Venezuela has some of the most beautiful mountains we've ever seen.
Our sweet Norwegian girls, Stine and Marit
The Teleferico, world's longest and highest tram
La Dulcita packed away for the journey
Exploring the depths of the fortress in Cartegena
The colonial street of Cartegena
Oh sweet Colombia
Jeremy and Nima, fresh and so clean after Laguna Negra
El Valle cloud forest in Panama
Nima, Jer, and Stine cruising up the Teleferico
Nothing is nicer than filling up with gas in Venezuela
Jeremy, Marit, Stine, and Nima on top of Venezuela's highest pass.
Parque Nacional Sierra Nevada
Angelo our trusty Italian Mechanic
We found Chavez banners all over the country
The view from Geraldo Lopez's land
Geraldo Lopez wins it for kindest Colombian ever!
The Doctor checking out the Rayos X
Beautiful Colombian Nurses
We are at this moment driving down Venezuela Route 7. Jeremy is behind the wheel of our trusty, yet recently fixed van and I am in back at the table typing as best I can between these huge canyon turns. Much has happened since we’ve last written from Panama City…continents worth.
We were last in the big city…Bo, Karen, Jeremy and I, enjoying ourselves at the fine Hotel Latino rooftop pool. Here we would sip on Cerveza Panama and watch the evening lights take over the city. Bo and Karen spent almost three weeks with us in search of great surf and amazing beachside camping. Jeremy and I couldn’t have been happier to have them visit and we hope they are back in school and fully recharged. Myeeees!
In Panama City we were quite impressed by the Metropolitan feel; Bimmers and Benzes driving around, tailored black suits, huge skyscrapers, and, of course, the hustle and bustle of the Canal. In this chaos of a city Jeremy and I set off in search of a trusty vessel to get our beautiful La Dulcita into South America.
With a little bit of exploration through the big city and some good karma on our side, we soon found ourselves sitting at a conference table, with an extremely nice Mrs. Evelyn of Barwil Industries, a Norwegian shipping company. Evelyn was like a van-shipping-angel. She dealt with dirty road warriors like ourselves on a weekly basis and knew exactly how to get our van across the Darien Gap and into South America. Over the next few days we spent quite a lot of time at Evelyn’s office going over shipping options, and as we expected, none of them turned out to be very cheap. We had two and half options. First was to pay around $800 and hand over the keys of the van. The company would ensure that the van would be driven onto the ship, make the two week journey from Panama to Cartagena, Colombia via Mexico (I don’t know who planned that), and then drive it off and have it waiting for us at the port. This option, as you may imagine, has no assurance that our personal belongings would be safe at all. In fact they even told us that the shipping crews have been known to get a little wanderlust with all those car keys and no owners around. Thus our second and much safer option was to rent a 20’ container for $1,250. This would allow us to drive the van into the container and lock it ourselves, have it shipped directly to Cartagena (3 days), and be waiting there to open the container ourselves. The last half of the second option was to find other road warriors in Panama that needed to do the exact same shipment…then we could all split the price of a $1,600, 40’ container. Yeah right, we thought, that would be easy to find.
Well wouldn’t you know it, after a full day of running around town getting the car cleared through the police, and then having customs officially exit the van from the country, we arrived back at Barwil to find nothing other than two French Canadians, Slyvie, and Vallerie, who were also in the market for a South America bound shipping container. What are chances of that? These two girls left Quebec last October and are also heading down through South America in their sweet Chevy Van. The chances that we were both in Panama City the same week, and at the same shipping company was incredible. Time was short though and Jeremy and I spent another painfully hot day running these girls through all the Police and Customs stops, getting their paperwork filled, stamped, and ready for the ports. We set out from Panama City for the port city of Colon to get the vans in the 40’ container before the port closed. Running around town a second time was no R&R, but sharing the container brought the price of shipping back down to $850, ensured the safety of the van, and it was definitely less destruction to our bank accounts.
We arrived at the port in Colon with just a few hours to spare. Valerie and I took off looking for the right people to get our paperwork finished and the container ready. The one lady who could get this done for us was conveniently out to lunch and hours later had still not returned. After waiting some time, sweating in the Caribbean heat and worried sick we’d miss our plane- we had to do something. Only knowing a name and description: Karen Russell and pregnant, we set off in search. In about ten minutes we came across a sewing circle of women, chatting like it was Saturday afternoon in the park but sure enough there she was, looking like a Karen and pregnant. Reluctantly, she came to our rescue, took care of our papers and we were ready to drive the vans into the container.
