Not pigs, not from Guinea… but they are tasty

Making sure the skin doesn’t burst, roasting cuy (guinea pigs) at the market, Gualaceo, Ecuador.

Cuenca, Ecuador
[by Paula]

Just because we’ve been stopped for a while doesn’t mean we don’t keep learning things – oh no. The trajectory of our learning curve keeps speeding ahead in one direction.

Here’s a few things from the last few weeks: 1. If you are baking at high altitude, you have to adjust the ingredients to compensate. 2. If you stay still long enough, you find stuff out – like which local shops are willing to break the law and sell you alcohol on a Sunday. 3. If you eat guinea pigs you will upset your friends’ children. 4. If you expect your car to be fixed by a given date, you must add on at least a week, maybe two, or more. And on a related point… 4a. When you get really angry, you forget every word of Spanish you ever learned, not least the word for “angry”.

Cajas National Park – like being transported to bonnie Scotland for a day.

We’d decided to travel 9 hours south from Quito and explore another part of Ecuador while we waited for our van parts to arrive from the US, and rented an apartment in the gorgeous town of Cuenca. It’s been a great base for exploring the surrounding area, like the Inca ruins of Ingapirca and Sunday markets in nearby villages. We hiked at the spectacular Cajas National Park, which – at a bracing 4,000m (13,000ft+) – was weirdly evocative of the mist-shrouded mountains and lochs of Scotland. At times we would look around and wonder if we’d been teleported back home while we weren’t paying attention.

Having an apartment does run the risk of becoming spoiled – what with all these luxuries like a proper bed, consistently hot shower, oven, brick walls, toilet, that kind of thing. We’ve also enjoyed wandering Cuenca’s bars and cafes, meeting people, and generally behaving like folk who live somewhere.

Guinea pig, as served to us at the restaurant.

We’ve been using the time to do a little work too. Which brings me on to those cuddly rodents. While here we took the opportunity to go out and finally try one of Ecuador’s specialities, the roasted guinea pig (cuy). This week I wrote a feature about our culinary experience, and a bit of the history behind it all, for the BBC News website. While researching I discovered one of my favourite facts – that guinea pigs are neither pigs, nor from Guinea. Mainly for reasons of abject laziness, I have re-printed the article in full below.

Now, the BBC is – rightly – a sensitive soul and it doesn’t like to go around gratuitously upsetting its readers. For that reason they felt forced to omit my description of the roasted guinea pig’s liver flopping out onto the plate and (ex-vegetarian) Jeremy grabbing the first bite. They also felt unable to use some of the more graphic photos of impaled guinea pigs being roasted over an open fire at the market.

We have no such high standards of taste and decency, but I will say this – the photo gallery below might not be one for the kids.

Days: 581
Miles: 17,551
Things we now know to be true: One man’s meat is another man’s poison (or pet).

———

BBC article below, or click here to go to the feature on BBC Magazine.

Could I bring myself to eat a guinea pig?
By Paula Dear
Cuenca, Ecuador

Eating roasted or fried guinea pig is an ancient tradition in parts of South America, and still common today. But in other parts of the world the rodents are cherished as cuddly, fluffy pals for children. How do you make the mental leap from cute pet to delicious meal?

As a committed carnivore I’m not in the habit of attaching personalities to the meat on my plate.
But this was a guinea pig, with four legs, a face and endearingly prominent front teeth. I used to have one as a pet.

My husband Jeremy and I were in a restaurant in southern Ecuador, where guinea pigs are regularly served up with potatoes and corn, and have been for thousands of years. Peru, Bolivia and parts of Colombia also do so.

We’d seen them being cultivated in a small rural home in Colombia, and impaled on thick rods before being roasted en masse in an Ecuadorian market. Eating traditional foods is a large part of the travel experience, so there was no way we would pass through the region without sampling this dish.
The roasted guinea pig – called cuy in South America – was brought to our table whole before being chopped into five pieces – four leg portions and the head.

I considered Jet, the tufty black guinea pig who was my first pet. He was forever getting lost and his antics were the subject of a story written by eight-year-old me, which won a local writing competition. That he died in the care of friends while we were on holiday – overwhelmed by the car fumes in their garage – was one of those dramatic childhood turning points that I never really got over. Could I move on?

The reaction from some of our friends on social media to our planned meal suggested cuy-eating might not become popular any time soon in Europe, where guinea pigs have been loved as pets since traders introduced them in the 16th Century.

When British TV presenter Philip Schofield tweeted about eating a guinea pig in Peru last year, he was criticised online and in newspapers, including a Daily Mail story with the headline: “TV presenter blasted for boasting about scoffing ‘pet’.” It quoted Animal Aid director Andrew Tyler as saying: “This callous provocation is despicable.”

A woman brandishes one of many guinea pigs she has for sale, animal market, Otavalo, Ecuador.

Briton Christopher Breen, who owns restaurant Cafe Eucalyptus in Cuenca, Ecuador, and serves guinea pig tikka masala, says there is little chance of his compatriots adding the animal to their weekly shop.

“Cuy catching on in the UK? I don’t think so,” he says.

It’s a line that many who are well-integrated into Ecuadorian society refuse to cross. Gary Sisk, 64, from California, retired to Cuenca 18 months ago and has otherwise embraced the local culture, but says he has no intention of eating a guinea pig.

“When I first noticed cuy roasting in the market I was kind of shocked because of course we had them for pets as kids,” he says.

“My Ecuadorian friend is always putting one in the cart when we go shopping. Of course they laugh at my reaction when I see one, because they have eaten them all their lives.”

There have been small-scale exports of the delicacy to the US, Japan and some parts of Europe – often at the behest of the Latin American diaspora – but consumption levels are unlikely to reach those of Peru, for example, where an estimated 65 million guinea pigs are eaten annually. Far higher quantities of chicken are eaten – more than 500 million per year – but guinea pig remains preferred for special occasions.

It’s in Peru that archaeologists report guinea pigs were first domesticated as a food source as early as 5,000 BC, prized for their high protein levels and – although the fat content is relatively low – as a source of fat.

They later became an integral part of religious ceremonies and folk medicine. To this day they are often the centre of local festivals, which are considered to be incomplete without cuyes.
Their significance in Andean society is famously acknowledged in Peruvian-influenced depictions of Christ’s Last Supper, in Lima and Cusco.

“The marinade and slow roasting process, involving regular basting, had given it a tasty crackling-like skin.”

But it’s not all about the past. Cuy is still a popular animal to cultivate in rural and urban homes for eating on special occasions or – as they fetch a relatively high price – selling in markets or to shops. Larger-scale production also exists, often focusing on restaurants and the small export market.

Indeed, some argue animals like this could be the future. Guinea pigs reproduce fast, taking up very little space and efficiently processing their simple diet of grass and vegetable scraps.
Raising cattle is a drain on resources, they point out. By comparison, guinea pig, squirrel, and other rodents are “low-impact protein sources”.

Matt Miller, a science writer for the US-based Nature Conservancy, is writing a book about the benefits of eating “unconventional” meats.

“Many animals that some consider ‘bizarre’ or ‘unconventional’ make a lot more sense – ecologically, economically, personally – to eat than modern, industrial meat,” he says.
Miller focuses on a number of rodents that are “abundant and can be sustainably harvested”, like squirrels, capybaras – the world’s largest rodent, also eaten in Venezuela – and guinea pigs.

He concedes the “cultural aversion” to eating animals like guinea pigs is “huge” in many countries. Could those who have only ever seen guinea pigs as companions ever make that leap?

Miller adds: “It’s not going to replace beef. But diets can and do change over time. I grew up hunting and eating squirrel – many rural Americans still do. There is a growing interest in many countries in food diversity, so I don’t think the idea of eating guinea pigs is completely hopeless.”

Back at the restaurant, we wondered who would take the first bite.

Jeremy was a vegetarian for 27 years until 2010, but has approached meat-eating with the scary zeal of a convert.

He grabbed the first piece. Delicious. The marinade and slow roasting process, involving regular basting, had given it a tasty crackling-like skin, while the dark gamey meat was rich and oily, not unlike rabbit.

Guilt tinged my enjoyment a little – just a little. I drew the line at tackling the head – popular with locals – while the ex-vegetarian devoured it.

—–

GUINEA PIG FACTS

Also referred to – often by breeders – as cavies, taken from the Latin name for the group of rodents to which they belong, caviidae

They are neither pigs, nor from Guinea

Extensively used – with significant results – as a model organism for medical research in the 19th and 20th Centuries, resulting in the phrase “guinea pig” for a test subject

Queen Elizabeth I owned a pet guinea pig

An excited guinea pig will repeatedly hop into the air, behaviour known as “popcorning”

—–

PREHISTORIC PLATTER

Sometime during the Pre-ceramic period (prior 2000 BC) of Peruvian pre-history the guinea pig was domesticated as a food source, with first appearances possibly as early as 5000 BC in the Altiplano of southern Peru and Bolivia

Due to its high fertility and ease of maintenance it was, along with seafood, the most important source of protein in the prehistoric Peruvian diet

Later in pre-Hispanic times, the cavy [so called from its Latin name, cavia porcellus] was also widely used in religious ceremonies, divination and curing rituals

Since other animals belonged to the state, the common person only had the cavy as a dependable meat source

The Incas raised guinea pigs in large numbers to eat at their fiestas. One dish is known of cavy and capsicum pepper in which smooth pebbles were placed in the stomach cavity to facilitate the roasting of the animal

It also had a major part to play as a sacrificial animal. Annually, 1,000 white cavies were sacrificed in [Peru's] Cuzco public square to placate the gods and prevent them from damaging crops.

Source: The Cavy and South American Civilization, Jonathan Trigg MA, Dept of Archaeology, University of Liverpool

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AND NOW IT’S TIME… FOR THE GALLERY. Click on any image to open in slideshow format.

Vegetarians look away now. Partially roasted cuy (guinea pigs) at the Sunday market, Gualaceo, Ecuador.

A cuy (guinea pig) is sold at the animal market, Otavalo, Ecuador.

Not for the faint-hearted. Roasting cuy (guinea pigs) at the Sunday market, Gualaceo, Ecuador

Roasting cuy (guinea pigs) at the Sunday market, Gualaceo, Ecuador

Basting the skin of a roasting cuy (guinea pig) at the Sunday market, Gualacea, Ecuador.

Roasting cuy (guinea pigs) at the Sunday market, Gualaceo, Ecuador.

Skinned and impaled cuy (guinea pigs) ready to be roasted at the Sunday market, Gualaceo, Ecuador.

Jeremy gets ready to tuck into a roasted guinea pig, Cuenca, Ecuador.

The guinea pig was chopped into five pieces after being presented whole. Cuenca, Ecuador.

Jeremy contemplates eating a guinea pig head… and then does. Cuenca, Ecuador.

Town square, Gualaceo, Ecuador

Cajas National Park, Ecuador

Wet grass, Cajas National Park, Ecuador.

Really chilly day! Cajas National Park, Ecuador

Cajas National Park, Ecuador

Cajas National Park, Ecuador

Luminous lichen, Cajas National Park, Ecuador

Walked up several hundred steps to get this worthwhile view of Cuenca, Ecuador.

