Termales de Santa Rosa
The journey across from one side of the Andes to the other is only 300km or so but it takes the best part of two days of driving to cover this distance. You start at 2800m in Bogota and descend to just over 300m in Honda before climbing again to a maximum height of 3700m and then coming down again to 2100m at Manizales. All this, for the most part on single carriageway, with a constant line of slow moving trucks. At one stage we were stationary for over an hour as we waited for a tow truck to remove a jack-knifed truck that was blocking the road. Once through, there was a 5km long queue of traffic the other side. This was on top of numerous sets of road works where only 1 direction was allowed through at a time. All in all fairly painful.
By the time we arrived at the Termales de Santa Rosa we were definitely in need of some relaxation. We had been told that the road to the Thermals was really bad however when we got there we found a well graded gravel road that was no problem at all. There are two sets of Santa Rosa hot springs and we chose the ones at an old hotel.
These were lovely with a big hot pool with a hot waterfall at one end and a cold waterfall at the other. Above the pools was a huge, 180m high, waterfall which came down into a small meadow.
Although a bit rundown the place was very relaxing and there were very few people there. We spent a few hours relaxing in the waters.
We couldn’t stay for the night at the hot springs but fortunately there was space to stay in a flat area just outside the gates where we had a very quiet night.
Bogota
We debated whether to visit Bogota or to skip it and in the end we were really glad that we bit the bullet and went for it.
In Bogota, instead of building an underground mass transit system they have built a bus based system with fixed stations and dedicated roads. This is futuristically called the Transmilenio. It uses the dreaded Bendy Buses that were so loathed in London but with dedicated lanes (physically segregated from the main road) they are a very efficient transit system.
Given that there was this method of getting around Bogota we needed to find somewhere secure to park the Beast with easy access to the Transmilenio. Like most big cities the traffic was heavy and the driving much worse than outside the city so we didn’t want to drive in and then struggle to park. Right at the end of one of the lines is the Portal 80 Mall and just behind this is a secure parking lot which allowed us to stay for a couple of nights and go into Bogota for the day. The Portal 80 Mall was also handy with free WIFI and some useful shops.
The Transmilenio takes a bit of figuring out particularly as we couldn’t find a map anywhere (other than online at www.surumbo.com) but once you’ve worked out what the signs are telling you it’s very easy. Here’s an overview map of the system.
The journey into the La Candelaria area (the historic centre of Bogota) took us about 30 minutes.
To the centre of La Candelaria is the main plaza, the Plaza de Bolivar with the regulation statue of Simon Bolivar in the middle. There had obviously been a demonstration recently as the statue and some of the surrounding buildings had streaks of paint on them. The Plaza contains the Catedral Primada and also the Capitolio Nacional, the seat of Congress.
In Plaza de Bolivar we saw a couple of guys with Llamas offering rides – the South American version of donkey rides on brighton beach, I can’t quite imagine it in Trafalgar square though.
It was unfortunate that we were visiting on a Monday which meant that a lot of the museums were shut and also a lot of the churches were locked, a phenomenon we have noticed in Colombia in that the churches only seem to be opened for services.
Walking away from the square we went around behind the Congress building. Here the streets were heavily guarded by the military and to get past the barriers you were searched. We were shouted at for stepping on the wrong pavement at one time – although walking down the street was fine. At another time we sat down on a low wall next to a church and a soldier came along and told us to move on. They take their security seriously.
Also guarding the parliament were presidential guards who were very smart in golden helmets.
We spent most of the day wandering around the Candelaria district and had a nice lunch in a modern restaurant. We liked this area and felt very safe.
One of the places that was safe was an art gallery with donated works by Botero. His thing was drawing everything chubby. I quite enjoyed them. At the same gallery there were also a number of works by big artists such as Picasso and Dali. It was free to get in as well.
At around 3.30pm we decided to head back to the Beast and negotiated our way back on the Transmilenio. We arrived back just in time as it started pouring with rain and pretty much carried on for the rest of the night. The day had been nice though with some really hot sun for periods but once the rain started the temperature dropped right down to 10c, not surprising really because Bogota is at almost 2800m.
