Author: Jalo

Oct-07

Today, I continued traveling together with my Argentinian friends. It was a day full of ups and downs:

Taking the short 6h-ride too easy, we left late, at 7am. On the way, we planned to visit two touristy sights. Pretty fast we arrived at the first, the church Las Lajas, which is built on columns in the middle of a valley. Together with the volcano of Ometepe, it was one of the first things on my “to visit” list for this trip and it was  totally worth it – beautiful!

Then we arrived at the border at around lunch time. A big mistake. Being super crowded, it took us 3h to cross – the longest border crossing I’ve had so far. Back on the road, we found out that the “Mitad del Mundo” park where you can take pictures exactly at the equator – our second destination – closed before we would arrive. Sad and in regret about leaving late, we thought about new plans. We decided to do this sight tomorrow in the morning instead.

Eventually we arrived safely in Quito, ECU. Even without passing by the “Mitad del Mundo” park, I am currently for the first time in my life in the southern hemisphere!

On our way looking for the hostel, another misfortune happened: I opened the driver’s window and it wouldn’t close anymore. After being weak for the entire trip, the window’s motor seems to have finally given up entirely. Luckily we found a hostel where we could park the car secured in the courtyard. Planning to go to a mechanic in the morning, we worried our plans for tomorrow would fail again.

To forget about all of this we went out. It was lots of fun! We just came back and asked the receptionist about mechanics and she reminded us that tomorrow was Sunday and therefore there wouldn’t be anything open. After thinking about it for a moment we decided to simply “roll with it” and to always look for secure places to park the car and to not let this ruin our trip.

Let’s see how this goes!

Oct-06

Today, my two Argentinian friends and me traveled from Cali to Pasto, COL, where we arrived safely. On the way we para through gorgeous mountain landscapes again. Here in Colombia, I feel like every day the landscape becomes a bit more beautiful than the day before. I highly recommend road trips in Colombia.

Arriving in Pasto, we had some time left for strolling through the city center. After Cartagena it’s the first city I’ve actually visited. It’s a nice city, which feels smaller than it is and it’s little touristy. I am just a little surprised how cold it is here, after passing through desert-like temperatures all day long.

Initially we planned to stay with a friend of the girls, but unfortunately he canceled on us. After a desperate search via couchsurfing and airbnb, also considering sleeping in the car, we ended up in a cheap hostel.

Tomorrow we will continue together crossing into Ecuador.

 

Oct-05

Today I got up a little later and left at 9am. Leaving Medellín I saw two hitchhiking backpacker girls with signs saying “Cali”. As this is where I was heading, I picked them up. They were Argentinian and we had a great time together. In the evening we arrived safely in Cali, COL.

The girls are on their way back to Argentina and plan to go as fast as possible. Traveling by hitchhiking and busses they can actually use 24h per day for traveling – as they don’t have to drive themselves and therefor can sleep on the road – and they are actually moving faster than I am. Still we decided to travel together again tomorrow towards Pasto.

Here in Cali I am staying with the family of a coworker and good friend of mine from my time in Helsinki. They didn’t even know me but I was offered to stay with them and invited for dinner. It proves  again how friendly and hospitable the hispanic cultures are. Together we watched the Colombia – Paraguay soccer match for the world cup qualification. At first we celebrated the colombian goal, until in the last minutes Paraguay made two. A lost match, but not yet out of the world cup.

Oct-04

Today was a long day of driving. I managed to get up early and left at 4:30am. I arrived safely in San Medellín, COL, at 4:45pm.

Unfortunately there wasn’t enough time anymore to check out the city center – everybody in the hostel insisted it would be too dangerous to go there when it’s dark. So we – some  guys from the hostel and me –  went to another area of town for dinner and some beers. It was nice but I regret not having seen the center. Also, it became way too late so that I don’t know yet whether I’ll manage to get up early tomorrow. Tomorrow’s destination is Calí.