Big boys do cry

Laguna Quilotoa, Ecuador

Quito, Ecuador
[by Jeremy]

It’s often said to be an endearing quality in a man to be able to show emotion, to be able to shed a tear. It’s not quite so endearing when the man in question is on all fours, clinging to a rock and blubbing uncontrollably.

I am that man.

Before setting out on what was to turn out to be one of the best – and when I say best, I really mean both best and worst – treks of our entire trip, we asked our fellow overlanders Thomas and Sabine what the hike around the Quilotoa volcanic lake was like. “It’s fine they said, a little narrow in parts”.

I’m not sure what it was that possessed them to forget to mention the 1000ft sheer cliffs dropping straight in to the lake that, legend has it, is so deep it has no bottom. That’s the problem with people who don’t suffer from vertigo – no sense of impending doom!

Tears and tantrums aside, the hike from our base in Chugchilán to Quilotoa was stunning, the views incredible and the experience – well, an experience.

See that threadlike, impossibly narrow path going up the side of the valley? That was the easy bit.

It all started so well – a steep hour-long hike down almost 1000m in to the depths of an amazing canyon. It was at this point we realised why most hikers did the trek in reverse. What goes down must go up – or something like that. In front of us was five hours of continuous up from the valley floor.

With burning knees, and gasping for breath at 3,500m, we reached our first summit – the village of Guayama. Incredible views down in to the canyon, to the volcanoes and mountains surrounding us in every direction and back to the precipitous path we had just climbed were a just reward.

At least that’s the worst part over we reassured ourselves. Oh yeah? From there we climbed gently to the foot of the final ascent. It’s one of those that doesn’t look too steep when you are gazing at it from a distance. Close up it looked monstrous. With the sun burning down, the air thinning and our limbs growing ever more weary we climbed and climbed to the lip of the volcano.

At least that’s the worst part over, we reassured ourselves. Oh yeah? As we reached the lip of the crater we were confronted with – depending on your level of vertigo – the most astonishing view of Quilotoa, an awe-inspiring sight or a terrifying path to certain death.

“The rational part of my brain appeared to have gone on its own trek somewhere far away.”

My natural reaction when confronted with such terror is to cling on to rock, often grazing my face and hands in the process as I physically try to climb inside the rock face – and to stop the spinning, I find getting on all fours helps. It’s not a great look.

Normally this lasts for a while before Paula can connect with the rational part of my brain and persuade me that I can do it. And I do.

Maybe it was the thinness of the air, or the tiredness, but the rational part of my brain appeared to have gone on its own trek somewhere far away from here. Seconds of frozen inaction became minutes and minutes became an hour. Despite my protestations there was no way we could head back the way we’d come before dark – or physically manage it – so, rationally, I decided we could just sleep out in the open, at 3800m, in the freezing cold and rain. Well, it seemed rational to me.

It was only the chance arrival of some other trekkers and a local guide who persuaded us we could make the last part. Frankly, the guide just lied to me about how the last part wasn’t so bad.

Relief that we’ve almost reached the end – but still not relaxed enough to stop hugging the rock.

As we edged along the crater rim even I had to admit the views were out of this world. I even relaxed enough to enjoy them! An hour later we arrived at the village of Quilotoa, found a lovely hostel with a log fire in the room, ate, drank and were merry.

We awoke to a beautiful sunrise, and were greeted not only by stunning views of the emerald green lake far below but also by grazing llamas as we hiked down to sit at the lakeside – pure tranquility. After a few more wobbly-kneed moments climbing back up to the rim we rested our aching limbs enjoying a coffee in the town square while waiting for the bus back to Chugchilán. You didn’t think we were going to hike back did you?

At least that’s the worst part over, we reassured ourselves. Oh yeah?
The moment the bus set off in the midst of a swirling mountain storm and the local passengers began crossing themselves, we knew we were in for a bumpy ride. The dirt road began to turn in to a stream in parts, a quagmire in others. After a terrifying 15 minutes slipping and sliding along the side of the mountain we finally came unstuck. Less unstuck, perhaps, than stuck. As the bus slid backwards towards the edge of the cliff and the passengers screamed, we became firmly lodged in deep, deep mud. As everyone disembarked and diggers helped to get the bus moving again we joined a group of locals who, in sheeting mountain rain, walked past the next couple of nerve-jangling corners and rejoined the bus where the road looked less likely just to plunge in to the canyon.

It’s one thing when I’m irrational about falling over a cliff, but when Paula heads to the front of the bus and sits at the open door so she can jump off before we go over the edge, I know I’m being rational. An hour, several bitten fingernails and a couple of near-death experiences later, as we round a corner, the bus gets stuck again. This time it looks pretty final (as we find out a few hours later, when they finally get the bus out of its hole, this happens pretty much every day). Just a couple of kilometres short of our destination we decide to cut our losses and walk the final stretch.

Over a cold beer and warm dinner we relive our last 48 hours. And like all such tales, in our recounting the fear diminishes, our bravery grows until in the end the tears, the tantrums, the terror are just footnotes in an otherwise spectacular hiking experience. The scars are emotional – except for a couple of grazed hands – but the memories are among the best of the whole trip so far. It’s funny how these things work out.

Leaving Quilotoa we head back to Quito to pick up the van which has had its new fuel injector put in.

Quito’s not a bad place to be stuck for a while.

At least that’s the worst part over, we reassured ourselves. Oh yeah?

As we arrive at the mechanics, expecting to drive away, our van is being pushed in to the workshop. What!? Several days and a good deal of stress later we get the dreaded news that part of our rebuilt transmission is buggered.

The mechanics are baffled as to how an 11-month-old transmission could break. Our complaint to VW has been duly filed – we’ll let you know what compensation they decide to offer us….

As ever when big things go wrong with your vehicle on a road trip you start to think the worst, get upset, make all kinds of alternative plans and generally go in to a bit of a panic. We did all of the above. Before we knew it we were sat having afternoon tea with an elderly ‘colonial’ British couple, agreeing to look after their five dogs and sprawling finca on the outskirts of Quito for five months, and I had applied for a job as a football reporter in Ecuador.

In the cold light of day, the house-sitting plans didn’t work out – sadly we couldn’t co-ordinate our dates and the news on the transmission, bad though it was, was not as catastrophic as first feared. We could get the spare parts, sort it out and be back on the road almost within our planned schedule. So we have rented an apartment in Quito and set about enjoying life in a city we have come to really love – oh, and doing some freelance journalism to pay for the parts.

Setbacks often mean a bit of a change of plan…

At least that’s the worst part over, we are reassuring ourselves.

The silver lining in all of this is that we realise our journey is not one straight line (and not just because we get lost a lot) or just one adventure but a whole series of different adventures and experiences and if we have to stop for a while, have to get local jobs, have to change our plans we are ready, willing and able to do it.

After we’ve had a little panic, obviously.

Days: 558
Miles: 17,551
Things we now know to be true: “To want to tackle everything rationally is irrational.” [Ilyas Kassam - writer]

Paula on the trek from Chugchilan to Quilotoa

Canon de Toachi, Quilotoa Loop

We decided to call these flowers – babies shoes. We found out they are called by locals – babies shoes. Excellent.

On the trek from Chugchilan to Quilotoa

Meeting the locals, Guayama, Quilotoa Loop

Emerald green Laguna Quilotoa

Laguna Quilotoa through the afternoon mist

Wild flowers along the trek from Chugchilan to Quilotoa

Clouds descend over Laguna Quilotoa

Reaching the summit above laguna Quilotoa

Laguna Quilotoa from the crater rim

Laguna Quilotoa from the crater rim

Paula, lakeside, Laguna Quilotoa

Pampas grass, Laguna Quilotoa

Emerald-green Laguna Quilotoa. Psychedelic!

Grazing at Laguna Quilotoa

Rally in support of Venezuelan revolution, Quito

Chez Dear, our temporary home in Quito

Rally in support of Bolivarian Revolution, Quito

Angel statue, El Panecillo, high above Quito

The urban sprawl of Quito from El Panecillo

Society wedding in bohemian Guapulo, Quito

Colourful murals on the road to Guapulo, Quito

Looking out from Guapulo, Quito over the Tumbaco valley

Hasta luego Colombia

Campspot with a view, Tatacoa Desert, Colombia

Otavalo, Ecuador
[by Paula]

Hello Ecuador!

We’d been in Colombia so long we were in danger of starting to look suspicious to the authorities. The last customs official to renew our car permit told us one more month would be plenty to get us to the border. So we took the hint… and after five months there it seemed like a good time to start heading south again, which is, after all, kind of the aim of this journey.

We were sad to leave. But our grief rapidly lifted when we crossed the border and filled the tank with petrol at less than a third of the price of Colombia. US$1.48 per gallon. Let me say again, hello Ecuador!

Good morning Ecuador. Otavalo is our first stop.

Our last couple of weeks in Colombia had fulfilled our now expected quota of serenity, drama, beauty, wilderness, city stress, desert, mountains, mechanics, blistering heat, cold nights, rain, drought, and ups and downs of both the geographical and emotional variety.
The bad day, of which we blogged recently, was joined by some others vying to be contenders in the Really Bad Days stakes, but they were – happily – outnumbered by some last minute entries in the Best Bits of Colombia contest.

The morning after that hideous day we started up the van without a hitch and were chaperoned by the owner’s son, Jose, to Hacienda Venecia – a coffee finca that served as a perfect haven for a few days. The fabulous view, fresh mountain air, bracing swimming pool and a rare, indescribably brilliant, hot shower were only enhanced by the constant smell of fresh roasting coffee.

I may be a tea addict, but even I could appreciate that what we were drinking there was some of the best around. We took a coffee tour one sunny morning, and learned a lot about the process, the politics and the economics of growing coffee – which at the moment is a pretty disastrous situation for most small growers in Colombia and beyond.

Our journey through coffee country took us onwards to the less idyllic location of Pereira, a fairly unremarkable industrial city that contained something crucial for our future progress – a VW specialist mechanic. There followed a few days of back and forth, with the owners Martin and his wife Liliana gradually adopting us as their latest cause. As suspected, our recently-bought ignition wires were shot to pieces and needed to be replaced. A few days of searching for compatible parts in Colombia led to the conclusion we expected – nada.

We had no option but to order some from the US and hand over obscene amounts of money to FedEx to get them down to Pereira quick smart. To make sure there was extra pressure added, we were scrambling to get everything done ahead of the interminable shutdown that happens in Latin America at Easter.

These wax palms are really tall. Valle de Cocora, Colombia

As we headed off to the nearby mountain retreat of Salento to wait out the delivery, we asked Liliana when they would close for the holidays, at which point she generously offered up their home phone number. “Whenever the parts arrive, call us at home and we’ll open up the workshop for you”, she said. Result.

From Salento we got re-aquainted with our hiking boots and tackled the steep trail up through the Valle de Cocora, with its impossibly tall and incongruous-looking wax palm trees. At Finca La Montaña, hummingbirds with luminous long tails darted around among the flowers, announcing their presence with a whirr that seemed disproportionate to their size.

