Blockades Again

You know all that stuff about making plans and life happening, and it did indeed happen to us yesterday. We made plans to travel and life got in the way. First we struggled through the excessively busy streets of Piendamó, the town at the bottom of the hill that always confuses Google Maps. 

We had left campground 8:30 with a two and a half hour drive planned to Cali to see a dermatologist at 3:30 pm. Even though Piendamó snarled us up in a dead end or two we felt we were on top of the scheduling.

It was a cool gray day in the mountains as we traced our way to the main highway. 

We stopped for breakfast along the PanAmerican Highway,

…where there was a young woman totally absorbed by her even younger child. 

We got back on the road fortified for the drive and light hearted with time in hand, plenty of time. Until traffic stopped. 

A French overlander coming from Ecuador had got stopped by a protest outside the city of Pasto two days ago but they have since arrived at the campground. 

They are a young couple with a child and they took a hotel room (with a swimming pool) as they waited for the road to reopen. Apparently during massive rains last year the PanAmerican collapsed in several places and the struggle has been to rebuild the main connection to Ecuador.

People who lost their homes in the epic slides and flooding were promised government help which naturally never came. So they are slightly annoyed as you might well imagine and being powerless all they can do is disrupt traffic. Which they do very well. 

Truck drivers are being interrupted earning their living so I get their impatience but the traffic turned into a bit of a free for all. By 12:30 it was obvious we were going to miss our date with the dermatologist for our checkup so we tired around and went back to the campground. The line behind us was miles long. 

Our dermatologist rescheduled to Saturday morning and we are back where we started at La Bonanza.

We’ve used our days well here with a visit to the dentist for a tooth cleaning in Piendamó, the town of appalling traffic. 

A radio reporter, Gustavo spotted us having a fruit smoothie and did a quick interview about American RVers in town. Technology has moved forward quite a bit since I lugged a tape recorder around. Gustavo used his phone and tiny remote microphones. 

And we got our laundry done too.

Our permit to stay in Colombia expires May 10th and we have filed two electronic requests for a 90 day extension, supposedly a routine rubber stamp. However neither request has gone anywhere so we plan to go by the Immigration office in Cali to see if they can shed any light. That’s one reason we got an appointment this week in Cali to see the dermatologist in lieu of our May 8th appointment in distant Medellin. 

So our little blockade, one of so many our presence has instigated on our Latin American route, was more than a little inconvenient. I guess at this stage we do what we can and if we don’t get an extension we will just have to go south ahead of our preferred date. Life in the road. Blockaded or not.

Bonanza!

La Bonanza is an oasis of a campground owned by a couple who grew up in Morocco, had three kids and ten years ago set off to drive around South America.

They made waves at home when they left Morocco, and now their children are grown and their home and RV campground is for sake if you’re interested. We aren’t - we’re nomads but we like landing in these kinds of places. It made a great change from bouncing down the road from hell at dusk! 

The road out of the mountains though paved was still have torn up by endless roadworks. It was a tremendous drag stopping every ten minutes. 

Snacks for sale. When the vendor eventually stopped talking to her neighbor I got a cheese empanada to go with my coffee. Road works are food depots too which isn’t always good! 

We go, they stop and talk. The stops tended to be lengthy which made them more annoying. 

We got to Popayan known as the “white city.”  The old town we found was just a small part of a vast modern industrial city. When we paused to get our bearings and we let Rusty wander around we had a nasty encounter. Some crazy guy in his sixties, well dressed and not smelling of alcohol (I got in his face) walked across the street picked up a eucalyptus branch and was about to lay into Rusty who was sniffing and hadn’t even noticed him when I rushed up and stopped him. He backed up and I was relentless snarling insults at him in his face. Eventually he went back across the street to the bus stop and I got Rusty safely aboard GANNET2 with a couple of final insults exchanged. I have no idea what prompted that but the incident settled us. We left town. 

Eventually we will drive back this way in the road to Ecuador and we may give Popayan a second chance.

We stopped at a supermarket on the outskirts to buy the usual  supplies and Colombia the cheerful reasserted itself thank god. The campground was forty minutes away and we were glad to land in the haven.

Kiki and Anwar are the perfect hosts and with their experience they have created the perfect campground offering everything overlanders want. 

Covered spaces to hang out, cold drinks, books and comfortable armchairs. 

110 volt and 220 volt electrical outlets, potable water and even a dump station. And it’s all done with style.  

Rusty loves roaming the garden and the woods. 

This is as you might imagine a popular stop especially at $15 a night. 

Rusty doesn’t even mind playing with the campground dog a big goofy German shepherd. 

Here you are, retired, drinking coffee listening to the afternoon rain a daily occurrence, and reading about Webb Chiles surviving at sea…This could be you: 

Mind you, that can be done with a lot less struggle than it’s taken for us to get here! But this is the reward. 

They have WiFi of variable strength but Starlink has lots of clear sky. 

There’s a big washing machine in the laundry so we did our rugs towels and seat covers and Rusty’s bed cover. Oh and our clothes too in a second load. 

Moroccan tagine for lunch. 

Lamb and plums and sweet potato, perfectly delicious with left overs and no need for dinner after this lot. 

We did chores, cleaning the fridge, checking tire pressure, washing and cleaning and walking Rusty. A day in the life at Bonanza.