Oct-03

Today is a day of two good news:

1) My office in Chile understands my situation and is willing to give me one week more for finishing my travels.  That will be enough to make it all the way down!

2) We got our cars out! Although we started very early today at 8:00am, it still took us until 4:00pm that we were finally free to go.

It felt great to be reunited with my car and I directly started my long journey southwards. In the remaining 2h of light I made it to El Carmen de Bolívar, COL, where I arrived safely. It is a cute little town, where only main roads are paved. All secondary roads are mud roads – and in this time of the year, called rain season, the word “mud” is to be taken serious.

When I arrived, for the first time on this journey, I had zero internet despite being inside a city. As I was relying on having it, I arrived totally unprepared. Luckily a woman from a restaurant helped me out with describing me the way to the only hostel in town by giving the most accurate and useful route description I’ve ever gotten. She knew the entire city better than any GPS.

Tomorrow I’ll try to get up early and will hopefully be able to make it all the way to Medellín. I could prepare myself better this time with researching a hostel already… Or I could simply again rely on having internet there…

Oct-02

Bad news: We did not get our cars. The container ship only arrived today at 5am, and it took until 3pm that it was all unloaded. We could prepare some things before that, but with the big chunks we had to wait for the ship to be all cleared. That didn’t leave much time until the closing time of the customs office.

We were a group of three – my container partner, a French father of 6 who’s traveling in an RV, and me. We were sent to so many places and rushed there by taxi or by foot, it felt like a gigantic treasure hunt and was actually quite exciting. Also, we got to see the city center of Cartagena. Just the fact that we didn’t finish today was a little disappointment.

Tomorrow we will for sure (that’s at least what they said) get our cars. But it is now obvious as never before that I won’t make it by car to Chile until next Tuesday. I need to talk to my office down there to see whether there is a little flexibility left or whether I’ll have to temporarily park the car here, fly down and get it later.

Oct-01

I can’t believe that it’s already been a month ago that I started this trip in New York City. Time has passed so quickly. 8 countries and about 10,000km later, me and my car both have made it to South America.

This morning we took another walk through Capurganá, which is a lovely little town. The town square is a football pitch, where all the urban life happened the night before with a match in the afternoon and very, very loud music into the night. But this morning everything was quiet around town. Also the immigration office didn’t open at 8:30am as we were promised by the immigration officer himself yesterday, but only at 9:15am – as they don’t turn on electricity in Capurganá before 9am on Sundays. We were still on time to catch the 10am boat to Necoclí which didn’t leave before 10:30am.

From there we took a bus. The bus ride took about 9h and it reminded me why I don’t do this trip with public transport. Bus rides that long are simply too boring and uncomfortable.

After spending the entire day on the road/ water, we finally arrived safely in Cartagena, COL, where we hopefully be reunited with our cars tomorrow. Then I’ll have to go all of today’s way back south.

Sep-28 to Sep-30

First of all, I want to apologize to everybody who I promised to that I would write a blog article every day. I could have foreseen that there is no internet on remote tropical islands. I hope no one has reported me missing yet. So far, Interpol doesn’t seem to be looking for me, as I was still able to cross a border (though I think at that specific border crossing, Interpol would have had to send a pigeon to reach them).

From the beginning: Thursday morning, my container partner and me were picked up at our hotel in Colón and taken to the harbor Puerto Calí. From there we were taken by boat to an island called Naranjo Chico, part of San Blas, PAN, where we arrived safely.

It was a beautiful island with palm trees, surrounded by clear blue water and coral riffs.  A travel agency’s brochure couldn’t have pictured it prettier. We directly went snorkeling and when we were asked whether we wanted to stay one day longer, we agreed – under the condition to leave very, very early on Saturday, so that we could make it all the way to Cartagena in one day (and night), where we wanted to have the full Sunday to explore the city before dealing with getting our cars on Monday morning.

