After a rum or two the owner of the camp came over a told us that he was going to light a fire of friendship in the fire pit and would we like to come along. Juan the owner had heard from Gaby and Hiske about our last few days and he thought that we deserved it. We headed on over and met a few Colombian couples that had come to the campsite on holiday for Semana Santa. We shared stories and one of the guys from the campsite pulled out a guitar and played us some Colombian music whist singing along. He passed it over to Gaby who eagerly played the first 6 cords of ‘Enter the sandman’ and passed it to me. I strummed it like a mad man being half a bottle of rum in and passed it along quickly! Next was dancing. A car was pulled up, the boot opened and the music started booming. It was nice to be on this end of noise pollution as usually we are sat in the van trying to get some sleep after a long day. Lisa got up (reluctantly) and struted her stuff with the Colombian dancer and then Hiske took her turn… Someone turned up with some aguardiente, their version of ‘Ouzo’ myself and Gaby kindly accepted and I went to get our Mexican coffee tequila in return of the kindness. The Aguardiente and Tequila flowed and we chatted and danced the night away around the fire.

We woke at 8am and moments later there was a knock at the door, it was a lady with some fresh coffee and bread! Needless to say once she had gone the first cup fell straight over onto Peggys fabric seat and was absorbed before I even noticed. Not even blinking a eye lid we got up and made plans. We had decided that it was best for Gaby and Hiske to head on without us as we had no idea what was wrong with the brakes and they also had falled behind schedule. We said our sad goodbyes and promised to catch up in Holland for a wedding. After spending almost a month traveling with these guys it was hard to see them go.

Juan called his friend at the mechanics and drew us a map we thanked him repeatedly for his kindness. We headed still brake-less, slowly downhill into town. Typically we took a scary wrong turn and went up what can only be called a wall of a road. We turned around at the top as the mechanic was clearly not there and had to crawl back down flicking between drive and reverse with the hand break applied constantly. I think Lisa wet herself a bit, I know I did. We made it down and quickly found the mechanics just 100m past our wrong turn. It was a normal garage with 10 dirty men stood outside watching the world going by. They had no idea what I was saying. It turns out north Colombia has a strong Spanish accent, kind of like Liverpool or Newcastle. The owner called his daughter ‘Lady Katie’ (a cool name that Katie did not like at all) so that she could translate for us. Katie came to the rescue and the guys went to work. They ordered the parts and we went for lunch.

We returned to find they could not get the parts but had ordered some ‘similar’ parts and would make them fit. It seems the normal way south of the US. Lisa and Katie chatted for hours and at 5.30pm Peggy was back to her usual perfect self. After 10 seconds of thinking we decided to return to Juan and his hospitality. Of course he welcomed us with open arms and brought us hot chocolate and biscuits. This I did not spill on the seat! Lisa had sat on the coffee stained seat 3 times during our long day and had a coffee coloured bum.

The next day we said goodbye to Juan..again and headed off to Barichara and found the beautiful little town hidden in the hills. We wandered the steep cobbled  streets, visited the parks and went to try the ‘Hormigas culonas’ which are fat bottomed ants and the local speciality. Sadly the restaurant were all out of the little blighters and we settled for Steak. It was a shame as we had been bitten hundreds of times by ants over the last 5 months and were looking forward to getting our own back! Again after a long day we couldn’t resist returning to Juan’s campsite. He laughed on our return and said we just couldn’t bear to leave! Kind of true. He said we should eat in his restaurant and it seemed like a good idea after a chilled out day. Remembering Lisa’s coffee coloured jeans I asked Juan if we could do our laundry. He said he couldnt do it beacause they did it all by hand and we had to leave early the following morning. Halfway back to the van Juan came running out and said that one of the ladies had said she would stay late and do it. We thanked him profusely again, I handed over the washing and we headed for dinner.

The following morning we woke to the rain, I went over to pick up the laundry as we wanted to hit the road and get some miles under our belts. Juan came out and said it was not dry yet. I had stupidly thought they would have a dryer as it rains almost every day in the hills of Colombia. They didn’t and the clothes where so wet I had to wring them out! Using the straps we had from shipping the vehicles across the gap We made a makeshift chinese laundry in Peggy and headed off to Villa De Leyva…sigh…nothing is easy!

Find out what happens next in our travelling wedding adventure!