for its parks. I could see it was a massive city as the lights twinkled as we descended to 1000m. We stopped at a service station for a toilet break once we hit the city limits and Mark was on his phone while we waited for the group. When we were all back onboard he told us some AMAZING news that instead of pitching out tents in some camp ground we were still to find, he had found a hostel that should be able to fit us all in for the night!!! So we wouldn’t be in tents, which wouldn’t have been up till after 8pm and then we were kicking off early in the morning. This was a massive blessing and a BIG cheer went up in the truck. After a few wrong turns and a stop to ask someone where to go we arrived at the hostel at 8pm. So after a 9 hour day in the truck we had made our destination. The bedding situation was a little tricky as they had 2 rooms with 6 beds each, a double bed, 2 hammocks and the rest were to sleep on the terrace for the night. I put my hand up for the hammock and it was all mine, I am glad that everyone had a whole week on the ferry, as they all have had enough of sleeping in the hammocks where it is still a new experience for me. The hammocks were also on a terrace outside but under a roof, so with my sleeping bag I am sure I will warm enough.
As we were supposed to be in a camp site Gray and Mark had bought food for dinner, so after a 9 hour drive Gray and Mark were in the hostel’s kitchen getting beef and rice dinner ready for us to eat. I think we have a really good wicket on this trip re the cooking and food shopping duties as I don’t think it is the norm for the driver to be doing so much of the cooking. We now only have 3 possible camp nights left and I have requested Grays roast chicken as one of the meals, but we will see what will be on the menu as it really is just subject to what is available to buy from the shops as we go. But the request is in!
Goodnight from Bucaramanga and our second night in Colombia. We have a MASSIVE DRIVE tomorrow but with only the morning drive still in the Colombian Andes we are hoping to make some better drive times tomorrow.
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