Zipaquira
Situated about 50km North of Bogota is Zipaquira, a town that is founded on salt mining. The surrounding area was once a massive inland sea which evaporated leaving a layer of salt. Through time and geologic folding this has created a big deposit of salt above the town. This has been mined since well before the Spanish arrived but they brought modern mining techniques.
The tunnels created by the mining have been used to create a massive Salt Cathedral under the ground. The Cathedral is absolutely enormous consisting of huge corridors cut through the rock (a mixture of salt and carbon). The main Nave of the cathedral can accommodate 8400 people for the services but the main use now is as a tourist attraction – in fact they claim to be the most popular attraction in Colombia.
You have to enter the Cathedral with a tour but these are big groups of people (about 100) and the tour was in Spanish so we decided to lag back and explore the cathedral on our own.
The first section of the cathedral is a tunnel with 13 crosses each representing one step of the day that Jesus was crucified. The crosses are carved out of the rock and each is different and lit in a different way. Some are backed by vast tunnels that stretch 200 metres into the rock.
After passing the crosses you move down into the three massive chambers of the cathedral itself. The central one of these had a huge cross at one end and pews arranged before an altar.
We had also arranged to do a Miner’s route tour in the cathedral. To do this we were outfitted with hard hats and miner’s lights and lead into a labyrinth of tunnels above the cathedral. The guide explained some of the geology and how the mining was carried out .The highlight of this tour was using a pick-axe to mine some salt. The rock is surprisingly hard and it takes a number of consecutive strikes of the pick in the same place to chip off a chunk of salt. In the days before explosives this would have been very hard work.
Villa de Leyva
Villa de Leyva is one of the premier tourist spots in Colombia and is an easy drive from Bogota so gets busy at the weekends. The town is in a highland valley, although lower than Bogota, with a pleasant climate. It was declared a national monument in 1954 limiting any development so time has literally stood still since then. There is however a lot of development on the outskirts and surrounding area, fortunately for the most part in a sympathetic style.
We based ourselves in a Zona de Camping, 20 minutes walk from the centre of town enabling us to explore the surrounding area as well as the town.
Villa de Leyva has one of the largest central plaza’s in the Americas – it’s 120 metres square but unlike most central plazas in Latin America it is completely bare except for a fountain in the centre. No shaded benches to sit on and wile away a sunny afternoon. The town itself is very nice and the buildings are almost all in a uniform colonial style. There are a large number of restaurants and artisan shops which cater to the influx of tourists.
Importantly for us we found a Lavanderia (launderette) as we’d been hand washing clothes for the last couple of weeks, not a favourite pass-time of ours!
We spent our time in Villa de Leyva making short trips out to tourist sites. The first of these that we visited was El Fosil. A building has been built around the site of discovery of an almost completely intact fossil of a baby Kronosaurus (still 7m long). This is a survivor from the time when this area was part of an inland sea – surprising, given it’s at an altitude of over 2000m.
After El Fosil we drove down a very rough track to El Infiernito (Estacion Astronomica Muisca) which has a reputation of being the Colombian Stonehenge. It didn’t quite live up to this billing. One part of the site consists of parallel lines of stones about 1m apart which was used to determine the seasons, the other part is a field of phallic standing stones.
We also visited Pozo Azul which is a collection of natural ponds which are a deep emerald colour (of course they change with the sun) and a small eco-park containing a number of waterfalls (La Periquera).
The journey to La Periquera did not go smoothly. As we drove up the narrow dirt track to the site we got trapped between a low tree branch on one side and a muddy ditch on the other so we couldn’t go any further. We had to reverse about 500m up the track round some tight corners. Whenever you’re in this situation a local with a beer in hand seems to appear to help (something of a surprise at 9.30am !). If you are the same size as the Beast you can park by the entrance to the lane but if you are just an inch or two narrower and lower you could make it the whole way through to the small car park at the end of the track.