As we returned to the town we rewarded ourselves with two regional specialities in a local restaurant – trout with a giant patacone (bashed, fried plantain) and the heart-condition-inducing bandeja paisa; a platter of chorizo, blood sausage, ground pork, fried pork rind, rice, beans, avocado, fried plantains, fried egg and arepas. “I wonder if you’ll get through all of that!” I mused, about 180 seconds before Jeremy washed down the last bite with a swig of Aguila, then accepted some of my spare patacone.

We were outside the FedEx office at 8am, the day before the Easter holidays, gazing at the as-yet-unopened office door like a pair of creepy stalkers. By this time the car was really in a bad way, with steep uphills proving to be the ultimate nightmare. The parts were there. Yay! We just had to hand over yet more cash (a disappointingly high import tax) before we could pick them up. Boo. All we had to do was drive them across the city to the mechanic.

Post-hike snack for one. Bandeja Paisa, Salento, Colombia.

Unfortunately Pereira is like a mini Latin American version of San Francisco. As we tried to navigate the one-way systems we kept coming upon the most vertiginous streets imaginable. It was like a weird dream – we just had to get 6 blocks over that way, whilst avoiding all one-way streets and up-hill manoeuvres. At one point we had to roll back down a hill that the van simply refused to drive up. A passer-by, on hearing our predicament, suggested we reverse about one kilometre down a one-way street to get there. Helpful.

Thanks to Jeremy’s photographic memory of the city’s grid system, finally we made it! After a long day the new wires – and a new coil pack, if you are remotely interested – were fitted. We drove off, heading back to Salento, with the van feeling all powerful and macho again.
About 20 minutes later, as we ascended the mountains, we started to lose power, again. It was nowhere near as bad as before but was undoubtedly still playing up.

Much as we’d wanted to avoided it, the next day we dragged Martin and Liliana away from their holiday to investigate. He spent hours sorting out a problem with the electrical wires governing the throttle, or something, and then would not ask for any money (we soon rectified that).

The van was driving really well, powering up hills like it actually enjoyed it, and we headed off south with renewed gusto. During a quite punishingly mountainous drive we stopped to drink a coffee and let the brakes cool. As we pulled out again the shop owner shouted for us to stop, pointing to brake fluid spilling all over the back tyre and saying ‘dangerous’. Before we knew it we were surrounded by a group of guys, some of whom were roving highway mechanics (aka highway robbers). It all seemed rather convenient, and we were suspicious at first, but when he pulled the wheel off there was an obviously deteriorated rubber seal on the caliper.

“We’d been so furious we’d thrown every penny we had at them. One km later we came upon a road toll. No money.”

He went off for 2 hours to source some replacements and after the wheels were back on, the bill they presented us with was laughable. At nearly 3 times what we’d paid for a highly technical mechanic to work on the van for a day and a half in Pereira, this bill was no joke. We had a furious argument. The truth was we didn’t have the cash to pay it, but even if we had we would never have accepted it. I told them they could have the money we had on us (less than half of the bill) or we could go together to the next city and “take advice” about it, perhaps from the police. They took the money we offered and we sped off.

Trouble was, we’d been so furious we’d thrown every penny we had at them. One km later we came upon a road toll. No money. The officials refused Jeremy’s pleas about what had happened, refused to change our US dollars or take a card and, for the sake of $4, they told him to hitch 12km to the city to find a cash machine. After walking 3km a motorcyclist stopped and picked him up, ‘kindly’ offering to pay the toll and then drive with us the ATM so we could pay them back. When we arrived we offered a tip to say thanks, but they demanded a ridiculous $25 for their petrol. We were so sick of arguing by this stage we threw the money at him and drove off. In 5 months we can safely say we had not met any nasty or unwelcoming people in Colombia, and yet in the space of a morning we’d had them in spades. When added to recent frustrations, we temporarily lost faith and felt down for a little while.

But here I am rattling on about the van again – it was still going, and the next 10 days saw our spirits life as as we put in a lot of miles, by our standards, and visited some of the highlights of the country.

We left the mountains for a while and descended to the hot valley that leads to Colombia’s tiny southern desert, Desierto de la Tatacoa. The desert, ah how we love it! 

Camping in Walter’s living room, Espinal, Colombia.

At the end of day one of driving there we were looking for a place to camp and asked at a country club outside the town of Espinal. The owner wasn’t keen, but a guy who was there giving a tennis lesson offered us a space to camp at his house. Okay, we said, if you are sure you have space. He got in the van and directed us straight into the busy town square. ‘Here we are!’ he said. Erm, we explained again that we wanted to camp, in case he hadn’t understood. ‘Yes, my house is very big’, he said. Two street stalls were moved aside to make room for us to drive through large gates sandwiched between a packed restaurant and a shop. We drove in to find a house arranged part outdoors, part indoors, with a living and dining area outside and bedrooms arranged around the courtyard. We would be camping right next to the the sofa in his living room! Definitely a first.

We took advantage of the location and went straight into the adjoining restaurant, which specialised in a local dish, lechona – a slow roasted whole pig stuffed with rice, pulses and spices and served with a sweet stuffing. Oh yes.

A bumpy final stretch took us to the desert the next day, and one of the best camping spots we’d encountered in Colombia. We enjoyed sunset beers and early morning coffee from our position on the edge of a spectacular canyon, filled with jutting cacti and a labyrinth of protruding rock formations that changed colour with each stage of the day.

Heading south and west, towards the Andes and the Ecuadorian border, we spent a glorious few days in San Agustín, the site of hundreds of pre-Columbian statues in the surrounding hills and forests. On a horseback trip through the area, the scenery was spectacular, taking in lush fertile farms of fruits, coffee, yuca and bright red peppers. On a coffee stop at a little house we were talking with the owner about the animals he had. He pointed into a little hut and asked if we knew what ‘cuy’ were. “Yes!” I exclaimed, looking a three cute little furries, “a guinea pig was my first pet.”

“We roast them over there,” he said, pointing to a large clay oven beside us. Oh. A taste of things to come in Ecuador, where guinea pig is a popular dish. 

Horseriding around San Agustin, Colombia

Moving on from San Agustín was never going to be easy. We had three options for getting back over the Andes to Popayán. 1. The very rough, albeit shortest and most common route, otherwise known as the ‘Kangaroo Express’. 2. A similarly rough, and more dangerous, route known as the ‘Trampoline of Death’, or 3. A really really long way round that involved backtracking and taking a, reportedly, less terrible gravel road. We asked the police about the state of the road in option 1, which we had heard was, on top of just being generally bad, churned up with road works and deep muddy ruts.  ”Well, there are guerillas in that area, but if you are lucky you won’t encounter any,” he said. Right. Actually we were just asking about the road surface, but now you’re really spooking us.

After much deliberation we decided on option 1, before changing our minds at the last minute and taking 3 – the long way round.

What a day. After about 6 hours on normal roads and 5 hours of grinding along the washboard gravel road – all through spectacular scenery – we were rewarded with a final awesome stretch through the páramo near the 4750m Volcán Puracè. Wow. 

We arrived in Popayán at twilight and managed, almost, to stay awake through dinner before collapsing. We felt like we were on the home straight, we were going to make it to Ecuador.

The spectacular Sanctuario de las Lajas was our final sight-seeing stop in Colombia

Two more days of driving got us to the border, via a beautiful stop overlooking Volcán Galeras, plus the unreal Sanctuario de Las Lajas, an enormous cathedral built on a bridge over a gorge near the border town of Ipiales.

As is often the way, we spent our final night in the country in rather grimy circumstances – at a gas station truck stop convenient for an early start to the border. We reflected on our 5 months in Colombia, all the things we had seen and done, the amazing people we had met, and the fact that – despite the luxurious amount of time we’d had in the country – that there was still plenty we hadn’t seen.

As night came we couldn’t believe it when another overlander pulled into the truck stop, a guy from Switzerland. We chatted a while and he explained that he had only crossed into Colombia from Panama one week earlier.
“A week!” we said. “And you are already leaving for Ecuador?”
“Yeah”, he sighed. “There’s just nothing to see here.”

For once, we were truly speechless.

Days: 519
Miles: 17,484
Things we now know to be true: Everyone sees the world through different eyes.

Learning all about coffee, Hacienda Venecia, nr Manizales, Colombia,

Waking up and smelling the coffee, Hacienda Venecia, coffee country, Colombia

Hiking through the rock formations, Desierto de la Tatacoa, Colombia

View over the labyrinth of rock formations, Desierto de la Tatacoa, Colombia

Desierto de la Tatacoa, Colombia

Rock formations, Desierto de la Tatacoa, Colombia

Rock formations, Desierto de la Tatacoa, Colombia

View from our campspot, Salento, Colombia

Relief after a steep climb while hiking near Salento, Colombia.

Forests of wax palms are a strange site in the mountains near Salento, Colombia

Sharing our campspot with the animals, San Agustin, Colombia

Fresh beans are ground for coffee during our horseride near San Agustin, Colombia

Pre-Columbian statue, San Agustin, Colombia

View of Volcan Galeras from our campspot near Pasto, Colombia

Portrait of a bad day

Pereira, Colombia
[by Paula]

Life on the road has so many advantages it’s hard to know how to begin to quantify it. I don’t think we need to explain, any more than we have, how it feels to be free – at least for this chapter of our lives.

But despite all the obvious privileges, when you are travelling there is no reason to presume you can escape having a bad day sometimes. You know, those days that come along specifically to be utterly, unambiguously, shit. There’s just no getting away from it, and any traveller that tells you otherwise might just be fibbing a little.

We had one of those recently, and it went something like this. (*all times are approximate)

Nice spot. There’s just one flaw….

4pm: We are en route to the town of Honda, between Bogotá and Manizales. We’re pleased to have left Bogotá behind and, after a brief stop at the mechanic as we left the city, are reassured(ish) that we have no major mechanical issues to worry about. Before Honda we come upon a road block – unbeknown to us this section of the main route across country is currently closed every day from 11am til 6pm. Not wanting to drive after dark we turned back and find a good camp spot a few miles back. The owner asks us to camp in a spot with a great view over the mountains, but it’s down in a bit of a dip.

10pm: The rain comes on with gusto. It rains and rains, all night. Jeremy has half-awake concerns about whether we will wake up in a quagmire.

7am: We wake up in a quagmire.

8am: As we try to exit the campspot the van creates a nice deep sticky trench for itself and sinks into the mud. The owner and his wife try to help push us out, and we make several attempt to get some grip under the tyres with rocks and our levelling blocks. It’s still raining – everything and everyone is caked in mud. The main thing is, we have to get out of there soon so we can drive the section of road that will close at 11am for seven hours.

9am: The owner calls a neighbour with a truck to haul us out.

Bugger.

10am: After 5 rope-snapping attempts, we are still well and truly stuck.

10.20am: New rope found. Finally freed! I’m sliding the van all over the place as the truck drags us out of the dip, with Jeremy et al pushing from behind. “That looked like fun!” said Jeremy. No, it wasn’t. No time to wash the mud off, we make for the road so we can get out of the area before 11am. As we try to ascend the very steep driveway, the car loses all power and stops in the middle of the hill. I roll back, put it in first and take a run at it. It works, but we are worried about the severe loss of power, which is something that’s been happening on hills recently.