During the morning of the next day, we realized that – as beautiful as it is – there is not much to do on a tiny island. Even the boat tour we added wasn’t really worth it – except that we swam with starfish. But as I might have had a bit too much rum the night before, it maybe wasn’t the worst idea to have another day to recover.

This morning, we left the island by boat, but apparently the definition of “really, really early” is a bit different here. When we expected 6am (sunrise), we were told we would leave at 9am and didn’t start before 9:30am. The boat ride was sunny and calm… For a while. Until we left the San Blas Islands and got into rain. The waves weren’t big at all, but the tiny boat jumped up and down and the rain drops felt like hail on the skin.

Eventually we arrived safely at Puerto Obaldia –  the last town of Panama, which has no road connection – where we had to stamp out of Panama. We arrived at 2:55pm, the immigration office was open until 3pm. Luckily, the captain and one passenger knew the officers, so our bags didn’t have to get checked and we got our stamps although it was already way past 3pm by what time.

We continued to Capurganá, COL, where we arrived safely at 4:10pm. The immigration office closed at 4pm. Without entrance stamps in the passport we cannot continue. Also, the last boats to Necoclí or Turbo – cities WITH road connections and busses to Cartagena – had left already. This is why we are stuck here now. Maybe sometimes “European early” does have some advantages.

Tomorrow we will still have enough time to arrive in Cartagena (if nothing goes wrong), but we won’t have a full day anymore to check it out before we have to work on getting our cars out on Monday.

Sep-27

“What could get wrong, will go wrong.” That was the motto of my morning.

The plan was to take 3 guys from the hostel to the airport, then to drive to the harbor of Colón, about an hour away from Panama City, where I would have one hour to tidy up and wash my car – as this was necessary for the customs inspection – and still would arrive at the shipping agency’s office at 8am as we were asked to.

Unfortunately, due to oversleeping and miscommunication, we started a lot later to the airport. The drive was smooth, no traffic, only the toll booths stopped us. All the other cars just passed with an electronic ticket. There were no toll agents to pay in cash, so we rang a bell. After a couple of times the bar opened and we were able go. We repeated this procedure at every toll booth and it always worked.

Dropping my friends off at the airport, I only had one hour left until 8am – so exactly enough to get to the harbor on time (with a dirty car though)… Except that due to rush hour my GPS suddenly calculated 1.5h. Shit.

I kept going and reached another toll booth. I was ready to go through the same procedure again, but this time someone answered the calls. Then a guy came up to my car explaining that there is no cash payment and I would have to turn around. I changed my GPS to “avoid toll road”, it found a route via backroads and immediately the estimated time of arrival jumped up by a lot. Shit².

A couple of minutes into the drive on the backroads, I got stopped by the police. This was the first time since Mexiko that I was stopped by the police asking for my documents. Unfortunately it was also the first time on this entire trip that I didn’t have them. My container partner, who had gone to Colón the day before, carried all papers for my car. Shit³. I explained the situation but of course they wouldn’t let me go without asking to pay a ticket of “maybe $100” (quote police officer). I showed them my empty wallet and played frustrated (there wasn’t much acting needed) and eventually they let me go for $20.

The entire rest of the short trip I was worried. Afraid to be pulled over again and insecure whether we would still have enough time to process everything today after arriving 1.5h later than explicitly being told. We could have easily continued tomorrow, but that would have meant that our the boat trip would have to be canceled.

At 9:30am I arrived at the harbor. An agent from our shipping company (though in the end he still insisted on being paid extra by us) helped us going to all the necessary places, file all the necessary paperwork and pay all the necessary fees and bribes. Still it took almost the entire day until we finally handed over our cars including keys in the afternoon. They will be driven into the container on Friday, and leave the harbor on Saturday direction Cartagena.

We took a taxi to the center of Colón, PAN, where we arrived safely. It is a city that isn’t used to tourism and I can see why. There literally is no reason to visit it.

Tomorrow morning we will be picked up and taken to another harbor, where we will board a boat that takes us to San Blas Islands and later to Colombia. I’m excited!