On our last day in Panama City Alex and I had found a restaurant that we would really like to eat at. It is known for its local produce and a chef whose “inspiration for the dishes…comes from many sources: from the roots of the owner Manuel Madueno, the Barbate fishermen of his Andalusian childhood, from travels, and from encounters, with influences from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.”
This sounded like a place we would really enjoy and if we had ever deserved a treat (okay…maybe we had a few treats but MAN did we deserve it) it was now.
We set out to go for there for lunch and of course when we arrived…it was closed! I was yet again defeated and it was the last straw for me. I spat my dummy out and had a paddy there in the street. Alex as ever calmed me down and we went and got a beer and a snack. Alex left me sat in the bar and disappeared and said he would be back soon with a surprise. He returned with a clanking carrier bag and disappeared into the washroom. He came back out, grabbed my hand and led me to the waters edge. We sat on the sea wall and he pulled a bottle of cheap wine, a chocolate bar and 2 wine glasses out of his carrier bag. He is still my knight in shining armour after all of this time. We spent the afternoon sat in the sun drinking wine and talking about our future and all of the things we have achieved already on our trip. We are just so lucky to have each other and to want the same things…even when it comes to just needing a break from realtiy!
Once we had polished off the wine it was time to go for dinner. We were sat at a lovely table in the restaurant and browsed the wine cellar. There was no menu which was a really exciting experience. Not knowing what is going to be put in front of you is really exhilerating and we looked forward to our meal. Alex ordered another bottle of wine and we tucked in to our 8 courses of weird and wonderful food. We staggered back to our hotel and Gaby and Hiske laughed at us as they thought we had gotten lost as we went out lunch and didn’t get back until 9pm! It was a lovely day and we went to bed looking forward to getting the hell out of dodge the next day. We had an early start to get to the airport and were soon to arrive in Cartegena! Finally, we were going to escape Panama City!
Its such a shame our experience of Panama City was so negative as we had loved the rest of Panama, the Cloud forests, the beach and of course meeting Gaby and Hiske and Tineke and Jose. We boarded the plane with smiles on our faces and anticipated the beautiful Cartegena and of course dreaded getting Peggy and Ravy off the ferry at the other end but thats another story which of course I will tell you!!! Like it or not!
We made it to Colombia!!! BUT…As soon as we landed in Cartegena it started again. We went to find a hostel and they were full so we just went into each hotel/hostel on the street until we found one we could a) afford and b) wasn’t full. Luckily it wasn’t so long before we stumbled upon a little gem. A little hotel with a room for 4, a kitchen and 5 minutes walk front he walled city. We dumped our bags and decided to start as we meant to go on and to go directly to the port to try to get the ball rolling with getting Peggy and Ravy off the ferry. I have failed to tell you that our container didn’t get the ferry it was supposed to, it went the following day which meant it would arrive the same day that we did in Cartegena! You may think this is a good thing but that is where you are wrong…we had hoped that the container would at least be OFF the ferry but instead we had to fight to even get it off the damn thing. We arrived at the port office and sat in a room with 5 people working and ignoring us and finally someone ushered us into a tiny room where we met the 2 idiots dealing with our shipping. It was like they had never done this before and between English and Spanish the conversation went backwards and forwards between the two of them asthough we weren’t in the room. Eventually they addressed us and started by explaining that the costs would be higher than we had originally agreed. I saw the red mist form in front of Alex’s eyes as he asked why. The whole thing was the mans own fault for not communicating price changes with the Panama office and Alex refused point blank to pay it. I dared to ask how much the price increase was, dreading the answer. It was $50. We agreed to pay half as we thought the port man was going to cry!!
The whole thing was a complete sham and god help anyone else going through this right now! Its a wonder anything ever gets from Panama to Colombia or visa versa I have never known anything like it. Alex completes the whole saga here. The videos may not be very interesting unless you want to either commit suicide by shipping a vehicle or if you want to talk yourself out of shipping anything…ever! But we will attach them for these purposes anyway (not the suicide purpose) and because I can’t bear to talk you through it all!