12pm: After grinding through queues of trucks we’ve made it to Honda, and quickly check emails for news we are hoping to get from various editors we have pitched story ideas to. Nothing. Grr. We head for the steep mountain road to Manizales, where there is a coffee finca we really want to camp at for a few days.

2pm: The van has been behaving terribly since we left Honda, bunny-hopping up the hills, losing power one minute and leaping ahead the next. It smells of burning plastic. We pull over at a hilltop cafe and see there is something like hot wax pouring from under the van, and solidifying on the ground. We ask the owner to call a mechanic, and two arrive from the next town. Our car scanner shows that two more of the (new) ignition wires are misfiring, along with some other long-running issues we’ve had with the catalytic converter and fuel/air mix – possibly all related, or not…

3pm: The mechanics insist that the hot grease is nothing to panic about (really?). We follow them into the town and they look under the bonnet. We explain about the ignition wires, and they say we really have to drive on to Manizales to find a specialist. That means climbing up to about 4,000m (more than 13,000ft) before descending again. We decide to go for it.

3-5pm: Hellish 2 hours of more of the same. Feels like the van is going to keel over any moment, and there’s hardly anywhere safe to pull over. Jeremy keeps telling me to move back in my seat, he can’t see in his wing mirror because I am a hunched-over ball of tension, leaning forward with my head in my hands. We are willing the van to just get to Manizales. We think we will make it although it will probably be dark when we do.

Sorry, on account of you officially having a Bad Day, we have had to close this road.

5pm: (one hour before dark). Another road block. The route is closed ‘for about an hour’ for urgent road works up ahead. No choice but to sit it out.

6.15pm: The road opens and we sputter ahead. We are going so slowly we are a hazard to ourselves and others. We come over one of the highest passes at twilight and can see the belching, snow-capped volcanic peak of El Ruiz ahead of us. The clouds are below the road. Spectacular.

7.15pm: Feels like we are never going to get there. Big delay when the road goes to one-track and two lines of traffic have a face-off. The truck ahead of us, and one coming the other way, have half their wheels up on the bank and are so tipped as they nudge past each other that the tops of their trucks are touching. I’m picturing being there all night if they topple over.

8pm: We finally arrive at the outskirts of Manizales. We’ve been so preoccupied we didn’t notice that none of the leaflets or guidebook actually have a proper address or directions to the finca we want to go to, but we know it’s about 20 minutes out of town. We stop and ask the police if they know it. The officer calls the finca – they say that it’s too complicated to find it in the dark, and suggest we get a hotel and call them in the morning for a chaperone. Tiredness, altitude and sheer bloody-mindedness affects our decision-making. We really, really, don’t want to go to a hotel, so we decide to screw that advice and try to find it anyway.

9pm: We are still asking around random taxi drivers and petrol stations for directions, and getting closer to finding out roughly where it is, although no one seems sure. We head out on what we think is the right highway.

The always-active El Ruiz volcano. An eruption in 1985 killed some 25,000 people.

9.30pm: We follow a sign to the area where we know the finca is. It immediately becomes a narrow downhill track with towering grass and bushes at either side, so we can’t see a thing ahead or around us. We are very tired, starving, and getting quite scared. All I can think of is that squeezing through this path reminds me of the Stephen King film Children of the Corn. We don’t really want to go on but there is nowhere to turn round either.

10pm: We finally see some light ahead and have a glimmer of hope it might be the finca. But as we turn the corner we see it is a luxury mansion. We pull up and the owner leans over his balcony to see what the hell is going on! Jeremy calls up to them for directions to the finca. Him and his grandson come down to the gate and explain that the owners of the finca are relatives of theirs. They know where it is, but it’s a bit complicated to get there – the most direct route requires crossing a river and the road has been washed away. As they explain the way we need to go, I finally crack. I just want to drink a barrel of wine and go to bed. I ask if we can safely sleep on the track near their house, as it is too late now to try to find the finca.

They insist we come into their property and park next to the house. When we pull up it looks like a scene from Father of the Bride – huge luxury home, swimming pool, and a manicured garden set out with gazebos and tables adorned with cloths and flowers, as if they are hosting a wedding. The whole family comes out to greet us – turns out the owner’s daughter is turning 50 the next day and they have gathered there to have a party for her.
They are so kind, asking if we need food or drink, and chatting to us about our trip. They say they will escort us to the finca in the morning. They show us to a bathroom we can use, and I am mortified to even step in there as my feet and legs are still caked with mud. Everything is so shiny and smart. We must (we do) look like tramps.

Getting ready to leave the morning after – pictured with two members of the family, Simon and Santiago.

11pm: We cook our dinner in the van, and every time we look outside we chuckle a little and cannot believe that this is how the day has ended. A horrid, stressful, day that ends with an act of kindness and some semblance of a sense of humour from us – not entirely atypical of this trip.
We pray that the van starts up in the morning and that this family does not have to have its posh party with our muddy van stranded next to the gazebo.

Days: 496
Miles: 16,371
Things we now know to be true: Tomorrow is, always, another day.

Parts and flowers

Bogotá, Colombia
[by Jeremy]

Forests of freilejons at the Paramo de Oseta gave it an other-worldly feel.

A typical day at the beach in Britain is characterised by ruddy-faced hardy people huddling together behind ineffectual windbreakers, dressed in thick jumpers, raincoats, thermals and wellies.

It can sometimes feel similar at the stunning white-sand beach of Playa Blanca. At least it has a decent excuse. It’s at 3015m (9900ft). No, really – a white sand beach at over 3000m! It’s the breeding ground of Oxyura jamaicensis andina – the Colombian Ruddy Duck – and we know how he feels.

Despite the cold, Playa Blanca – on Lago de Tota, Colombia’s largest lake and an important centre of the Muisca culture – is just one of a number of stunning highlights in the region around Sogamoso, our base for a couple of weeks. Soaring volcanic peaks, treks amongst the incredible and other-worldly landscapes of the páramo, beautiful colonial villages – one, Iza, whose streets are even lined with locals selling homemade desserts. Try them? Well, it would be rude not to. Heaven.

Quick photo-call at Playa Blanca with Kristen and Jonathan before retreating to the warmth of the van.

Dessert capped off a fun-filled day exploring the lake and the surrounding villages and chowing down on some local empanadas with our two new Canadian friends – Kristen and Jonathan.

We’d met them two days earlier as we huffed and puffed our way in the early morning sun from the picture-postcard village of Monguí, founded in 1601, up to the to Páramo de Oseta. Over the years we’ve done many amazing treks in a number of continents but this 8-hour hike up to almost 4000m (13100ft) ranks up there with the best. At every turn the scenery is amazing – giving us relative oldies the perfect excuse to rest while taking pictures, simply trying to find new superlatives to describe yet another amazing view – or in my case applying more duct tape to my rapidly disintegrating boots. At the summit, looking down over Laguna Negra is awe-inspiring. What was also awe-inspiring was the huge ice-cream we gobbled down several hours later when we staggered back in to Monguí.

But it’s the flora of the páramo – the unique ecosystem above the continuous forest line, yet below the permanent snowline – that sets it apart. The changing skies and the intensity of the sun provides an ever-changing palette of colours as the plants that grow only at such altitudes – in particular the lupins and forests of flowering freilejons – begin to dominate. In thinning air you can still find enough breath to gasp at the beauty of it all. We let out another gasp as our 12-year old guide froze at the sound of gunshots nearby. Hunters? There are none round here, he told us. Army practice? No, he said definitely. Guerillas, paramilitaries? He shrugged. Gulp.

But before we get all tourist board on you let us take you back. It’s a while since we last blogged and expressed aloud for the first time that with the van jerking and juddering its way in to Bogotá we feared the transmission was on its way out – again. Here we are a month later in Bogotá. But fear ye not… the transmission is fine. Cue HUGE sigh of relief.

It’s only the spark plug wires playing up – I say only, but those wires are the very same ones we just replaced. The ones we spent weeks getting sent from the US to a friend in the UK to be brought to us in Cartagena, to be fitted by the specialist VW concession. Yes, those ones. Turns out, VW didn’t have a clue and for some unknown reason yanked on the new wires, ripping one of them in two. Instead of telling us they just taped it together, closed the bonnet, charged us $100 and waved us off. Needless to say, pretty quickly – albeit 1,000kms away – the problem resurfaced. Back to square one.

Our unique Colombia sticker, courtesy of Klaus the mechanic.

Luckily in Bogotá we found an excellent mechanic. They repaired the wires as best they could, gave the transmission the once-over and a clean bill of health, mended the broken door lock (it’s only been a year!), did a better repair job on the bumper we’d pranged a few weeks ago, fixed up the radiator and – unable to find an exact match for a new headlight and us being unwilling to pay $300 to get one from VW – they took us to a backstreet workshop where a genius fashioned an exact replica in a few hours and fitted it for the princely sum of $45. Oh, and they even heard us complain that we couldn’t find a Colombia sticker for our van, and had one custom-made at a local print shop. That’s service.

With the car on its way back to full health there was the little matter of having to sort out extending our temporary import licence. A quick trip to the customs office, fill out a form and bingo. Yes? Er, no.

We did visit the office. They sent us up to the 4th floor. They sent us to the second floor. They told us we needed to go to another office, miles away by the airport. We did. They sent us up to the third floor. They said we first needed to go to the second floor. On the second floor they made us fill out a form and go back to the third floor. They sent us to see an inspector. She told us she needed to inspect the van. We said we didn’t have it because (as she surely knew) it was the one day of the year when all private cars are banned from driving in Bogotá. What are the chances?! She told us to bring it back tomorrow. We did – after a tear-inducing two-hour drive through Bogotá’s rush hour. There was someone different who asked us why we had brought the van – it wasn’t needed after all! We managed to resist punching a wall, or someone’s face. They told us to go to another desk. They stamped our original form and told us the licence would be posted to us on Monday. We said we didn’t have a postal address and could we pick it up. No, it has to be posted. So we gave a hostal address we weren’t staying at and called the owner to explain. Fine. Let’s just wait. We waited and waited.

Don’t step back! Overlooking Laguna Negra, Paramo de Oseta.

Four days later we couldn’t wait any longer. So we went back to the customs office. They sent us to the second floor. A bored, unsatisfied cog in the capitalist machine said he had no idea what we wanted, it wasn’t his job, mustered enough energy to ring someone and then point us to the 4th floor. As various people shrugged when we asked about the licence we began to lose hope until… a miracle. A woman picked up our form, called someone over, instructed them what to do, was polite and said she’d have it sorted in a few minutes. She then sent us back to the second floor. Bollocks. A secretary led us back to the desk of the aforementioned cog. Slumped almost vertically he barely looked up, stamped a sheaf of papers 4 times, handed them to us and said we could go. We literally skipped out..and ran a bit to ensure they didn’t change their minds. Hurrah, legal again. For 4 weeks, when we would have to go through it all again.

It’s all in a day’s work these days.

