After a really good night at the Embalse de Peñol we had to continue to Cartagena, because it became clear that in a few day Rosi would be loaded in a container.
To reach Cartagena we decided to take a more eastern route from Medellin. In the beginning the street was a prefect highway but after a while we had to leave the highway and take a smaller road which was blocked by protesters. One of the locals told us how we could drive around the blockade and we ended up many kilometres on a tiny little dirt road but he was right and we managed to drive around the blockade. The night we spent at a gas station and after Linda broke by accident one the the glas plates that covers the sink in Rosi, we decided to eat dinner at the grill restaurant close by. The next day was Saturday and our agent has told us that we needed a document to be signed by a notary to be able to enter the harbour where Rosi will be loaded into a container. Once again we were fooled by the information on Google maps and after we had driven through two tiny villages and both times the notary offices were closed we continued towards the cost. On our full trip it happened very often that locations were not marked right on Google maps and opening times were not the right ones either. Linda had found a tiny little campground right next to the ocean and we parked the night there. It was an incredible feeling to be at the Carribean cost and swim in the warm water. We started the following morning with a great long breakfast and measured again the hight of Rosi….It was obvious that it would be close call to fit Rosi in the container, but we decided to not buy smaller wheels and would manage it somehow to get her in the container with releasing air from the current tires… Then we drove to a campground outside of Cartagena which was run by a friendly french guy and a very cute white cat, that spent a lot of time with us. It was a huge area and we prepared our suitcases and everything inside Rosi. The next day we found a notary office in Cartagena, got Rosi all nice and clean and organised some other things in the city.
Finally it was the big day. I drove Linda in the city center to the hotel we had booked and left to the harbour to meet our container buddies for the first time. Two Swiss brothers that had travelled a similar route as we had done it so far.
At the harbour I had to be alone, because I am the holder of the van and I met there with Reto who is the official owner of the van of the Swiss brothers. We could enter the official port area pretty fast, the van was checked for any damages and than we were told that the customs control would be (not like initially planned) another day and we can return to the city center. At this point we did not know if we would load the van in the container the next day or in two days.
What than happened blew my mind once again. The next day a guy from the agency came to our hotel (which – by the way – had a really nice patio) in the city center of Cartagena and asked me to sign the customs documents. I was surprised, because nobody was inside the van but he assured me that they arranged everything with customs. Basically the Colombian customs control was me singing a piece of paper…. I do not want to know how often this happens in the harbour of Cartagena.
During the day Linda and me explored the beautiful colonial city center of Cartagena. It is one of the best preserved colonial city centres in South America and we both really liked it there. For Linda one of the reasons was for sure the Parque Centenario which is a small park in the city center. In this park a few sloths live and we found the mother with a tiny little sloth baby hanging on to her back. It was incredible cool to see them in the trees although it is hard to imagine that they are not disturbed by all the people and noises around.
At night we had a cool dinner with the Swiss brothers on one of the thousands roof tops of the city.
Another day later we were picked up to load the vans in a container on the harbour area where they were parked. First we had to pass drug control, which was a single police office without a dog that wanted to look in the majority (but not all) boxes of each of the vehicles. If we really would have planned to smuggle anything, these controls would have not been any problem at all. So we passed the “drug test” and than „just“ had to load the vans in the container. When we saw the container it seemed incredibly small. We both asked if it really is the bigger „high cube“ container, which was assured by the harbour workers. The van from the Swiss brothers was way smaller that Rosi, but had a huge roof box, which made it nearly as tall as our van. They drove in the Container first, and it fitted perfectly by one or two centimetres. At this point I became increasingly nervous and already started to let air out of the wheels of Rosi. When a harbour worker drove Rosi into the container veeeeryy slowly the first part barely fit in, but it worked out. The highest point were the two roof windows and the first one fit. But the second one became a problem. Rosi was a few centimetres too high. So we let out more air of the wheels and with four grown men standing on the rear fender of Rosi we managed to fit into the container. Inside it was not a problem, because the container is higher on the inside. Only the entrance to the container was the challenge. Two guys tied up the cars inside and climbed through the side window, and the rear doors of Rosi out of the container. I was covered in sweat, because of the temperature in the container and because I was scared that Rosi might not fit, but in the end she did fit and I was incredibly happy to see the sealed container in front of me.
After that we still had an amazing last dinner in the beautiful old streets of the quarter Getsemani before we took off the next day into the Carribean for a few days on an island with the strict plan to do absolutely nothing!
After a 2.5 h boat ride we arrived on the little island of Tintipan, where we had booked an Air bnb. It turned out that we were the only guests and the only other location we could reach without a boat was the hostel that was a little hike away from our Air bnb. As planed we did absolutely nothing there. We were sleeping long, reading in the hammock and dipping in the warm water once or twice a day. While we sat in the warm water left and right from us the pelicans we diving in the water to catch some fish. It was so pristine and quiet and so far from the noise of Cartagena. A few times we snorkeled also but beside a few fishes there was not much to see. On our third and last day we rented a little kayak and paddled up and down the island and after dark we did a little „tour“. For this tour the son of the Air bnb owner drove us with a boat in the mangroves and told us to jump in the pitch black water, while only the moon was providing some light. I was still hesitating, but Linda was already in the water and we started to see what we came for. The water around Lindas feet and hands was slightly glowing in a yellowy golden tone. I jumped in the water as well and the longer we waited the more intense the light became. If we moved our hands very slow we could see light sparkling in the water. It was beautiful and somehow mystic to see it, and it is a bioluminescense defense mecanism of plancton in the water. I remember that I had seen this years ago night diving in Thailand but Linda had never seen it before and we both agreed that this was the perfect ending of our relaxing few days in the Carribean. The next day we were picked up on the pier of the Airbnb and drove back to Cartagena where we checked in a hotel close to the Airport. The following day we would fly to Leticia in the Amazon rain forest for one week that turned out to be another highlight of the trip.
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