Anyhoo, long story short, we had a few days to enjoy Cartegena while we waited for yet more incompetent fools to get our vehicles off the ferry. We met up with Tineke and Jose again and we all went out for Colombian food. Alex went to the beach with the gang while I read my book and came back having had a massage which nearly broke his back, we mooched the walled city streets and enjoyed the gold museum. We saw a hundred robocops guarding the streets as the President was in town and we ALMOST went to a mud volacno. We had a lovely time in Cartegena around trying to sort out getting Peggy and Ravy back and when the boys finally pulled up outside the hotel I physically jumped for joy!!!

We grabbed our bags and jumped into our long missed vehicles. We drove back to the port to finalise payments, which of course was a nightmare and resulted in the man in charge throwing a paddy and walking out of the office all because of the exchange rate. We had agreed a fixed price and then he decided we would pay in accordance with the exchange rate which would again increase the price by another $50. We had all had enough by this point and eventually we scraped enough together to pay him in dollars so to avoid the exchange rate difference. Two can play that game. We left angry but relieved to have our vehicles back. We left Cartegena and hit the long road to Mompox. Our day wasn’t over yet. As it got dark we pulled into a hotel and asked if we could camp there. It wasn’t a flash hotel by any stretch but we were in the middle of nowhere and the woman saw us coming. She charged us over the odds to stay in our van and for Gaby and Hiske to stay in their tent. We had no choice and just stayed and hoped the next day things would improve!
Of course we should just know better by now. The next day we completed our journey to Mompox via a car and passenger ferry across the river. There were 2 choices of ferry times, either 2pm or 4pm. We raced to get there by 2pm and made it in the nick of time to learn that the ferry went at 4 today. So we sat for the 2 hours in the red hot sunshine and wondered if the ferry had a ramp as the dirt road leading into the river just didn’t look so appealing. While we waited, a football team of 15 year olds showed up to get the ferry. They started chatting to Alex and Gaby and before I know it I had 25 15 year olds climbing all over the van. They leaned into the windows, wanted to have pictures taken with us, they wanted a ride in the van, to see where we lived, to write in the dirt on Peggy’s windows and mainly to chat with us which was so difficult as we still speak very little Spanish and they didn’t speak English so we managed for the 40 minutes that were left while we waited for the ferry and then once we had boarded the ferry they all came back and tried to speak to us all the way to Mompox…for the hour and a half of the crossing. It was exhausting but hilarious!

We finally arrived in the tiny little village in the middle of nowhere. We had decided to go there as they have very elaborate Semana Santa celebrations and of course, it was the first weekend of the holidays!
We had made reservations at the hostel and weren’t even shocked when the owner told us he was fully booked and wouldn’t be able to accomodate us. It was dark and was still almost 100 degrees. We thought about staying in the van but that wouldn’t help Gaby and Hiske as there was nowhere to pitch a tent AND I also thought why should we stay in the van?! We had made a reservation! We stood our ground and the owner eventually said he had one room free in the whole hotel but it was the best room in the building. We asked the price which was ridiculous and we eventually made him feel so sorry for us that he gave us the room for the price of our reservation. We skipped into our room for 4, put the fan on until we were cold and then got HOT showers! It was great!!!
Alex and Gaby went to get us some dinner and came back with pigs ears on boiled potatoes, you just cant ALWAYS trust them can you?!
We had a terrible nights sleep as the fan sounded like a helicopter landing in the room and I know that by now you must think I am dramatising all of this and that surely it cant have all been THAT bad! But I kid you not, we seriously went through all of this and its not until I write it down that I wonder how I didn’t cry constantly for those few weeks as truly they were a none-stop nightmare!!
We quickly worked out that whatever was going to be happening for Semana Santa in Mompox wasn’t going to happen while we were there so we stayed 2 nights and hit the dirt track to get out of there. We were enjoying Colombia already more than we had ever anticipated even though the odd nightmare kept us on our toes. We felt safer than we had for a long time and the towns were all immaculate and beautiful and the people were all really, really friendly. We looked forward to our run of bad luck coming to an end as we drove along the dust track in the sunshine on our way to San Gil, the next stop on our Colombian adventure!

Find out what happens next on our travelling wedding adventure!