Hidden behind a hostel just outside the town is a nice hike up a small river to a viewpoint high above town passing a couple of waterfalls on the way. It’s pretty difficult to find the track though so ask at the reception desk at the Renacer guesthouse and they provide you with a helpful map.
When we left Villa de Leyva we decided to drive to a nearby National Park – The Sanctuario de Iguaque. This didn’t go quite to plan. We found the entrance road which was a gravel road heading uphill. The road wasn’t too bad – until we made a wrong turn when the road started getting rougher – including one bit which was about 10cm wider than our tyres with a 2m drop into a big hole on one side due to road works (a little bit heartstopping but the only way past was to gun the engine and cross your fingers !). We couldn’t find anywhere to turn around and we ended up crossing out of the valley and back to the main highway. After taking a couple of hours to go 15km and the cloud cover descending we decided to forget it and drove on to Tunja.
San Gil
San Gil is at first glance a fairly uninteresting city at the bottom of a hilly descent. However the streets reward walking around and it opens up as a friendly mountain town.
After walking the streets of San Gil, finding a supermarket to buy a few essentials and checking email we went to a small park at the North end of town, El Gallineral. This park was on the river and had lots of trees draped in a type of moss called Barbas de Viejo (Old man’s beard). There were a large number of red squirrels in the park as well, a novelty for those of us from England as they have been wiped out at home.
After this we needed to find somewhere to stay for the night and settled on a Balenario about 4km up the hill from town. It was really quiet and had a big pool to cool down. The nights here are cool but the days are well over 30c.
In the morning we set out of for the town of Barichara which is a very slow 15km from San Gil and is a beautiful old colonial town. All the buildings are painted white and are in similar style, the streets are cobbled and the pace of life is so slow that it feels as though time has barely touched this little town.
In the afternoon we drove 15km the other side of San Gil, on a paved but heavily potholed road, to Cascadas de Juan Curi, a 180m waterfall. The hike in was only around 20 minutes through forest. On arriving at the foot of the waterfall we had to cross the river – flowing very fast over a slippery rock floor – with the aid of a rope across and then climb a small cliff to get up to the main waterfall.
We had taken our swimming costumes for a cooling off dip but it was really pumping water and the wind it created was so strong that it almost blew you off your feet. There was no way to swim under the waterfall that day. A week later after leaving San Gil we heard that the town was flooded so I guess it’s probably not always that powerful.
Chicamocha
The drive South from the Caribbean Coast is long and hot – down a decent road that is stock full of trucks. This slows down the pace somewhat. Once you hit the mountains themselves the number of trucks reduces slightly but the road becomes slower. It took us almost 2 days driving to reach Chicamocha National Park which is a large canyon with a cable car stretching from one side to the other.
At one end of the car park at Chicamocha is a police building so we asked them if it was ok to stay the night here. Thankfully they were happy for us to do so as we were still 40km from San Gil and with the windy mountain road and truck traffic this was probably at least an hour long drive in the dark. As it turns out this was a good place to stay and it was a cool night (our first for what seems like a long time).
The park itself was quite entertaining (although expensive) with great views and a monument to the Revolution at its centre (The Monumento a la Santandereanidad). The cable car was fairly interesting as it takes you right down to the bottom of the Canyon and back up the cliffs at the other side of the Canyon but the ride back is fairly dull as you’ve done it before. You can of course walk down to the bottom on a steep goat trail but this did not take our fancy !
Colombia’s Caribbean Beaches
Before starting our trek South towards Ecuador we decided to spend a few days on the beach. Our first days drive ended at Playa Velero which was a deserted Caribbean beach where we could park for free only a few feet from the water. However the beach was a bit uninspiring and we didn’t have much in the way of food so we decided to move further East to the Tayrona National Park area.