Such irritations are nothing but that, and they paled into complete insignificance when our thoughts turned daily to home. As some people know, Paula’s aunt Janette – her mum’s twin – had been seriously ill in recent months, and sadly died on 19 February. Paula headed back to Scotland within a couple of days to be with her family. It’s hard to know what to say in a forum such as this. Anyone who knows Paula’s extended family knows how close they are and how much Janette is missed by everyone – her sons David, Alan and Gavin, husband Andrew, her sisters Christine and Marjory and the many many others in her family and wide circle of friends.

While she spent those sad few days in the UK I adjusted to life in the van alone. Luckily I had the perfect location.

Finca San Pedro in Sogamoso is one of the best places we’ve stayed in the whole trip. Chilled – without being full of unwashed hippies lying around all day – it has amazing common spaces and an enthusiastic and friendly owner who loves travelling himself. Its gardens are lovely and a fascinating band of travellers and a professional cyclist doing altitude training while I was there made the time go quicker than expected.

There was a sublime sunrise the day I returned to Playa Blanca.

But refusing to just sit and wait I also got out and about. With a new love for the páramo I drove up 9 km of dirt mountain roads to the Páramo de Siscuni, stopping for a delicious trout empanada on the way, and trekked in eerie solitude around Laguna de Siscuni, visited the picturesque colonial town of Tibasosa, camped on the beach at Lago de Tota. I also took the opportunity to satisfy my football withdrawal symptoms by heading to the regional capital Tunja to watch local premier league team Boyacá Chico take on Tolima. In a spookily empty stadium, with just 19 away fans – one dressed in full knight’s outfit – the home side won 3-0 while the visitors had five players booked and two sent off and a band played Rivers of Babylon non-stop for 90 minutes. Weird.

So now we’re back in Bogotá and in a kind of groundhog day scenario are heading back to visit the mechanic armed with yet another new spark plug cable, bought in Scotland. Surely nothing can go wrong this time…

Days: 480
Miles: 15,502
Things we now know to be true: It’s people that matter.

——-

Some more photos from the last few weeks for your perusal. [If you are an email subscriber, to see the slideshow properly it is best to open the blog, rather than click on the photos from the email]

We took the van on its first little post-repair test run into the mountains north of Bogota.

We stopped off again at Laguna de Guatavita on the way to Sogamoso

Beginning the hike up to Paramo de Oseta

Paramo de Oseta

The colours as we reached the paramo were incredible.

Keeping up the pace, hiking Paramo de Oseta

Jeremy re-enacts an Olympic torch moment, Paramo de Oseta

View over Laguna Negra, Paramo de Oseta

Made it to the top! Overlooking Laguna Negra, Paramo de Oseta

Climbing through the rocks on the hike to Paramo de Oseta

Frailejons for miles, Paramo de Oseta

Lago de Tota, near Sogamoso

Iza, the town of a thousand desserts, near Lago de Tota

Playa Blanca, Lago de Tota

Jeremy’s drive to Paramo Siscuni

Spot the van! Jeremy’s solo hike to Paramo Siscuni.

Laguna Siscuni

Jeremy met just one person – the ranger – on his hike to Paramo Siscuni

In the pink. Sunrise at Playa Blanca, Lago de Tota

Sunrise at Playa Blanca, Lago de Tota

Early morning after camping at Playa Blanca, Lago de Tota

Home in Scotland with the family, including Mr Gizmo, our (nearly) 18-year-old kitty.

Ups and downs

Sogamoso, Colombia
[by Paula]

As we came over the mountain pass we just couldn’t believe the eye-popping views over the Chicamocha Canyon. After several months on the Colombian coast, it was like being in a different country.

Caroline comes to stay

I was equally incredulous when, after a long descent down the other side of the mountain, our over-heated brakes failed as we headed for a sharp corner. It was a like a classic slow-motion dream sequence – a huge truck in front of us had come to a halt to take a sharp turn and I was pushing the brake pedal to the floor, but nevertheless we continued to sail towards it. I stated the obvious with something along the lines of “fuck, I can’t stop”, as Jeremy and our friend Caroline stared silently ahead, open-mouthed.

As it turned out we did come to a stop, with the help of the back of the truck. Crunch.

Mission accomplished! We had given Caroline – who was visiting us from the UK for 3 weeks – a birthday to remember.

We’d picked her up in Cartagena 10 days before, where we began our endeavour to give her a great holiday, a taste of our life on the road, and a good varied dose of the incredible country that is Colombia.

Post-mudbath, pre-shower. Volcan de Lodo El Totumo, near Cartagena.

We strolled the city, dodging cruise ship trippers, and panted in the shade every few metres. The heat gave us plenty of excuses to stop for a raspado (shaved ice with fruit syrup and condensed milk), a cup of ceviche or a cold beer.

South of Cartagena, we rolled onto a tiny ‘ferry’ to Isla de Barú and the impossibly luminous Playa Blanca for a day of sun and swimming, which seemed like the right thing to do to let Caroline acclimatise to the Caribbean weather. We’re all heart.

On the way north up the coast from Cartagena we stopped off at the rather strange but irresistible Volcan de Lodo El Totumo – a teeny little volcano which now operates as a natural mud bath and is usually filled with giggling Colombians and tourists. We’d been before, and were looking forward to seeing Caroline’s reaction to sinking into the creamy mud which, for some reason, does something strange to gravity and leaves you flailing around and grasping at half-naked strangers to try to stay upright. She didn’t disappoint.

We returned to the beach at Palomino for a few days of shameless laziness that involved little more than reading, swimming, strolling and eating. One day the local fisherman provided us with the biggest and best prawns of our entire trip – I’m still drooling from the memory of that night’s barbeque.

In most places Caroline got a room while we camped, but in an unplanned turn of events she had the great fortune to share the van with us one night at Tayrona National Park, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Two snoring Dears and a light-sleeping Caroline seemed like a recipe for disaster, but lo and behold she climbed into the pop top and slept like a baby. Turns out the floor of the pop top has very effective sound-proofing!

Passing through Arrecifes on a hike through Tayrona National Park.

We explored some of Tayrona’s spectacular beaches, with their incongruous rock formations, and decided to do a longer, 7-hour return, hike to the pre-Hispanic ruins at Pueblito the next day. We woke to a troop of tamarin monkeys – tiny little fellows with comic fluffy white hair-dos – springing across the trees above the van. We did our best to beat the worst of the heat by setting off early, and had a spectacular hike on beaches and jungle trails, before the final steep upwards push over enormous rocks, to Pueblito. With burning calves, we wandered the site before setting off for the blistering return journey, which we ended with a celebratory swim in the sea near our campsite at Cañaveral.

After a brief overnight stop in Taganga, we turned southwards for part two of the trip which would take us up into the mountains of the Cordillera Oriental and, ultimately, to the capital Bogotá.
We had a couple of long days of driving ahead, with the aim being to get to the colonial town of Barichara on Caroline’s birthday, in plenty of time for a wander and some drinks and dinner.

On day one we battled the trucks and the heat but made good progress with the plan, eventually pulling in at the little town of San Martin, where we found a cheap hotel, some decent street food and cold beer to wash it down.

Why get your shoes wet when you can get a lift across? Tayrona National Park.

We set off at a leisurely pace the next day, expecting a 5-hour journey or so to Barichara. This turned out to be rather an optimistic estimation. Immediately south of the city of Bucaramanga, we began to climb into the mountains and the going was slow, partly due to the volume of trucks on the route. On top of this though, we started having serious concerns about the van, which was behaving badly, including cylinder misfires and some horribly erratic gear changes that made our blood run cold (let me refer you to our earlier experience with a transmission failure ).

It was a day of fluctuating emotions because aside from our fears about the van we were driving through some of the most dramatic and beautiful scenery we’d seen in a long time. It was exciting to be exploring a new and different territory – from the cowboy towns of the altiplano to steep mountain passes that seemed to go up forever. We accepted we were looking at a full day on the road, and took things easy on the van.

That is, except for the crashing into a truck part, which left it with a bit of a sad face and a smashed headlight.

We were all delighted and relieved to pull into Barichara in the early evening sunshine, and to see that Caroline’s hotel room was a gorgeous colonial house with wooden beams, sky-high ceilings and a great view. Saving our pennies for splurging on meals and drinks, we opted to camp on the street outside the hotel, much to Caroline’s amusement!

We grabbed a bottle of red from a hole-in-the-wall bar and drank it on the steps of the cathedral, before having amazing luck in finding a lovely atmospheric meat-free tapas restaurant (Caroline is veggie) – no mean feat in Colombia – for dinner. Potentially disastrous birthday pulled back from the brink – phew.

Getting ready to pop a crunchy fried ant into my mouth, Barichara

Beautiful pristine streets with white-washed buildings, a gorgeous hike to the nearby village of Guane, chic shops and some decent cafes made Barichara a big hit on the trip. I even got the chance to try the local speciality of tasty fried ants – cooked up into a delicious sauce and poured over a rare steak. Once I got over the shock of the size of them (they are not called fat-bottomed ants for nothing) I crunched through them quite happily without freaking out about the whole insect-in-mouth concept.

Keeping up with the gorgeous colonial town theme, we moved on to Villa de Leyva and a sublime hostel with great rooms and camping space. With one of the largest plazas in the Americas, it was a perfect spot for people watching with a coffee by day and a beer or hot canelazo at night. At more than 2000m, we were feeling the chill in the evenings for the first time in months, and quite enjoyed the novelty of woolly socks and blankets on the bed again.

Our worries about the van were never far from our minds, and the owner of the hostel recommended a mechanic in Bogotá, from which he’d had good reports.

Plaza Mayor, Villa de Leyva

As we set off from Villa de Leyva, bound for Sogamoso, we were employing the crossing-fingers tactic. But about 15 minutes into the journey we realised it was just going to be too stressful to head out there and risk being stranded, especially with the added element of Caroline needing to get to Bogotá for her flight home. So we ditched the plan and headed directly towards the city, deciding to stop for a couple of nights in Guatavita, about 50km north of the capital.

We made it there without incident, albeit with a severe lack of power coming from the engine, and camped at a fabulous spot next to a family house, which had a great cosy two-storey cabin for Caroline. We all piled in there for dinner in the evenings, played cards, and lit the huge wood fire to keep toasty.

It was another steep 7km uphill to the main attraction of the area, a volcanic crater lake held sacred by the indigenous Muisca people. Even that seemed like pushing our luck with the van, so we hiked the 7km to the start of the trail and then up to the beautiful lake, from which there was a spectacular view over the alpine scenery that seemed yet again like a whole other Colombia.

A last night drink with Caroline, Bogota

We were all happy to see Bogotá spreading out before us as we began the steep descent into the ‘bowl’ in which the city sits. The van had limped there, but had arrived in one piece. After a night out sampling the Bogota Beer Company’s finest brews, we said sad goodbyes to Caroline at first light.

We grabbed a coffee and steeled ourselves for a few tricky days in the city of dealing with the nightmarish bureaucracy of trying to renew our car permit, finding our way around the streets while avoiding the most insane drivers we’d encountered to date, and – most importantly – getting a diagnosis on the van.

Days: 466
Miles: 15,075
Things we now know to be true: The best laid plans are subject to change.