Loading anything into a private container is of the utmost security. You can only enter if you have the proper ID badges; you must follow the dorky little port security car with flashing lights; you are not allowed to go anywhere unaccompanied by a port authority; and under no circumstance may you take pictures or video footage. We’ll you can imagine how exciting it was sitting behind tinted windows, recording awesome van/container footage. The container was exactly the width of our van with its side windows pushed flush. Driving in wasn’t too hard but getting our proved to be a problem. I had to take off our little sunroof and crawl between our surfboards and the containers ceiling, ruining the only clothes I had for the trip south. The whole port/container business took us about three hours in all and soon we were in the Colon bus station eating arguably the best pollo frito of our whole trip.
We found Panama to be fairly mediocre; the beer wasn’t anything to write home about, the police horrible, even ridiculous at times, and the beaches on the pacific were far from Central America worthy. We did have fun in Panama City though and were quite pleased with the little town of El Valle which was tucked away up in the mountains northwest of the city. Here we came across some spectacular cloud forests hikes, hot springs with mud baths, and good old cliff jumping. This little village even sold eggs with double yolks, making the boring task of cracking eggs into a pan quite exciting.
The passage through Mexico and Central America has been an impressive journey, but we were more than ready to finally cross the isthmus and start our South American exploration
South America
Jeremy and I were at about 3,000ft., beginning our decent into the Promised Land. Yes the Promised Land of Colombia. I don’t know where our love for Colombia first started. It may have been when we saw our first Shakira DVD, or maybe the rumors of extremely beautiful woman and tasty Juan Valdez coffee. Colombia’s recent past of drug lords, record breaking kidnappings, and intense guerilla warfare has brought a dark cloud over the country’s tourism. We’ve met countless backpackers that spent months touring South America and stayed clear of Colombia, worried about their safety. In a trip like ours though, such a country has a dangerous attraction, and we knew there was no way we were going to miss it.
We landed safely in Cartagena, and were greeted by a beautiful customs agent who stamped our passports and welcomed us into her country with a smile. We found ourselves in front of the airport with giddy smiles, like little kids in a candy store not knowing what direction to go in fist. We decided to let our adventure take its course and we hopped on the first bus that went by. Suddenly we were lost in vibrant colors and music. The bus was filled with all types of people and blaring Caribbean style music. I just sat there smiling out the window in my good fortune. Before long the little girl next to me informed me with a laugh that we were way passed the city center, and only getting farther away. We got off the bus in an interesting part of town. One of those places where all the locals look at you like: what are you doing here, gringo? Our adventure was about to get better. This band of guys on motorcycles came up to us offering to take us were we needed to go. Five years ago, the Colombian government allowed the use of motorcycles as taxis to help with the unemployment. Today the streets are filled with them. They all wear orange road worker vests and carry around two helmets. Touring through the chaotic streets of Cartegena didn’t seem like the safest thing to do, but boy did it sound thrilling. For close to $.75 we got a threaded needle’s view of the streets of Cartagena, winding in and out of traffic, avoiding potholes, and praying that my perturbing knees wouldn’t clip a passerby. Before we knew it, these guys had brought us safely to the front steps of what would prove to be the nicest staffed hostel ever, Hotel Holiday.
We’d made it! I fell back onto my bed and enjoyed the cool circling air of the ceiling fan. We were safely in Cartagena Colombia, life couldn’t get better. Then Jeremy walked in: “Who’s Barbara Assadi? She just donated a bunch of money for the trip!” Life could get better. Barbara and her husband Khosro are one my parents’ best friends that I’ve known my whole life. Barbara, your support of our trip is really awesome and greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Cartagena de Indias is one of the first Spanish cities in the Americas, built in 1533. It was made famous in 1586 when Sir Francis Drake took the whole city hostage for a hundred days until he was able to extract a hefty ransom. Today the old part of the city still has all of its charm. Surrounded by 20’ walls and lined with old European looking streets, one can wander for hours enjoying the architecture. It reminded us a little of Old Havana. We’d spend the days walking the streets, drinking coffee and chatting with the locals. Everyone here gets a big smile on there face when we tell them we are Americans. They are eager to hear what we think of their country and some even joke that we Americans no longer say that we are Canadians when we are in their country. Jeremy and I were especially fond of the lunch menus and ice cream of the old city. For a little less than $2.00 we would get a soup, then a full plate of meat, rice, salad, yucca, and usually a sweet drink which we still can’t figure out. If you are still hungry there are sweet kabob and perrocaliente stands all over town that are great too. These are good places for a late night bite or just to kick back and chat with the locals. Probably my favorite thing about the people so far in Colombia is that when you walk into any restaurant or store they say; “a la orden.” It’s like saying; “how may I help you,” but translates into: “at your service, or at your order.” Makes one feel like royalty.