We have discovered that shopping centres and supermarkets in Colombia tend to have underground or multi-storey car parks. No good for us because of our height and it can often be difficult to park anywhere nearby. We did manage to find a shopping centre in Santa Marta with a large Carrefour which had a private Parquedero across the road. This was fortunate as we had turned the fridge off for our crossing to Colombia and didn’t really have any food at all.
After managing to stock up with food we drove to the beaches to the East of Santa Marta and settled into a place called Casa Grande – right next to Tayrona NP but without the expensive entrance fees. This was a lovely Caribbean Beach – albeit with crashing surf making swimming difficult. The place was practically empty while we were there and we spent a few days relaxing.
We didn’t hang around in the North too much though because we were craving the cool nights of the mountains.
Cartagena
Cartagena de Indias is a sprawling city of over a million people which is a major shipping hub on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. However at the heart of the city lies the original walled town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it is this ‘Cartagena’ which is the magnet for tourists.
As I mentioned in my last post on Shipping we arrived in Cartagena on Wednesday night, the week of the Summit of the Americas. This is a Summit for all the nations in the Americas which is attended by the Presidents and a host of camp followers. From the Friday through to Monday morning the old town was sealed off and everyone going in was searched. Vehicles were prohibited from entering the old town for the duration of the Summit apart from official Summit vehicles which were each labelled with the country they were servicing. At any time a motorcade escorted by police could come flying by. Even Shakira was in town for the weekend!
Unfortunately the Summit meant that hotels were booked solid and flights were expensive. So it cost us a lot more than it should have to get to and stay in Cartagena. However we did manage to book a hotel in the San Diego district of the old town which was very central to the tourist area and a short cab ride to the Manga area where we needed to go for shipping. We only had this hotel for three nights but when we realised that we wouldn’t get the Beast until Monday we booked another hotel for the extra three nights (we couldn’t stay in the one we had been in because it was full).
The plus side of the Summit taking place was that with all the police, various countries security services and the army, Cartagena must have been one of the safest places in the world that weekend.
The walled city is a wonderful place and doesn’t need an itinerary. Just strolling around and taking in the sights is the best way to attack it and eventually you’ll walk past all the main attractions. Many of the buildings are brightly coloured and covered in flowers making a real assault on the senses. The difference between the weekend of the Summit where the town was pretty empty and the following Monday was enormous with the streets exploding with life and people.
On one of our walks we practically bumped into Hilary Clinton doing the same thing – albeit surrounded by Secret Service (those who hadn’t been sent home in disgrace that is!).
Shortly after seeing Hilary in the Plaza de Bolivar we went into the Cathedral where we did a really good audio tour of the building. The history of Cartagena is amazing – the Cathedral was almost completely destroyed even before it was finished when Francis Drake sacked the town in 1586. In fact pirates sacked the town 5 times in the 16th century leading to Spanish building forts to protect the town and building the walls around the town itself.
One of the Forts, Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, is one of the most awesome defensive structures ever built. It has five different defensive areas each of which if over-run can be attacked from the others. The final line of defence is a keep in the centre which has a wooden access stairway which was burnt when under attack leaving no way out for the defenders. The fort is built on a hill and the interior of the hill is riddled with passageways which run right down to the water-table. They were used to store ammunition , explosives and supplies. There is an excellent audio tour that you can do which really brings the fort to life and tells you about all the battles that have been fought there.
One of the real features of the town was the heat. This is probably the hottest place that we have been and we were really glad to have an air-conditioned hotel room to retreat to for a siesta in the hottest part of the day. Talking to locals its hot all year with little variation, even they use air conditioning when they can!
Of course the heat meant that we wanted cool beer. There is a great bar called Cafe del Mar on top of the city wall looking over the Caribbean sea. Its expensive but you’re paying for the view !
Shipping Part 3: Tips
Panama
1) When you enter the country make extra sure that the import document has the right information. If it is wrong you will have to get it amended before you pass the police inspection.
2) For the Police Inspection make sure you wear proper shoes and long trousers. Sandals and shorts are not acceptable to the Police. We actually saw someone turned away for wearing flip-flops.
