The aging Kenworth shuddered to a stop in front of us amid groaning steel and the venting of high-pressure air. A kid, no more than 14, stood in the middle of the hairpin turn holding his hand up to tell the driver to stop. Another truck crept down the hill, its engine howling in low gear and its trailer taking up both lanes of the narrow mountain road. As it passed, the Kenworth revved its engine and with more shuddering and copious amounts of black smoke pouring from its exhaust began lumbering through the turn.

The kid ran alongside, shouting to the driver to throw a few coins his way for his help in avoiding a horrible collision. No pesos were forthcoming, and the traffic continued to inch its way up the mountain.

Creeping up the pass

You know it’s going to be a long day when Google Maps says it’s going to take 6 hours to cover 89 miles. Surely that can’t be right, you think. But you know better. Heck, it might take longer.

The pass we were crossing started at less than 2000 feet and topped out in the fog at over 12,000 feet. With nothing more than a sign advising drivers to “revise los frenos” (check your brakes) the road began its plunge down the other side of the ridge. None of the truck drivers that we saw were actually stopping to check their brakes.

One benefit of going 10 – 15mph is that it gives you plenty of time to enjoy the scenery. You just have to pretend you’re breathing clean mountain air instead of the exhaust from the truck in front of you.

The Colombians apparently recognize that a road between two major cities with an average speed of 15mph is detrimental to productivity. They’ve embarked on a project to improve it that involves viaducts spanning valleys hundreds of feet high and thousands of feet across. It makes the Glenwood Canyon section of interstate 70 in Colorado look like a good project for a civil engineering intern.

A partially completed viaduct

A section of the new road

Having blown past Google’s time estimate for our journey, we found ourselves driving in the dark and looking for somewhere to park for the night.

On this side of the pass some of the viaducts had been completed, and we found a likely spot on one of the bypassed sections of road. We backed down the road as far as we could to get out of sight of the highway and settled down for a restful night listening to the growl of engine brakes from passing semis.

At 3:30 the next morning, just as I was beginning to hope it would be light soon so I could stop not sleeping, someone knocked on the door of the van. “Como?” “Que?” I said in my best drowsy gringo Spanish. I heard someone say something about “casa rodante” (mobile home) and “documentos.” We looked outside and saw that they weren’t wearing uniforms but were carrying guns. Not good at all.

Not wanting to unlock any doors, I dressed and clambered into the driver’s seat where I rolled down the window part of the way. One of the men smiled and stuck his hand through so I could shake it. He explained that he was associated with the military and doing security patrols.

Before I could ask what happened to their uniforms, he started peppering me with the standard questions. “Where are you coming from?” “Manizales.” (the previous significant town on the road you’re on that a traveler might logically have been) “Where are you going?” “Ibagué” (the next significant town on the road you’re on). “What are you doing here?” “Turismo.” (Be careful with this one. It’s the right answer, but as we found out in Africa, “Tourist” sounds a lot like “Terrorist.”)

With that, he thrust his hand back through the window so I could shake it again and bid me a buen noche. Not bloody likely, I would have thought, had I been British. Instead, I said, “Vamos a dormir otra ves.” I realized later that since I screwed up the verb conjugation I said, “Let’s go to sleep again.” He just laughed and walked off, and I reinforced the image of the idiot gringo tourist. With deception skills like that, perhaps I should try my hand at terrorism.

After a fun day at the science museum, we drove to a small town about 2 hours outside of Bogotá to do some volunteer work. What San Javier lacks in size it more than makes up for in hospitality. Angela and her mother run a community center there and we spent some time repairing and upgrading the computers in their computer lab. They fed us and made us feel very welcome. We gave lots of tours of the van, and a local businessman gave me a beer while we discussed solar power systems – he had spotted the solar panel on our van.

Our campsite in San Javier

Us with Angela and her mother at the community center.

Back in Bogotá, we were able to get together with some relatives on Jen’s side of the family. On our way in to town we got to experience the best of Bogotá traffic, sitting in a cab for more than an hour before we finally got out and walked. We had a very nice visit with them and they were kind enough to let us stay with them in the city.

After leaving Bogotá we headed for the Zona Cafetera, which is where the bulk of Colombia’s coffee is grown. We had hoped to make it to the town of Manizales in a day, but we found out that the road had been damaged in a landslide and was closed. The local police pointed us to an alternate route that would add 2 hours to our journey. The first part of the detour was great – a brand new, four lane highway. When we got to the point where we needed to veer off the highway, we were in for a change.