Directly to the north of Cartagena, just beyond the huge walls lies the expansive Caribbean. Here you can watch the powerful waves crashing against the walls, and shooting water way up onto the road. It’s beautiful sight at night. On the south of the city is the impressive fortress of Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas. We figured we would go and check it out, and for the most part it was pretty cool. It made you wonder what life was like here in the fifteen hundreds. There were big canons resting against the walls and little peep holes everywhere to fire off at the enemy. Well as Jeremy and I started to explore the interior of this fortress we came across some tunnels that wound their way around the place. In one of these tunnels we found a passage that headed down at a pretty steep angle. We continued down it until we had gone down a good five stories into the stomach of this fortress. We arrived at a fork, both ways leading into darkness and slowly descending into water. By now we both felt like the Count of Monte Cristo finding our way out of a dungeon or into a room full of gold. Very quickly we were up to our thighs in water and the flash from our cameras wasn’t sufficient for such exploration. But there we were, lost in over 400 years of history and loving every minute of it.
The following day we called up a Mr. Jaime, the only contact we knew in Colombia. Jaime’s son, Juan, works with Jeremy’s dad Chuck in London. Juan had given us some really cool info on Colombia and told us to contact his parents if we made it to Cartagena. We made a little phone call and before long Jaime and his lovely wife and mother in law, both named Luz, were waiting just outside our hotel. They took us on a tour of the town and to a fine seaside restaurant. This was a great experience for me, these people barely knew who we were and were happy to take us out and spend the afternoon with us. Jeremy, Jaime and I all ordered Parvo Frito, which hands down is the best fish I have ever had. We talked a lot about Colombia and they had some great insight into about the current climate. Jaime felt that we would have no trouble driving around the country and seemed to be impressed with our trip. Again we would like to thank Jaime and his wife for such great hospitality.
The weekend in Cartagena passed and it was time to retrieve our trusty van from the port. We knew that we had only completed half of the Darien Gap crossing. Getting the van out of the port was going to be a whole other story and we were told in Panama that Colombia doesn’t make the process easy. Thus we were up early and at the shipping company at 8:00 sharp to get our Bill of Lading, this was the paperwork needed to get the van out of the port. We had to go to the Customs office to get our papers authorized for entrance into the country and then to the port to retrieve the van. Well, contrary to what people in Panama say, the Customs building in Cartagena is filled with really beautiful women, all eager to help out two lost Americans. They sat us down listened to our travel stories and got all our paper work in order. When we arrived at the port we were feeling pretty good about the Colombian hospitality. Inside the port, we met with Mrs. Maria Olga, a Harvard graduate and a ‘get things done personality.’ She sat us down, served us some coffee and did wonders. First off, we were not even allowed to be inside the port without long pants and shoes, everyone seemed to think they wouldn’t let us in. Both Jeremy and I only had shorts and flip-flops…everything else was locked away inside our container. With in a few minutes she had gotten us permission to enter with what we were wearing, hardhats and orange reflective vests, ID cards to enter the port, and full access to film as we pleased. Who are these people, we thought?
The afternoon continued much the sam…we were met with nothing but kind people. The paperwork took a while and getting the van actually out of the port gates was slow, but the container proved trustworthy and van was all in one piece. In all we spent 12 hours and close to $60 getting the van on the road. Then next morning we were left with buying some car insurance and soon we were off.
Now that we were back on the road we were eager to start exploring. We figured we’d drive east into Venezuela, tour the country a little, say hi to Chavez, and enjoy some cheap gas. Then we would arc back south west into Colombia after a week or so. From Cartagena towards the border of Venezuela one must drive through Barranquilla. Barranquilla is home to Shakira and known for the second biggest Carnival in the world, second to Rio de Janeiro. Although we were planning on hanging out with Shakira, she was on tour somewhere in the world and we figured we’d just meet up with her on our return into Colombia for Carnival.
The strip of land between Venezuela and Colombia is said to be full of guerillas and drug trafficking. The city of Riohacha and the Guajira Peninsula makes up the northern most point in South America and has been coined by the U.S. as Colombia’s contraband capital. Driving through Riohacha is nothing shy of intense. Over the course of about three miles Jeremy and I saw well over 300 hundred military soldiers, in every possible location, standing with perfect posture and rifles pointing straight up in the air. They were posted all along the roads, in pairs at street corners and bus stops, and scattered all over roadside buildings and overpasses. We dove nice and slow with our jaws dropped, not knowing if we felt safer or not with such a military presence.
