It’s an overused expression, but what a difference a day makes. What a day it was too.
Saturday/Sunday night
First we’ll go back to the events of the night. At about 1am we were woken by the most amazing storm. It seemed to go on forever. Crashing thunder and lightening and torrential rain. I remembered I had left our washing hanging outside. Big mistake.
Early morning.
We were up at 06.00, porridge cooked and eaten, everything repacked and back on the road at 08.30, with a bag of soaking wet washing stuffed in Poki too. A good thing was the cooler temperature after the rain.
Yesterday afternoon we had been driving beside the Cauca river. We continued to follow this for a while. When we reached Puerto Valdivia we crossed a huge bridge to the opposite bank. Almost immediately we started to climb.
We continued to climb up and up. The road was punctuated with enormous potholes on occasions, some rock and branch debris from the night’s storm and the odd place where the road was collapsing. I don’t think I have ever seen so many trucks. Huge, mostly American Kenworth trucks carrying containers, interspersed with smaller trucks carrying goodness knows what. This is the main road from the port of Cartagena to Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city.
There was some tension in the cabin. A racing driver and a nervous passenger. Everyone was overtaking at every opportunity. Blind bends not being a problem. We continued to climb for about 3 hours, eventually reaching an altitude of 2760 metres. I thought it was time we took a break, but Dennis was happy to keep going. Not only was the scenery totally different, but also the temperature. Almost chilly. We were driving with the windows and vents all closed.
Fortuitously on the iOverlander site, I found a restaurant, with hang gliding, which looked interesting. We were very close, so pulled in and stopped for lunch and to watch the hang gliders launching themselves off the cliff. While we were eating we watched them circling on the thermals. The view over the valley and towards Medellin was spectacular. Medellin is situated in a long valley surrounded by mountains.
Medellin
After lunch we set off downhill. I don’t know which was more scary. Weaving around trucks going uphill or down. The route into Medellin widened to 3 or 4 carriage ways. The city is huge and from what we’ve seen, so far, not pretty. Many ugly, towering blocks of apartments. We didn’t have any accommodation booked, but I had made a note of a hotel which had parking.
Having looked at all the usual sources, I couldn’t find a hotel to suit us. iOverlander was showing many hostels, mainly with dorms or with recommendations from cyclists storing bikes. Searching through booking.com, finding somewhere reasonably priced with secure parking, was proving very difficult. We headed for the hotel I had noted, to see what its parking was like.
A meeting
Google maps told us we had arrived. However, we couldn’t see the hotel. I jumped out to investigate on foot to be met immediately by a gentleman speaking to me in English. Well, what an experience this turned out to be. Mauricio. A Colombian who had lived in the US for many years. After about 20 minutes swapping our life stories, Mauricio said he would help me find the hotel. It was literally a minute’s walk away.
Mauricio helped me explain to the receptionist that we needed secure parking. She showed us their underground garage and, as I had feared, there was not enough clearance for Poki to enter. Not a problem, they both assured me. There was a parking space in front of reception where we could park her and she would be safe.
After a lengthy check in process, we were relaxing in our room, when there was a knock on the door. Mauricio and the lovely receptionist. They had not realised we had solar panels and so many things on the exterior of Poki. They didn’t think it was safe to leave her where she was. Mauricio said he would direct us to a secure parking lot. They were pretty adamant, so we moved her a couple of blocks away. Parking is quite expensive, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Mauricio invited us to dinner with him at his apartment, which is in a block across the street from the hotel. I think Mauricio knows everyone in and everything about Medellin. After a bit of a rest we wandered over to his place. His apartment is on the 8th floor and the view over the city lights was amazing. It’s better from the roof terrace we were told, so we were given an explanation of the sparkling city’s lay out from there.
Also invited for dinner were Gabriel and Anne, a young French couple and Tommy, an American from Florida where he lives on a yacht. They are all digital nomads. The apartment block has many apartments rented out on AirBnB. Several are used by digital nomads and Gabriel and Anne are based here.
They speak excellent English. Tommy is ex US Air Force, has worked on Wall Street and is now a foreign exchange trader, Gabriel is working for a start-up dealing with IT (beyond my comprehension to understand exactly doing what, but something to do with an App), Anne works in marketing for a German company, but who only communicate in English. They have all travelled extensively.
We had an extremely convivial evening, but dinner was very late. Apparently the apartment only has a two burner cooker, so preparation was slow. Mauricio had a large amount of fish to cook. The reason why was a bit complicated. He apparently was trying to do a deal supplying a supermarket chain in Bogotá with fish. Having taken some samples to show the owner, the meeting didn’t take place as the man had been involved in an accident. Mauricio still had the fish.
It was after 10pm before we ate, but the fish was delicious. Some we had raw, as sushi. The tuna steaks were very good too. We offered to wash up, but Mauricio wouldn’t hear of it. At 10.45 we decided we were too exhausted to continue, so after an amazingly unexpected evening we returned to our hotel and bed.
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