Thursday, 5th September. At Taurete Camping near San Rafael, Colombia.

Last night’s events

When we set up camp yesterday, it was in a beautiful, tranquil spot. There was, however, a sign hanging in a tree beside us, saying don’t camp within 10 meters of the river. The flowing channel was about 30 meters away from us, a bank of about 1.5 meters in height, about 6 meters away. The water was crystal clear, trickling over rocks. A truck was loading sand from the river bed a short distance away. 2 guys with 2 shovels, loading a whole truck.

During the early evening the weather had looked a bit threatening in the hills above. There was some distant thunder, but it came to nothing. At about 9.30 we had retired and thunder was rattling around again. It started to rain, a little. We were playing music and had our air conditioning unit going, when Dennis said what’s that noise? It sounds like rushing water. He got up to investigate and said the river had risen dramatically.

We wondered if it was linked to the hydroelectric dam system. Had they released water? It was sudden, so appeared this way. It may have been runoff from a large steep catchment area?

We weren’t unduly concerned. I looked at AccuWeather to see the forecast. It said a small thunderstorm which might last an hour. It wasn’t raining very heavily but thunder was rumbling all around us.  After about an hour it seemed to be easing off. Dennis checked the water level again and it was at the bottom of the bank.

Early Hours of the Morning

However, the storm intensified and the rain got heavier and heavier, having gone on for a lot longer than the anticipated hour. The water level was definitely rising, now close to the top of the bank. We had to go, so started evacuation procedures. I held all our bedding in the front part of our sleeping area, while Dennis threw in the portable toilet and the contents of the tent, which by this time was awash.

Running around in shorts, a mac and bare feet, Dennis was hastily pulling up tent pegs and poles. He bundled up the tent, threw it on the bonnet, jumped back in Poki and we tried reversing out in pitch darkness. After a bit of an argument with some tree branches, we turned around and headed up hill. Already the ground was so waterlogged, we had to use low ratio.

Poki’s head lights are abysmal. The terrain was very rough. After our mishap with the culvert in South Africa, we didn’t want any other misadventures. We were high enough to be away from the water and on a flat piece of land. Dennis said that, when looking back down to where we had been, a lightning flash showed a sheet of moving water. We must have escaped by minutes.

We decided with some internal reorganisation, we could get our bedding re established. We would try and get some sleep and sort our selves out in the morning. Not unexpectedly, we didn’t sleep well.

This Morning 

In the morning, in the daylight, we could see it was a good job we stopped where we did. There were rocks and gulleys all around us. We walked back to where we had set up camp. The water had come over this area. It was certainly the right move to have evacuated. 

Making our way to the track, we drove up to the toilet/shower block. We put up a long washing line, hung everything out to dry, spread out the tent and put the contents of Poki back into their proper places. Luckily it was a dry, reasonably sunny morning, so things dried quickly.

After a shower and attending to our correspondence, most things were dry. The tent took a bit longer, but by 12.00 we were ready to go. We drove up to the small shop/restaurant which supervised the camping and had a coffee. Dennis made friends with a bearded collie and wanted to take him with us. At 12.30 we were finally on the road, without a dog. 

We needed to make our way to the main A62 road. We didn’t think it would take us more than about an hour. To begin with it was a small, winding C road. Suddenly the sat-nav was saying we had missed a right turn. We hadn’t seen a turn. We went back and there was no turning. We were looking down on a lake. The whole area seems to be hydroelectric storage lakes. 

I had no signal and so Google Maps wasn’t working. Our navigation aids weren’t being helpful. The sat-nav wanted to take us down a tiny track. We stopped and asked a lady in a small roadside shop for directions. She said we needed to go back that the small track wasn’t passable. Dennis wanted to try it, but I thought we should go back, as the lady insisted we could not get through the track.

Shortly after we came across a young guy, cleaning his teeth beside then road. We stopped and asked his advice. I think he was probably one of the hydro scheme workers. He spoke a bit of English. He said we needed to go back a bit further. We had missed a turning.

He also told us it was a good road.

We soon found the turning, which we had missed, to San Roque. At first it was a tiny, but tarmac road. It didn’t last though. It changed to a rough, stony track. Steep, winding and deep in the jungle. Very slow going. Eventually we came to a large dam, with a straight piece of road crossing the dam. Once the other side, we resumed winding up and down on a very rough track. Eventually we reached San Roque after 3.45 hours. 

All was not well though. Entering the town the sat-nav wanted us to turn right. I was using iOverlander and this showed we should go straight on. We turned off and got into a morass of small, busy streets. In the end we went back to the sat-nav. She was obvious taking us off on another rough track. 

A motor cyclist pulled up beside us and asked where we wanted to go. He said we could carry on on the track but it was a bad, slow road. We should turn around and go back through the town to the main road. We did this and came down through a series of many hairpins and at last got to the A62.

We were exhausted and after about 10kms came to a roadside hotel. It looked acceptable with good parking and a restaurant. It had reasonable write-ups on iOverlander too, so we pulled in and got a room. I was looking forward to a glass of wine and a good dinner. Well, it didn’t quite turn out that way. 

The staff were very helpful, as always. One lady came to talk to us in English. She was the principal of the local school and had been to London and Cambridge. She came and sat and chatted with us. The menu was limited, to say the least. Fish or steak with rice, chips and salad. We chose fish. Colombians seem to like soup. They all seem to have a soup either before or together with their main course. We were asked if we wanted soup, so we said yes.  

Soup turned out to be like minestrone, but with a floating egg. The fish, tilapia, was tasty, but not much flesh, more bones. Salad was coleslaw. As for my nice glass of wine, there was no alcohol. In fact drinks were only lemonade or lulo. Lulo is a fruit found in Costa Rica, Panama and North Western South America. It’s quite sharp, so it’s juice is usually served with plenty of sugar. Lulo was our tipple for the evening. 

Not exactly a glamorous 75th birthday, but a milestone I will remember.

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