We spotted an old, faded sign indicating the town we were headed for. We took the indicated left turn, but it was just a retorno, taking us back in the other direction on the highway.

We drove for a few minutes, when I spotted the back of a sign that was pointed the wrong way on the road. I looked back at it, and sure enough it indicated the town we wanted. I backed up to where there was a dirt track leading off the highway into the forest. Within 5 minutes we had gone from doing 90km/h on a four lane highway to creeping along in four wheel drive. It took us about 40 minutes to go the 15 km to the road that would take us back to our original route.

Off a four lane highway and onto this. Colombia is truly a land of contrasts.

We weren’t able to stay in the Zona Cafetera for as long as we would have liked, since we had to be in Quito in about two weeks for our trip to the Galapagos Islands. But we did get a chance to see a nice ecological park. We also enjoyed some time at a very nice hostel/campground where we met a few other overland travelers.

We rode the chairlift up into the park.

There were lots of birds on offer, especially hummingbirds.

Japanese coffee buyers had donated a Japanese garden to the park, complete with bonsai trees.

We got to see a handful of the thousands of species orchids in Colombia.

Quinn took some photos too.

We had a good time talking with other travelers at the hostel.

And Quinn had a good time in the pool the next morning.

For fans of pictures of Quinn, we put together a slideshow of him feeding pigeons in the Plaza de Armas in Bogotá.

We’re not big city fans to begin with, and combine that with driving a large, ungainly vehicle and Bogotá’s (well deserved) reputation for horrible traffic, and we almost decided to skip the city altogether. In the end we decided to go, and we’re very glad we did!

We left Villa de Leyva on Friday morning (Halloween) and drove to Zipaquirá, home of a famous salt cathedral. Not having researched this before we left, we weren’t quite sure what to expect. A cathedral made out of salt? How do they keep it from dissolving in the rain?

We spotted this beautifully restored steam locomotive behind an equally impressive old train station while driving through an otherwise drab town. Of course we had to stop for a look!

The cathedral is actually inside a salt mine. People have been mining salt here since pre-Columbian times. At some point miners started carving crosses and religious figures into the rock to give them a place to say a quick prayer before heading to work (such is the nature of the profession). This idea got expanded over the years into what now is one of the world’s largest underground cathedrals.

The cross in the background is 170 feet high. This was just one of numerous crosses and religious carvings in the mine.

There’s a reflecting pool filled with salt water.

After leaving Zipaquirá, we drove to Chia to visit Andre’s Carnes de Res, a famous restaurant outside of Bogota. We were hoping to be able to camp in their parking lot, but because it was Halloween night, there was too much going on. The restaurant staff was super helpful and eventually one of their employees guided us to his family’s nearby home where we parked for the night. That area of town was loaded with parties and fireworks until the wee hours, but we were happy to have a place to sleep.

Bogotá has a bus rapid transit system called the Trans-Milenio. Buses use special lanes in the center of the highways which are physically separated from the rest of the traffic. They stop at elevated platforms just like subway platforms and the buses are specially designed with doors on the left. This is all great, except that you’re not allowed to make left turns on roads with the bus system. There’s not much signage telling the unwary foreign driver what to do, which led us to a bit of “exploring” as we tried to get to where we needed to go.

Jen and Pocket Earth got us to a parking lot in the tourist area where we were able to leave the van near the hostel where we were staying. We spent the next couple of days exploring the city.

Our first stop was the gold museum. It apparently houses over 5 tons of gold. Pieces like this were recovered from the bottom of a lake near Bogotá where the indigenous population used to throw intricate gold figures as offerings to the gods.

We took a funicular ride to the top of a nearby mountain for a view over the city.

We found a restaurant at the top for lunch.

Usually we avoid restaurants in obvious tourist destinations like this, but based on reviews in Trip Advisor we decided to give it a shot. The food was good, the prices were reasonable, and the view was amazing.

In the afternoon we visited the Fernando Botero museum which houses works of the much-loved Colombian artist.

The museum courtyard

I never really feel like I’ve seen a city or town until we’ve been to the Zocalo / Plaza de Armas / whatever the central plaza is called. That was our next stop after the museum, feeding pigeons and visiting with buskers.

Quinn’s favorite part of a day filled with museums and lots of walking? Minecraft with his friend Superlegodude9 at the hostel.

The next day we went to the Maloka children’s museum. Quinn had a great time and even made a monster!

El Gato!