After our looong afternoon snoozes and getting a reasonably early night we thought we would be up bright and breezy but to our amazement we didn’t wake up until 2 in the afternoon!!!!!

We felt terribly rude but no-one was bothered we were ushered to the kitchen, introduced to the lovely puppy Jackie, fed and watered and then we started to make plans for our stay in Bogota. Jaime had kindly offered to help us find a mechanic to get Peggy’s suspension fixed…again! We got that job jobbed and waved as we left Peggy at the garage. She sadly needed a few more things doing than we anticipated and with waiting for parts and fitting them etc, she was going to be in the shop for a whole week!!!

Luckily Jaime said we would be welcome to stay with him and his family and we thanked him a million times over and agreed to get the work done. She would be getting a new fuel pump, shiny new suspension including bushes, new fuel pipes and a brake adjustment. It was a big job but we bit the bullet and handed over the keys.

The Rubio’s were due to have a party that evening for Hugo’s birthday and we were invited to join in the fun. Jaime had band practise so we went it alone, luckily one of the family friends spoke great English and she shared our story with the rest of the party! Everyone looked through our photographs and asked us questions about our trip. We were totally welcomed into the family celebrations despite being total strangers and not even being able to communicate properly!

Alex was asked by one of Hugo’s friends if he had an Uncle for her to get with… He had jut the person to recommend! I have attached the picture of his best friend Ilan and the responses it got! Needless to say if Ilan decides to run away to Colombia his has a lady or two in waiting. Aside from the Rubio’s been a fantastic family Hugo is a professional singer and musician to boot! He pulled out his guitar and sang one of his beautiful Colombian songs (we even got a signed cd to keep!). We had a great night and met some lovely, lovely people.

The rest of the week we spent eating, catching up on the blog and ticking little jobs off our list like buying Alex new trousers, trying crazy local frog spawn looking fruit drinks, going out for the best burger Alex has ever had at El Corral and watching The Avengers at the cinema. We had a great time, we slept soooo much and caught up with our jet lag, we made mushroom soup for the family and we were taken out for the afternoon by Hugo, Nora and Jaime which was just so nice.

We went to the famous Alpina plant where they make THE most delicious dairy products on Earth and we ate Arequipe until it came out of our
ears…mmmm! Arequipe is known to us in the UK as Dulce de Leche and is
my most favourite part of a bannoffee pie! Once we had filled our faces with sugary treats we popped into a hill top bakery for fresh bread and arepas and then on to see the city from La Calera view point which attracts thousands of visitors. People enjoy the vista with a glass of wine or a hot toddy like drink called a canelazo. The night we went up to the view point was the night of the super moon and as we drove up to the point the moon shone like a crazy thing and looked like we could reach out and touch it!

We had a lovely evening and felt just like part of the family. Sadly, before we knew it a week had whizzed by. Peggy was road ready and we had to say our farewells to the lovely Rubio family. They were so kind to us and there aren’t the words to thank them enough for their hospitality, generosity and genuine kindness.

Jaime took us back to Peggy and she shone like a new penny, she was washed and scrubbed up and ready to hit the road to Ecuador and I even had a little tear as we drove away from Jaime. He really looked after us in Bogota, making sure we made it in one piece to the hostel and also running us around all
week while Peggy was in the shop, we will miss him!

Once again we were on the road and free as birds…and as lost as ever.
It took us hours to get out of Bogota and we only made it 200km before we had to stop as it was dark. We pulled into a garage and bunkered down for the night, we had a long few days ahead.

Throughout our trip we have made lots of friends and a couple of those friends had been in touch with us about arranging us a wedding in Quito, Ecuador. We were obviously thrilled and agreed to anything they fancied doing. Elizabeth set about the task with fervour resulting in us having a date set for a ‘one time opportunity’ wedding in the capital of Ecuador…in 4 days! This meant we had 3 days to travel 1200 km…which doesn’t SOUND like alot but the roads between the cities were notoriously bad for flooding, dangerous accidents and more…as we discovered.
But, we were refreshed, Peggy was raring to go and we were super excited to get to Quito as we started day 1 of three of our latest big road trip.

We got an early start and as we packed away our Australia bags we found damp in the storage under the bed. Everything was mouldy and soaking wet. Not a great start. We propped the storage space open so it could dry out and had just started to ascend a hill resembling the side of a building when 20km in Peggy lost power and stopped.
This is where it all began.
There were construction workers nearby and we asked one of them for help in getting to a mechanic. Alex was promptly handed a pink helmet and told to get onto the back of the mans moped and they whizzed to a nearby mechanic. The mechanic couldn’t drive so called a taxi to bring him to Peggy. He tried and tried to fix her but nothing was working. Eventually after managing to drive several km with the engine cover off in the boiling sunshine he told us we would make it to Cali where we could get her fixed properly. He gave us his number and he drove away.

We however did not…she wouldn’t start.

We were (again) luckily near a small restaurant and they called him back for
us. He returned in his taxi, syphoned some fuel out of Peggy’s tank and took the engine cover back off. He came with us to the top of the hill (about 50km), with his taxi following us, all the while pouring petrol into the engine from the passenger seat. It was so hot and as we drove we could see the road through the engine. At one point our picture from Juan of the Colombian wedding fell from its place on the wall (above the engine) and into the noisy mechanical mouth and was spat onto the road flying along beneath Peggy. We swerved to a halt and luckily our wheels (and those of the taxi) had missed the poloroid and we recovered it unscathed.

We paid the mechanic the whopping $75 he demanded for getting us up the hill. I was furious and upset but there was nothing we could do, we just had to pay it and hope we made it down the other side of the mountain to the next mechanic to actually get Peggy fixed. We just couldn’t work out what was wrong! This was not a great start to our limited time roadtrip.

We rolled down the hill and hoped to find someone to fix our new problem…and fast!

Find out what happens next on our travelling wedding adventure!