Snap, crackle and pop

David, Panama
by Paula

I wouldn’t say we are clumsy people by nature, but in recent weeks we have broken more things than could be considered normal for anyone beyond toddler age. Is anything built to last?

One of the many things we have discovered in the last year is that when your domestic world shrinks to the size of a van and its contents, and when that world is constantly moving, it is infuriating in stratospheric proportions when things break.

Why? Because every single thing in the van is there because we need it, there’s no room for spares, and many of those things – such as an awning to protect us from burning sun and rainstorms – can feel pretty crucial to us having a pleasant day.

We encountered another venomous viper on the way to this waterfall.

And when stuff does break we rarely have a quick solution. Always being in a foreign landscape, we don’t immediately know where to go to replace things or get them fixed. Everything takes longer to resolve. Vehicle camping is a foreigners’ pursuit here, so you can’t just walk into a shop and expect to find the particular kind of stuff you need for a trip like this. As for mechanical problems, well… the world over, finding a trustworthy mechanic is a lottery, and Latin America is no different.

Conversely though, when you do solve a problem, you celebrate as if you’d just won a hat-trick of golds at the Olympics. At both ends of the scale, our emotions are often all out of proportion.

We’d had a good trouble-free run with the van since leaving Honduras. So when the ‘check engine’ light came on in Cabuya, Costa Rica, we pulled into a mechanic with some trepidation about the diagnosis. If I even heard anyone whisper the word “transmission”, I’d decided, I was just going to lie on the ground and stay there with my hands over my ears.

So we were actually quite relieved when he said it was the catalytic converter. Yeah it was definitely that, he said. He told us to get a new one, so en route to the next place we called into an exhaust specialist and asked him to replace it. After a few hours it was done and off we went.

As darkness approached we took a punt on a sign off the main highway to a restaurant and trout farm that we hoped we could camp at. We bumped along for a few kilometres and arrived to find it in darkness. But soon enough the lovely family that owned it came out and gave us an enthusiastic welcome, letting us camp in a lovely spot by the river and offering to open up the kitchen to cook us some rice and chicken. We’d only been passing through, but it was so nice we decided to spend the next day there.

In the morning one of the children, 15-year-old Alberth, took us hiking to a waterfall and gorgeous swimming hole. As we tramped along Jeremy stopped dead behind me. “You’ve just stood on a snake,” he said. I looked back and a small brown snake was curled up on a leaf I’d just walked over.

We looked to Alberth for reassurance, but he reared backwards and said: “That’s really bad.” Another venomous viper! We can’t move for those at the moment. He flicked it into the undergrowth with a stick and we tried not to think about what could have been.

When we set off the next morning the check engine light shone back to life. It was Sunday, inevitably, so nothing could be done. It was also our 300th day on the road, and as we carried on down the Pacific coast and passed Dominical, we hit our 10,000-miles-so-far mark. We do love a milestone or two.

Long walks at Uvita, Costa Rica

We drove to Uvita, a stunning flat, wide surfers’ beach, and happily based ourselves there for a few days to sort things out and take long walks on the sand.

The mechanic we found there said the problem we had was with one of our 02 sensors. He rang his mate who knows about European cars. Yeah, it was definitely that, he said. It would need to be replaced, and the original part for VW would come from San Jose in a couple of days. No problem. We arranged to bring the van back in 3 days to have it fitted, and would then drive straight to our next destination.

Three days later we went back. It was the kind of day that is becoming wearily familiar, going roughly like this:
US: “We’re here”
HIM: “But the part is not. Apparently it’s a holiday so there are no deliveries, but I’ve told him he has to be here this morning with the parts. Come back in a couple of hours.”
Later…
US: “We’re here again.”
HIM: “He’s still not here. He says he’s 20 minutes away. Come back in 45.”
An hour later..
US: “We’re here. Again. Hello?”
No sign of HIM.
HIS COLLEAGUE: “Erm, he’s not here. He’s gone to (name of random town). Or was it (name of other random town)… [or perhaps he's just hiding? - ed] Anyhow, he said to tell you the delivery guy’s bike broke down 2 hours from here so he’s not coming now. You should probably just come back tomorrow.”
US: “Argh…”.

We found a new place to camp, and returned in the morning.

Quick photocall at Dominical to mark 300 days and 10,000 miles.

HIM: “The part’s here but I need longer than I thought because the previous guy has welded the 02 sensor to the catalytic converter. [you're really not supposed to do that – ed]. And I don’t think he’s put the right catalytic converter in there either.”
US: “Sigh”.

I’m afraid to say so many mechanics here spend a lot of time spouting off about what a terrible job the previous mechanic has done, only to then find a whole new way of buggering it up themselves.

We finally set off for the Osa Peninsula several hours late. An hour down the road the check engine light came back on. We swore a lot, pulled off the road in nowheresville and miraculously found a mechanic with computer diagnostics. He said there was a problem with the 02 sensor – that the mechanic we’d just used in Uvita had not installed an original part and what he had installed he appeared to have buggered up.

We sat in the car park in the pouring train, trying to decide whether to go back and get him to re-do it, or move on and forget him. Once someone has done a bad job, do you really want to wait around for another few days so they can cock it up again?

We moved on and decided to forget about it for a few days, as although the van was sounding a bit rough it was okay to drive.

After a certain point the road to Puerto Jimenez, on the Osa Peninsula, deteriorates massively. We weaved up over the mountain in the fog and rain, trying to avoid the cavernous water-filled potholes. The road soon became more pothole than road, and we were finding it hard to see them as dusk fell. We pulled over to a national park ranger station and asked to camp and the guys were very obliging, waving us into a space next to their base. As so often happens, they kept their distance for a while, and then a little delegation was assembled to come over to peer inside the van and ask about our trip.

Our campsite in Puerto Jimenez was choc-a-bloc with Scarlet Macaws.

During the night, disaster struck. One of our worst fears, in fact. As we slumbered, at 4am the propane gas alarm went off, meaning we had leaking gas building up inside the van. When there’s any loud noise at night Jeremy’s reactions are lightning quick. He was on his feet and flinging the door open before I could say ‘wha…”. We were really shaken up – where the hell was the gas coming from? We switched it off at source so the gas quickly cleared, and the alarm stopped sounding. Another puzzle to solve.

It’s all about balance. Most times these annoyances melt away quickly after the initial tantrum. We look around at where we are, remember what we are experiencing, and resolve to not let the little problems ever dominate the endless amazing things we are seeing and doing.

Just to prove that very point, when we arrived in Puerto Jimenez the next morning in bright sunshine, we pulled into one of the most sublime camping sites we have encountered on this trip – a beautiful patch of land flanked by the ocean and a lagoon, where the trees are filled with scarlet macaws. As we parked up these bright red, yellow and blue parrots were swooping all around the sky above us. It was like being on some kind of film set, they just don’t look real.

The surreal nature of the morning continued when the owner, Adonis, came over and offered to take us to see the crocodiles in the lagoon. We watched, slightly nervously, as he called these enormous crocs and caiman over to be hand-fed. They reared out of the water and we took several steps back as they tossed huge chunks of fatty meat into the air and chewed loudly before slouching back into the water.

On the second day Adonis came over and said he’d been worrying in the night about where we’d camped – under a huge tree that was leaning over us. Great for shade, we thought.

“See all these massive logs lying around on the ground,” he said, pointing to various logs which I had draped our wet clothes over. “Those are rotten trees like this one that have previously fallen down. If one falls on your van I’d have to give you a patch of land as compensation.”

Snack time for Mr Croc.

Hhmm, we both thought, that doesn’t sound too bad, this being one of the most incredible pieces of land we’ve seen in all of Costa Rica.

“Well, that’s if you’re still alive,” he said. We found this to be a convincing argument, and moved the van.

While camping there we really went to town on the breakages. Another camping chair. Snap. The leg of our awning – sheared in half due to the weight of water after a storm. A vent cover ripped off the outside of the van in an incident with a gate. Then the central locking started behaving independently, locking and unlocking itself while we were sitting having a cuppa outside the van.

Our much-needed back window blind, a kind of sprung concertina design which couldn’t be replaced here in a million years, went doiiiinggg and the bracket we need to fix it disappeared forever. Jeremy tried to repair it, but one night – in a scene not unlike the propane alarm incident – it pinged off with a great thwack, right next to our heads. In a nanosecond, as I tried to open my sleepy eyes, Jeremy was on his feet: “That was a tree! A tree falling on the van!” he shouted.

“It was the blind breaking again,” I muttered. “Now lie down.”

Days: 316
Miles: 10,305
Things we now know to be true: There are no quick fixes.

MORE PICS MORE PICS MORE PICS:
If you haven’t caught up with these, here’s a couple of sets of pics from Nicaragua:

Nicaragua part one
Nicaragua part two

Honduras – we love you, we hate you…

Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua
[by Paula]

We got the van out of Honduras last week, and I have to say we didn’t even give it a cursory backwards glance as we gleefully skipped southwards over the border. We’ve since been busy loving Nicaragua – the gorgeous camping spots, volcanoes and lakes galore, and the (mostly) blissfully smooth roads. Yes, now that we are sad little petrol-heads, things like smooth roads get us very, very excited.

We are, frankly, relieved to be here. We had a bit of a rocky relationship with Honduras and gladly decided to go our separate ways. It was for the best.

It didn’t help that our ‘back-on-the-road’ celebrations earlier this month were somewhat marred by a couple of things.

Can’t move for volcanoes in gorgeous Nicaragua.

We picked up the van on a Friday afternoon, and took it back to the hostel we were staying at in San Pedro Sula which – we may have mentioned before – is a very dangerous city. The murder capital of the world, in fact. For this reason we did not go out after dark on any of the previous 10 nights we’d stayed there. But this night Honduras were playing Panama in a World Cup qualifier, so we arranged to go to the game and the co-owner came along with some of her friends, leaving her sister in charge.

We were having an amazing night. Tens of thousands of people stood to sing the national anthem, the beers were flowing, everyone was really up. The guy sitting behind us had just returned to Honduras for the first time in 20 years, after living in the US, and was beside himself with excitement. We both said later that it was one of those moments – and there have been a few, despite everything – where we thought, ‘aw, Honduras is lovely, Hondurans are lovely people, maybe it ain’t so bad after all’…

Then at half time that all came crashing down. We got a call to say there was an armed robbery at our hostel. Two men with guns had ambushed six backpackers as they arrived, burst inside and robbed them and another guy already inside. Some of them were left with nothing but the clothes they stood up in – passports, money, cards, whole backpacks, everything gone. Thankfully no one was killed or injured. As the locals reminded us later, not all robberies in San Pedro end the same way.

As we were driving back there from the game we were really terrified. The phonecalls from the hostel were increasingly frantic and confused and at one point it sounded like we might be returned to a siege, with the gunmen still inside. But when we arrived they had gone, and the police were there. Jeremy and I had spent the intervening half an hour trying to face up to the possibility that we might have lost all our stuff too – as all our valuables and car keys were upstairs in a bedroom and we didn’t know if the whole place had been ransacked.

It hadn’t, and our stuff was still where we’d left it. The van was safely parked behind a solid gate next door. More importantly, we realised how lucky we had been to pick that one night to go out.