3) When you are at customs at the Port don’t forget to get the vehicle stamp in your passport cancelled too.
4) Don’t hang around in Colon. Get a taxi from the port (there are plenty around) to the bus station and then an express bus back to the main terminal in Panama at Allbrook. The express bus only costs $3 per person.
5) The Toll Road to Colon cost us $8.80 but it’s a good road and it should only take an hour from Panama City to Colon.
Colombia
1) When you go to the port make sure you have a secondary set of ID to give in at the security office (not your passport) to get a port security pass and don’t forget to get it back at the end before you drive off.
2) Before you pick up your vehicle work out where you are going to park it for the night as you could be pretty late leaving the port.
3) Have a copy of your travel insurance available as this might be requested to enter the port.
4) There is a good car park in Getsemani right next to the convention centre. We couldn’t use this because it was closed for the Summit of the Americas but normally it would be a good option.
Shipping Part 2: Cartagena
We had picked the worst weekend of the decade to go to Cartagena. The flights and hotels were all booked almost solid and prices were high. We didn’t realise why until we were there but the Summit of the Americas was being held this weekend. This means that all 34 presidents from North and South America were turning up for a tri-ennial conference along with what seemed like a million security guys.
We managed to book expensive flights from Panama City to Cartagena (via Bogota) on COPA for $350 each. The flight was fairly pleasant but there was one slight issue. I was told that my bag was checked through to Cartagena but it turned up on the baggage carousel at Bogota. Fortunately I thought to look as the lady at check-in didn’t instil me with a lot of confidence, so I was able to retrieve it and check-in again at Bogota. When we arrived at Cartagena two American guys (secret service we think because they told us they worked for the “Government” but were very evasive about it) who had also flown from Panama City were missing their luggage! I guess they didn’t check the carousel at Bogota.
On arrival in Cartagena we took a taxi to our hotel in the San Diego district of the walled city (Centro Historico). We soon discovered on checking the internet that our ship had been delayed and was not due to arrive until Friday. So our hope of getting the truck back before the weekend was gone. It seems to be fairly normal for ship schedules to slip so don’t believe the shippers when they tell you how quick the whole process will be.
On Friday we went in the morning to visit Enlace Caribe in the Manga district – a shipping agent. The Manga district is South of the old town and we paid COL5000 each time we took a taxi there. Enlace Caribe is a family-run business by Luis, Sonia and their sons. Luis speaks fairly good English so we managed to get by. We went there on Friday thinking that we would just be arranging for them to represent us but they swung into action straight away.
They needed a copy of our Bill of Lading, the vehicle registration and my passport and this enabled them to start the process. The disadvantage of having an agent was that for a lot of the processes I didn’t have a clue what was going on. There were a lot of forms and visits to various locations. The first place we went was DIAN (the main customs office – Direccion de Impuestas y Aduana Nacionales) where an inspection was booked for Monday morning and we got a Temporary Importation Form.
Then we went to the port administration office where we went inside (ID is needed to get a security pass) and then met with a women in an office who spent 10 minutes with my passport before giving us a form we needed. (pretty vague I know). At some stage Enlace paid our port fees for us and we paid them at the end. This was it for the day though and a good start had been made – we were told to be back at the office of Enlace Caribe at 8am on Monday morning.
On Monday morning we arrived just after 8am to find that Sonia had been to the customs inspection at 7am but that the inspector was too busy to write it up until later, so we wouldn’t be able to get the sign off we needed until 2pm. We headed back to the city for more tourist action (luckily there’s plenty to keep you busy in Cartagena).
When we returned at 2pm the documents were ready and waiting for us so we walked back across the road to the DIAN building and guided by Felipe (Luis & Sonia’s son) we went to the customs inspector to get our customs clearance. Unfortunately the inspector’s boss wasn’t around so we had to wait close to an hour before finally getting the clearance. From here we drove to Naves (Wallenius Wilhelmsen’s agent in Cartagena) to retrieve the original Bill of Lading which we needed to get the Beast back.