We were soon at the border experiencing Venezuelan hospitality. First off, Venezuela’s Military looks like they are only fed steroids and secondly, none of them can break into a smile. In fact they despise any form of happiness. We were immediately told to turn around and try in the morning. These guys just weren’t having it. Thus we found ourselves in no man’s land. Out of Colombia and not quite welcome into Venezuela. A few nice ladies at a nearby restaurant were kind enough to let us camp out in their back parking lot for the night, and soon we became the interest of some local kids, eager to make themselves at home in the van. In the morning we were met with the same border agents, yet they were much nicer and we were soon into the country. The usual van paperwork took only about an hour and was fairly simple. The real pain was to follow; for the next several hours we were constantly stopped by the military. Six times in a row they searched our whole van and inspected all the paperwork. We would stand there and watch for half an hour while they would go through all our stuff, we’d pack up and drive five miles just to go through the same routine again. One hundred and sixty days on the road and never had our van searched. Then on the hundred and sixty first day they searched it six times. You can imagine how fast we were progressing into the country.
Once we had driven well into the interior the police stops started to fade and we were making good time. We decided to drive to the National Park of Henri Pittier, located just west of Caracas. Here we would meet up with Marit and Stine, two Norwegian girls that we met diving in the Bay Islands of Honduras. The park is known for being home to more than 30,000 species of plants that is a result of the numerous vegetation zones starting from sea level up to its 2,400m peak. Even more impressive is the winding road that makes its way vertically up through the forest and back down to the ocean on the other side. On this very particular day, we happened to come by a very peculiar crime scene. As we drove around a bend we slowed to a stop by the request of a police officer. He stood there near an ambulance with a doctor in a white lab coat, and a dead guy, laying face down on the side of the road, bright red blood meandering down slope from his head. “Todo Bien?” we asked, a little unsure how to take the situation. “Todo Bien” he replied with a smile and waved us on. This was probably the most random thing either of us have ever seen, and we weren’t quite sure what to think of it. We would soon find out the rest of the story. The drive was by far one of the most beautiful roads we’ve been an all trip, and within two hours we made it safely down to the little beach town Puerto Colombia and found Marit and Stine. We later learned from the doctors in town that the man was shot twice in the back of the head.
Our original plan was to hang out with the girls for the day and then take them to the airport in Caracas where they would catch their flight to Peru. But after an evening of Colombian stories it was clear that they, too, wanted experience the promised land. We would drive southwest towards Colombia, stopping in Merida and exploring the Parque Nacional de Sierra Nevada with peaks just over 5,000m. Merida is the outdoors capital of Venezuela, surrounded by unimaginable mountains, and one can do anything from ice climbing to canyoneering. We spent a night up near Laguna Negra freezing our butts off through the night and then to top it off Jeremy and I decided to jump in the ice cold lake. Brisk! Merida also has the Teleferico, the world’s longest-traveling, highest-climbing tram in the world. We were eager to see how it compared to our hometown Snowbird Tram. The Teleferico took us 12.6 Kilometers and up 3,000 meters up, arriving quite close to Pico Bolivar (5,007m.), Venezueala’s highest peak. The ride was fun and the scenery breathtaking, but sadly with no skiing options it will never be as fun our tram up at Snowbird.
Meanwhile the altitude and freezing cold weather did a number on our sweet van. Following our first night in the mountains, we were met with a huge coolant leak and the load buzzer of our oil pressure gauge. We were soon at the mechanics getting the oil changed and tightening all of our coolant tubes. The guys in this town were great, and they let us do all the labor ourselves and charged us a few dollars for use of the shop. Sadly though, this didn’t fix the oil pressure problem like we thought it would. We were soon in a high speed mechanic pursuit. Each shop guy would have us follow them to the next shop that they felt would know about our VW engine. We followed the first guy in his car, the second on his motorcycle, and the third just hopped in and came with us. All truly nice people. The final mechanic we found was an Italian named Angelo, and he was identical to my neighbor Craig in SLC. This guy opened up our engine, checked our oil pressure and charged us less than $15.00 for the full day’s job. We didn’t even mention we knew Tony Marzelli. The problem turns out to be in the oil pressure switches, something we can’t do anything about from here. Thus with the assurance from every mechanic that our engine was running like a champ, we did some behind the dashboard surgery and took out the oil light and the annoying buzzer. I’m sure this sounds incredibly stupid to many of you, but “when in Venezuela’ one just has to go with it.