No one blamed the hostel, who handled the situation brilliantly. Sadly it’s not unheard of for tourists to be followed to their hotels, or jumped when they arrive somewhere. Often the taxi drivers are directly involved or tip people off. Most hotels – as this one does – use taxi drivers they know, but in this case the travellers had turned up on spec.

Honduras has some cool and unique stuff, like this pink boa (I know, it looks white, but it is called a pink boa..)

No one got much sleep that night. In the morning we helped the people that had been robbed as much as we could, with spare clothes and use of our Skype account etc, before heading off to Lago de Yojoa, south of San Pedro. Two of the victims – young Danish backpackers – decided to come with us as they couldn’t replace their passports until after the weekend. We bundled them into the van with what was left of their belongings. They were still shocked after what had happened, but remarkably philosophical.

As we drove along one of them said: “We’re so glad we met you. Proper grown-ups who are responsible and know what they are doing.”

We just looked at each-other, silently thinking: “Holy shit! What makes them think we are grown up and responsible?!..”. We felt so old, but then realised we were actually old enough to be their parents.

We were absolutely desperate to get them there safely, and pulled into the lake hostel a couple of hours later, very relieved.

However, on the way, we’d heard a disturbing new noise coming from the van. It didn’t sound healthy at all, although the new transmission seemed to be performing fine. We pushed it out of our minds temporarily and set about enjoying our first night camping in months.

Camping again. Heaven.

We slept in a beautiful coffee finca, teeming with birds and amazing bugs, and so tranquil and dark at night. We’d missed the van so much – every little task, no matter how mundane, felt exciting. It was just brilliant to be independent again.

While there we talked to a Honduran woman, from San Pedro, about our feelings for the country. She had just returned after spending five years in Italy, and was shocked to see how violent her city had become. People hide in their cars, behind high walls and razor-wire fences or in soulless shopping malls. Many use drive-thru shops and banks instead of walking around and there are armed guards everywhere, even on some residential streets. There are many people who will try to defend it as an okay place to live, but to us this is not an acceptable way of life.

We told her: “One minute we warm to Honduras, we see its good side, and then the next we are really scared.”

She said: “I’m from here, and I feel exactly the same.”

We’ve tried hard not to be too negative. We wanted to love the country, not least because we had bad memories of a previous visit 10 years ago, when Jeremy was very ill there. This time we met lots of wonderful people in Honduras, and saw a tonne of natural beauty that is hard to beat. We tried to recognise that being stranded somewhere can give it a sinister feel that is partly imagined, because you feel trapped and are no longer staying out of choice.

Our Honduran mechanic, Ivan, must have been very glad to see the back of us.

After a couple of nights at the finca we decided to drive-test the van, to try to work out how serious the noise was. We drove up and down the nearby hills – scratch, scrape, scrape. It was still there. Much as it was truly the last thing we wanted to do, we reluctantly accepted we’d need to head back to the mechanic in San Pedro Sula to get it checked out.

We pulled in that afternoon. I’m sure he was as depressed to see us as we were to be there. Even the security guard had a face that said: ‘oh hello, back again (sigh).’

After much thought we decided to go back to the same hostel – what happened was not their fault, we still felt safe there and we wanted to support them. And it turned out others had made the same decision and gone back too, which speaks volumes for the wonderful owners, who helped us beyond measure during our many stays there.

The mechanic said he’d found a damaged wheel bearing, which might be the source of the noise. But he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get the right part to replace it in Honduras. I stopped listening then as I was too busy hyperventilating into a paper bag.

The upshot was, we were stuck in San Pedro for another, very very long five days. Thankfully a new wheel bearing was found and ordered, and arrived the next day. But the noise was still there. The mechanic wondered aloud if there might be a problem with the new transmission. Our hearts sank again. Finally, another problem with the brake calipers was found as a possible source. They thought they’d sorted it, but the noise remained.

On the final day, when we went to collect it, our mechanic – usually a sharp, clean-shaven, tidy kind of guy – had a five o’clock shadow and tousled hair. We felt partially responsible. Had we broken him too?

It’s behind you! Another spectacular smokin’ Nicaraguan volcano.

He trudged out to the reception area and said: “There’s nothing more we can do. We’ve fixed everything but the noise is still there sometimes,” and concluded that it was nothing serious, that we could safely drive it like that and just live with it. Of course, we haven’t heard the noise since.

We drove off, happy and excited again. Nicaragua awaited! We headed south and looked for somewhere to camp near the border. We pulled into what we thought was a church with lots of land and asked if we could camp there. The man very kindly phoned to ask his boss, and then gently told Jeremy that the answer was no – it was a youth rehabilitation centre and they didn’t think it would be appropriate. Oops. Now that would have been a weird last night in Honduras.

We eventually camped up in a basic little deserted turicentre, with rooms and a slimy swimming pool. The owners, an old couple, had their house in the grounds and we parked up under a tree in front of it. She cleaned up a toilet especially for us but said there would be no access to it after midnight. We told her we’d be leaving early for the border.

Next morning she got up early and shuffled out to our van in her nightdress. She said she’d opened the side door to their home and we were welcome to go inside, wash and use the loo. For about the millionth time on this trip, we wondered if we’d find such hospitality and trust in our own part of the world.

Other than border officials, that old lady was the last person we saw in Honduras, and for that we are very glad.

Days: 268
Miles: 9,003
Things we now know to be true: There’s a fine line between love and hate.

Patience is a virtue?

PD, Los Naranjos, Honduras

Oh, how I’d love to be able to type the words “we’re back on the road!”

But I’ve never been into writing fiction.

The fact is we’re still exasperatingly stationary. There has been progress though – achingly slow, but progress.

Ready, steady, heave!

Mentally, we’ve been breaking this down into stages in an attempt to preserve sanity. Upon returning to the van after Easter the first thing we needed to achieve was to get it safely onto the flatbed truck that Elvin – owner of the scrapyard where we were stranded (are you all following this?) – had offered to us.

Then Elvin had to drive it to a professional mechanic in the city, without it falling off the back of his truck.

Since our last post we’d changed the plan. A tip from fellow road-tripper James led, bizarrely, to a conversation in a German bar with a Nicaragua-based Austrian mechanic who advised us to take the van to the city of San Pedro Sula (SPS), instead of the capital.
We found a mechanic online that looked to be capable of the job.

The day before we left for SPS Elvin called in half the village to help get the van on his truck. It’s a 10 minute job when you have a proper breakdown truck with a ramp system and hydraulics. It’s a three-hour roller-coaster of adrenaline, uncertainty, shouting, heaving and sweating when you don’t.

We had to get more than 2 tons of metal about 4 or so feet off the ground.

Elvin brought the truck into a position that would reduce that incline by about half. The guys started building a ramp out of rather flimsy-looking planks of wood. I – at about 1/40th of the weight of the van – walked up one and it bowed in the middle. They packed breeze blocks under the wood to support it.

A rudimentary pulley system was rigged up to try to haul the van up onto the truck. But it wouldn’t take the weight. Oh well, that’s it then, I thought.

The whole process became a bit of an event in the village of Las Flores

But the tenacity of people in places where there are few resources never ceases to amaze us. Unlike at home, there was no one to call and get us out of this.

So they pushed. With sheer brute force they pushed that 2 tons up the ramp, amid a lot of shouting and giggling. Jeremy was in the van, trying to keep the wheels straight on planks that were not much wider than our tyres.

My heart was in my mouth. Elvin’s mum Esperanza (Spanish for ‘hope’) kept telling me not to worry, while crossing herself vigorously.

Miraculously the front wheels made it over the edge of the ramp and onto the truck. But with the back wheels still on the ground, the hardest part was to come. More people came, and they heaved that van towards the truck. Half way up Jeremy started shouting: “The bricks are crumbling, the bricks are crumbling!”. As he was shouting in English, I was the only person that could understand.

I felt sick at the thought of the van crashing to the ground and being powerless to stop it. Not to mention the fact that several people would have been squashed in the process. But we were past the point of no return. So they just kept rocking and shoving, and that damn van got up there somehow.

A sizeable crowd had gathered, with some onlookers pulling in on their way home from work to have a gawp. Elvin and colleagues then spend a good while trying to secure the van to the truck with a bunch of rusty chains and some wooden blocks. It had to withstand a 5-hour journey with plenty of potholes and speedbumps.

Eventually it was deemed sufficiently safe, and Elvin drove the truck into position, ready for our early morning departure. We watched it swaying as he parked. He wondered if we’d like to stay in bed during the journey?! We declined, citing health and safety reasons. Not to mention what the police might make of it if they pulled us over and found two gringos inside the van in their pyjamas (and we were later pulled over).

On our way...

That night we had no option but to sleep in the van on top of the truck. No late-night toilet trips allowed.

The journey to SPS was a bit nervy, let’s say. Jeremy’s eyes were glued to the wing mirror, through which he could see the van bouncing around. Elvin was careful though, and stopped several times to secure the chains.

Just because we were being driven by a local didn’t save us from getting lost in the city. Oh no. Round and round we went for about an hour or so, asking directions and being told something different each time. Eventually we found the mechanic, which had moved locations without telling us. We pulled in, and were hugely relieved to see the place looked hi-tech and professional. The boss came out and asked us what the problem was. He was speaking in perfect English. I could have fallen to the floor and kissed it.

After discussing it and agreeing to leave the van there, we gestured out the window and asked him how he proposed to get the van off the truck. “I don’t know, he said. You got it up there.”
In a phonecall it was sorted. We hired a proper breakdown truck which came and removed the van in 10 minutes. Elvin and his assistant Freddy looked on smiling. Easy as that, eh?!

We had several days waiting in SPS for the diagnosis which, when it came, confirmed that the transmission was beyond repair. We set the wheels in motion to order a re-conditioned one from our VW dealer in California.

Hanging around in SPS was tedious, mostly because it is an extremely dangerous place and we felt trapped in the hotel and soulless surrounding streets for most of the day, and definitely at night. Even our B&B owner told us: “This isn’t the kind of place people stay unless they are, you know, in trouble – like you.”

And just so this post isn't all about vans, here's a typical Central American breakfast. Best meal of the day.

So what now? We have retreated to a much nicer location about 2 hours from the city – a hostel and microbrewery close to Lago de Yojoa which has beautiful tropical gardens and lots of walking options around.
From here we are navigating the endless emails, questions and decisions that are involved in trying to locate, order and ship a rare part like this. Just when we thought we were getting somewhere it turned out the transmission we thought was coming to us was incompatible with our van.

This is still going to take a lot more time. And just to complicate things further we were supposed to be in Nicaragua by next week, to catch some long-booked flights out for a few days of work and friends. It’ll happen, but we’ll be catching the bus over the border and leaving the van behind.

We won’t bore you with any more of the details. But let’s hope that by the next time we post there is a big hunk of metal called a gearbox winging or sailing its way towards us.

For now, here are some pics from the road in El Salvador: Click here for El Salvador part one on Flickr

Days: 198
Miles: Same as before
Things we now know to be true: Patience might be a virtue, but persistence is more useful.