Felipe then drove us to the administration office of the port where we waited outside while he went in to get the Vehicle Exit Form. Then it was time to go to the actual port, which is about 5km South of the port we had been at. I had to surrender a piece of ID in the port office to get a security badge and then we went to the offices to arrange for someone to take me to the Beast. Once this was accomplished I went with Felipe to the main port vehicle entrance (Sarah went to the Cafeteria to wait). After about 15 minutes, a port employee screeched to a halt beside us driving a motorbike-based people mover to take me to the truck.
Our first stop in the port was a small office inside a warehouse where I handed over some of the documents we’d got from the Port and was given a long checklist in return to be used to sign back the truck. After this it was back on the bike and we started doing laps of the port area. The driver clearly had no idea where the Beast was and we visited several big lots full of row after row of shiny new cars but no Beast.
Eventually I managed to explain that the truck was big and was unlikely to be with the cars and he headed off to the far side of the port where the road was a pretty rough unpaved surface and we finally spotted The Beast alongside a row of diggers.
I quickly checked her over and to my complete relief found that nothing had been stolen or damaged. The keys were missing but I thought they must be on the way over.
After waiting at the truck for around 30 minutes another guy on a motorbike turned up who I gave the checklist to and we went over the truck looking for any problems. There were none and he signed off and told me to follow him out. I asked him where the keys were (although I had spares I wanted my original keys back). This flustered him a bit and he told me to wait while he fetched the keys.
I now had to wait for around an hour – only enlivened by Airforce 1 flying overhead as Obama left Cartagena – and it got dark. It was around 7pm before anyone reappeared, this time fortunately with the keys.
The guy on the motorbike told me to follow him and shot off at breakneck pace, in the dark, through the port on a pretty rough road – so I was pretty much bouncing around. At one stage he turned down a steep drop off and I managed to stop before following as there was a big rock below that would have hit my differential.
When we got back to the exit Felipe met me and took my paperwork to one final office (just before the exit to get a stamp on the vehicle exit form) and then gave it back to me and told me he’d get Sarah while I drove out after showing my papers to the guy at the gate (another five minute process). He also went to collect my ID from the security office.
So at around 7.30pm after starting the process for the day at 2pm we finally got out of the port and followed Felipe back to the Enlace Caribe office in Manga. Here we settled up with them. USD175 for their services (money well spent) and another USD175 for port fees.
It was good to be reunited with The Beast and we set off back to the Old Town where we had scouted out a car park by the Navy Museum. We left The Beast there and headed back to our hotel for our last night in the beautiful city of Cartagena. We did have 1 last thing to do the following day before we could leave Cartagena and that was to purchase the compulsory insurance (SOAT) required in Colombia before hitting the road. This was pretty straight-forward (Sonia had provided us with the address of the insurers in the old town) but pricey at COL 157,900 for 3 months (about $88). (The address of the insurance agent was HBL Seguros, 1st Floor, Centro Commercial, Calle de la Moneda). SOAT only covers you for damage to other people and property not vehicles but it’s better than nothing!
Finally we were on the road and ready to explore Colombia. The whole process was pretty time consuming and very expensive but not impossible. We used agents at both ends – it would be cheaper but probably longer doing it yourself and quite difficult I think, if like us, your Spanish is a little limited, to say the least.
Info
Enlace Caribe: Luis Ernesto La Rota R. Enlace Caribe Ltda. Manga, Calle 28 No. 26-47, Of. 103 Cartagena, ColombiaPh +57 (5) 660 8960
Mob + 57 315 758 5872
Email: gerencia@enlacecaribe.com
Note: The office is open 6 days a week but is shut between 12 and 2pm.
Enlace Caribe: N10 24.553 W75 31.944 DIAN: N10 24.598 W75 31.977 Naves: N10 24.567 W75 32.288 Port Admin Office: N10 24.390 W75 31.707 Port Entrance: N10 22.628 W75 30.376 Car Park by Navy Museum: N10 25.273 W75 33.162
FromAtoB 