Next stop Colombia! We were so excited. Venezuela has amazing mountains and dirt cheap gas. In fact, less than $2.00 U.S. fills up our whole van. But we didn’t find the people to be very nice (except the mechanics), especially after our hellacious drive into the country. Colombia though, the great country of Colombia, has got to have the nicest people in the world. We were across the border with no problems and on our way to eat fried giant ants and explore the mountain cradled city of Bucaramanga. On our way we were stopped numerous times by the military, each time we’d chat for a few minutes, shake hands and be on our way. Having the Norwegians smiling up at the military guys was a big help as well.
Driving into Bucaramanga from the Venezuelan border is an amazing experience; for close to two hours we were high up on a mountain plateau, driving through little mountain villages. It felt like we were on top of the world, instead of looking up towards the mountains we could stare straight across to the surrounding peaks. The locals were bundled up in the brisk mountain air and the clouds seemed close enough to touch. Life was tuff up here, everything from the wrinkles on the peoples’ faces to the ruggedness of the land. Then it all came to an end. We had reached the very tip of this magnificent layer in time and were about to descend over 2,000 meters into the lush green valley below. At first we could see nothing but clouds, but then slowly as we lost elevation on the windy road hints of green mountainsides would poke through the white. With every turn we could see deeper and deeper into the network of canyons. Still the sheer size of these Andean mountains are hard for us to comprehend.
It was slowly getting dark before we would make it into Bucaramanga. We couldn’t find any reasonable pullouts on the main road and opted for the first exit we could find. It turned out to be a faint 4X4 trail making its way up a side canyon. Halfway up, surrounded only by mountains, Jeremy felt it would be nice to mention that driving off alone into the mountains of Colombia is not recommended. Before long we had scarred our selves, half expecting to turn the next corner and be faced with a guerilla road block. That and meeting Shakira would make our Colombian trip complete. Instead we pulled up to a little house on the mountains pass and a very cool cowboy by the name of Geraldo Lopez came walking out. We told him we were in the market for a sweet camping spot and he smiled and lead us up his little hill. On top he had built a little soccer field with the most beautiful view of the surrounding mountains. He offered us his bathroom, water, and any other possible thing we might need; a truly generous guy.
Jeremy and I unpacked the van and attended to some much needed van maintenance, while the girls went through the whole interior of the van, cleaning every nook and cranny. Before long we were all cleaned up, sitting on top of the world with big bright smiles and enjoying our good fortune. The people and beauty of this country are truly amazing.
Since our time in the Colombian mountains, we have made our way north to the coast again near Santa Martha. Unfortunately it seems that I had picked up a little illness in Venezuela and although I didn’t think much about it during the last few days it has steadily grown worse. It started with a light pain in my chest, and has now gotten to where I can barely eat anything without shuttering from chest pains. The lady at the hotel was pretty sure I was just suffering from a little heart ache cause of Valentine’s Day but I was pretty convinced I should go see a doctor.
So there we were, knowing all along our trip would come to this; one of us getting sick and ending up in some sketchy South American hospital. Those who know me know that I’m a complete wiener when it comes to hospitals and that even the idea of being in one scare the crap out of me. Thus I won’t jump into details, but basically I spent two days in the Clinica El Prado Hospital in Santa Martha, Colombia. I went through one heart test, two Rayos X’s, my very first and most terrifying IV experience (It took the poor nurse close ten minutes of translating and persuading before I even let him near me with the needle), and finally a Endoscopia. This is where they sedate you, lie you on your side and stick a camera down your throat. The first two doctors were a little clueless on what was going on with me, but the third, a gastro specialist felt that I had picked up some bad bacteria that was causing acidic gases rise up into my neck and causing the pain. In the end I paid a little over $845,000 Colombian pesos and the doctor ordered me to stay away from spicy foods and alcohol for a MONTH!
We’ve just spent the morning in the tranquillo mountain town of Minca, drinking café con leche and cliff jumping in the river with thelocal boys. Tonight we drive to Barranquilla, where we promise to party as hard as possible to make up for all of you who won’t be making it this year for the world’s second largest Carnival.
As always, we really appreciate everyone who checks out our site! Thanks Again.
Oralé,
Nima
Luke my good friend, your presence will be missed, but believe me your generosity will be put to good use. Thanks buddy!