Breakdown

PD, Copan Ruinas, Honduras

The van has broken down and we are stranded in the middle of nowhere in Honduras. At the moment it seems like our mechanical problem might be fairly catastrophic, not to mention financially tear-inducing. There’s no way to sugar-coat that or make it funny – not at the moment anyway. These things usually have a way of becoming humorous with hindsight, and we really hope this time will be no different.

But for the last few days we have been miserable buggers.

It looks like our automatic transmission, or gearbox, might be a goner. In our last post we were primarily worried about our brakes, but we did have another nagging doubt about the gears too. Several mechanics told us recently that the gears were fine, and we believed them.

At least our stranded van isn't in as bad a state as the one in the foreground

On Saturday, one day after crossing into Honduras from El Salvador, we were driving past the outskirts of a small village when we started to lose power, and then everything just stopped. Rev, rev, nothing. Someone helped push the van off the road, and Jeremy went to talk to a nearby mechanic.

We waited in the searing heat for him to come and have a look. Meanwhile the bloke who owned the car wash/scrapyard across the road came to see what was going on. Little did we know then that we’d end up living in that scrapyard for the next four days.

The van was pushed over to the scrapyard and onto a steep concrete ramp. The mechanic looked underneath and declared that the transmission was broken, we needed a new one, and that there was no chance of getting it in Honduras.

It was a proper ‘oh shit’, head-in-hands moment. We gaped while the gathering crowd of men kept reminding us how completely stuffed we were, lest we had not understood the first time.

If we’d had to choose a Central American country to get stranded in, Honduras would have been bottom of the list. If we’d had to choose a time to break down, it would not have been Saturday night, on the weekend just before the biggest week-long holiday in Latin America, Semana Santa (Easter). It did not help that we were hours from a decent-sized town or city. And while our Spanish is improving, it is not quite up to this kind of complication.

It was obvious that we were going to be in this situation for quite some time. We resolved to get the van back off the ramp, push it into the corner and set up ‘camp’ for the night.

But a more immediate problem presented itself. The wheels were completely locked, and the van would not roll backwards off the ramp. Everyone heaved and heaved until I thought something would snap. Nada.

“We climbed inside and drank a lot of rum”.

One of the men asked where we’d been planning to stay – a hotel in another town, perhaps? I pointed to the top of the ramp, where the van was hanging at a 45-degree angle, and said in a shrill voice that we lived there. It needed to come down or we’d have nowhere to go.

They worked on it for nearly two hours, until after dark, struggling to remove the wheel joints so it would roll back. We cringed as they whacked at the underside of the wheels with a hammer. At last, it worked, and they pushed our poor stricken van back down onto the ground.

We climbed inside and drank a lot of rum.

For the next three days we nearly sent ourselves mad, trying to think of the best way out. I don’t mind admitting we were a bit frightened and out of our depth. We didn’t, and still don’t, know what to do for the best.

We only had the opinion of a village mechanic. But where else could we take the van and how would we get it there? What parts did we need and where, and how, could we get them?

The scrapyard's guard dog Molly is a sucker for some cooked liver

Everything was made worse by the fact that we were living in the scrapyard, on the junction of the main road and the thoroughfare to the village. We had no privacy and, despite reassurances, we couldn’t be sure we were safe. We bribed the dog, Molly, with meat and she obligingly guarded the van.

Remarkably the village, which barely has anything in it, does have an internet cafe. We searched online for VW mechanics and parts in Honduras, but kept coming up blank. There appeared to be a mechanic in the capital city Tegucigalpa, but we knew nothing about him and it was a nine-hour drive away. A crazy idea? For something this potentially serious do we need a VW expert, or would a local gearbox-fixer be enough?

There have been mercifully few moments like this. We’d expected to occasionally think: ‘Why? Why was it that I gave up my comfortable, relatively privileged, cosy existence for an unpredictable life on the road?’. I’ll admit that there was probably at least one day this week when I had that thought.

But, as always on this trip, we have found people to be unbelievably helpful, trusting and generous towards us, and we are so thankful for that.

The scrapyard/car wash owner, Elvin, and his family more or less adopted us. Our van has been in residence at their business for several days. They offered to wash our clothes and let us shower in their home. The couple who own a little cafe next door gave us the key to it every night so we could use the toilet.

Elvin and his family have been looking out for us

And the people at the VW dealer who sold us our van in California, Pop Top Heaven, are trying to help us in any way they can with advice and, if it comes to it, spare parts.

Elvin tried making several phonecalls for us, including to the VW mechanic in Tegucigalpa. After much discussion he offered to take the van there on his truck. It seems an extreme solution, but we have decided to do it.

Just one thing though, he said. There’s no point in doing anything until after Semana Santa because no one will be working. It meant killing a whole week. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? From where we were standing it felt like an eternity. But we had no choice.

We decided to take off on the bus for a few days, to sit it out until the holiday is over. We have come to Copan Ruinas, the site of Honduras’s major ruined Mayan city and a lovely little town. When we return to the scrapyard on Monday, Elvin will gather several guys together to help haul our van onto his truck. At dawn on Tuesday we will set off for Tegucigapla.

As we left their place I told Elvin’s mother I was dreading the process of getting the van up onto the truck. I said I would have bad dreams about it falling off.

She took my arm, looked up to the sky, crossed herself, and said God would take care of it.

Not wanting to appear ungrateful, I thanked her. But what I really wanted to say was – Easter or not, could we just forget about the prayers and focus on getting a really really strong piece of rope?

Days: 185
Miles: Erm, not sure
Things we now know to be true: A car’s not just a car when it’s your house as well

Give us a brake

PD, Santa Ana (again), El Salvador

Who knew it was possible to become a brakes bore? It’s all about the brakes at the moment – what’s wrong with our melty screechy brakes and why does every mechanic, or bystander, appear to have a different answer?

Jeremy spent a good while at the mechanic’s workshop the last time we blogged from Santa Ana. And here we are again. But with a different mechanic, and a different set of answers. I’m sure you’ll be tuning in to find out what happens in next week’s thrilling episode…

Another day, another mechanic

Luckily, however, we are still able to stop.

And we did lots of that during a three-day visit to the coast last week. Hammock-swinging and surfing are the only two things going on in baking hot El Zonte. And we don’t surf so, as our north American cousins might say, you do the math.

We’d camped in the car park of a lovely little hostel called Horizonte, and opted to interpret the name as an instruction. Perfecto.

The only interruption to the tranquility of our stay was Jeremy’s attempt to break the chair-breaking record. As we chatted over a beer there was a loud crack and Jeremy slumped to the side, his camping chair snapped beyond repair. He got the dodgy spare chair out and sat down as I went into the van to make dinner.

About 30 seconds later I heard a string of expletives, and turned to see Jeremy standing up looking wild-eyed, beer dripping everywhere, and a full glass of wine emptied into the remaining functioning chair. As chair number two had snapped he’d grabbed the table (which weighs marginally more than a bag of fresh air) for support and, hey presto, a beer and wine shower. My only regret was that I’d missed the whole slapstick performance.

Playa El Zonte, where even the dogs are too lazy to get out of their hammocks and bark

When we left we crossed much of tiny El Salvador in one day, as we headed up into the northeast corner and into one of the areas we’d most been looking forward to. The mountainous region of Morazán contained the main strongholds of the left-wing guerillas during the country’s brutal 12-year civil war, which ended in 1992. It’s the best place to get a sense of the conflict, talk to former guerillas who now offer guided trips, and to pay respect at memorials for the hundreds massacred by government troops.

That kind of phrase – “hundreds massacred by government troops” – can start to feel horribly familiar in this part of the world.

No matter how much you read about it, nothing can compare with standing gazing at a seemingly interminable list of children’s names, all executed in two nightmare days in the village of El Mozote, near Perquín. Several plaques contain details of babies only days old. Those whose bodies were identifiable – 140 under-12s – are buried together, with a rose garden covering the mass grave.

In December 1981 the soldiers rounded up everyone in the village and surrounding areas and killed them all, some 1,000 people, probably more. Children and babies were tossed in the air and bayoneted, and burned alive in ovens. It is grim to read, I know.

The government – who received up to $2m a day in military aid from the US – wanted to erase the guerilla movement, but in the ensuing violence of the next 11 years they never managed to overcome the revolutionaries in the hills around Perquín.

After a day spent at the war museum, in the former FMLN headquarters, we took to the hills with a guide who had been active in the revolutionary movement. It was the kind of day that left us with spinning heads, sadness, inspiration and incredulity.

Along the way our guide Felipe picked up two others – part of a ethical policy to share the income between guides from different villages – to help explain to us the significance of the different sites. Guerilla camps left just as they were when the war ended, one of the cave hideouts where the infamous clandestine radio station Radio Venceremos would broadcast from, village walls still riddled with bullets, enormous bomb craters now filled with vegetation, and the memorials at El Mozote.

One of our guides on Morazan, Ernesto. His father was killed by shrapnel during the war

We drove from place to place in the van, which was getting heavier and heavier with our increasing number of passengers. The roads were horrendous. Steep unpaved paths, thick with dust and full of rocks. The van screeched, coughed and complained all the way, and justifiably so. Felipe was delighted though. At one stop he took photos of the van with his phone, declaring that it was the first US vehicle to have ever been in Guacamaya. And no wonder!

I’ll be writing a bit more about our day with the guides in the near future.

While exploring we camped in an idyllic spot near Rio Sapo. It was a huge grassy area with tropical flowers and birds, where a big family lived in two houses. Being in such a tranquil place made it impossible to imagine the horrors that had happened on their doorstep. The shy children circled the van from a distance, sweeping the same patch of leaves and craning their necks to see what we were doing. The ‘mama’ brought us fruit and coffee, and gradually the children crept nearer.

The only disadvantage to the place was the road in was just as bad as the others.

Heading for a swim in the Rio Sapo

We’d seen a local mechanic for a temporary fix, but resolved to visit another in the closest city of San Miguel the day we left. But on arrival I decided I didn’t like it. I had an overwhelming urge to get back to Santa Ana, where we knew a wonderful hostel that we’d stayed in last time – the ideal place to hole up if necessary.

But that meant pushing on for another few hours, in the scorching heat, with a complaining car and a Jeremy who appeared to be wilting due to an infected ankle. It would also mean passing through the, frankly, horrid capital San Salvador in rush hour.

So we pushed on.

It was all going okay. The brakes temporarily went quiet. The check engine light decided to go off. Then we got lost for two hours in San Salvador. The engine sounded unhappy. We were stuck in a jam at the central market, when we saw armed police sprinting towards an incident. As the engine stuttered Jeremy broke the rules and voiced our collective fear: “We really don’t want to break down here.”

I was navigating, and by dusk I had my head on my knees, having reached new levels of despair. I wanted to throw that frigging map out of the window. But we extricated ourselves again, somehow, and pulled into the hostel in Santa Ana after dark.

The owner Carlos flung open the door and welcomed us like old friends, then offered to drive out and get us some dinner. He said he knew a VW mechanic in town. I could have kissed him. We sat down, drank three litres of very cold beer, spilled our woes, and all was right with the world again.

Days: 176
Miles: 7764
Things we now know to be true: No amount of military hardware and money can break the spirit of the people.