The dust track to get out of Mompox went on forever and ever and we spent the whole day driving to get as near to San Gil as we could. We stopped for lunch in a tiny road side village and had ‘Comida Tipica’ which is a huge bowl of thick meat soup packed with Banana, onions, yuca, carrots and a big lump of nondescript meat, followed by pan fried meat, fish or chicken with rice, salad (tomato and onions) and a fried banana or plantain, all washed down with liquados which is literally fruit whizzed in the blender with either ice or milk.
We stumbled out of there feeling like we would never be hungry again and Peggy wouldn’t start. She started and sputtered a bit and stopped. We tried again and the same happened. She was starting and would ony run if the revs were high. We managed to get her to the fuel station and as we filled her up 5 police officers came over to say hi. They were on their lunch break and were excited as they asked if they could have their pictures taken with us and Peggy. We all stood together in front of Peggy and had some snaps and then tried to get her started again. It was like she was trying to save face in front of the locals and she started up and was ready to go. We waved to our new friends and
carried on our long way.
Just before dark we decided to call it a day and head into the next place we could find, that happened to be a balineros which is basically a big garden at the side of the river which people pay to go and use in the holidays. Like the beach but with grass. The owner was happy for us to stay the night and we were so tired after our day driving that we hit the hay extremely early ready for a good early start to the next day.
Of course the day started but Peggy would not.
Firstly her battery was completely flat, Alex had decided to experiment with running the fridge off the van battery as we were again out of gas and had been without a fridge or cooker for a while…clearly this had not worked…(I hate to say I told you so, BUT, I told you so!), luckily Gaby and Hiske were still with us and we jumped Peggy to get her started. After charging for a while she started and then spluttered to a depressingly terrible halt.
It was like she even shuddered with sadness that she could no longer go on. As we had been trying to get her started the Balineros had started to fill with families enjoying the Semana Santa holidays. They all came over and said hi and introduced themselves and enquired about where we were from, where we were going and if we liked it in Colombia. They were all so friendly and happy it was a lovely atmosphere. They all emptied out their cars and lit fires by the river and put their huge pans on to start cooking the earlier described soup lunch. The kids jumped in the shallow river and splashed around while the parents built a damn to fill one side of the river full enough for everyone to swim. One of the guys came over and asked if we needed any help with starting Peggy and he packed Alex and Gaby into the car and to the garage to collect a mechanic. The mechanic rocked up on a scooter and gently pulled Peggy’s heart out. He sat and took it apart piece by piece and cleaned it lovingly and put it all back together again. He disappeared with her black, fly ridden air filter and returned with it sparkling clean and put it back in. He had cleaned up the carburetta and she purred like a cosy cat in front of the fire yet again.What a relief that it was a relatively easy fix and of course it was a cheap fix ($30) and with that we hit the road yet again to finally reach our intended destination.
HA!!!
Who was I trying to kid?
We were driving for a whole half an hour before the brakes failed!
We were about to drive over the Chicamocha Canyon which is unbelievably
high (1,450 meters high) and slithers around the edge of the mountain tops like a neverending slithering thing. We were luckily at the base of said ridge of mountains and driving at only 15 mph when the brakes completely failed.
Alex totally freaked out, his eyes bulged, his knuckles went white as he clutched the steering wheel and his knee rapidly pumped up and down as he repeatedly slammed the brake pedal. He screamed “the brakes, the brakes, they don’t work!!!” (with a few edited choice words) I calmly pointed out that we were on a flat bit of road and rolling slowly towards a gravel turn out where we would be able to use the gears to stop.
We came to a slow standstill and sat in silence as Alex caught his breath. Of course Gaby and Hiske had been in front of us so they were long gone and we were, it seemed, in the middle of nowhere! Where would this run of terrible luck end???
We sat and thought about our predicament as lorries and cars whizzed past us on the busy road to our left and the canyon edge dropped away to our right. Eventually we decided that Alex should walk back towards a toll we had recently passed through and ask for help. He left me in the van in case Gaby and Hiske came back and armed me with pepper spray in case the worlds friendliest people so far tried to ‘friend’ me to death.

Within a minute of him leaving, Gaby and Hiske came back to find us. I explained what had happened and Gaby set off to find Alex to find a mechanic with him.

Within a minute of Gaby leaving Alex turned up on the back of a moped with a mechanic…but no sign of Gaby.

The mechanic got to work on the brakes and Hiske walked to go to find Gaby! What a day!
The mechanic wouldn’t or couldn’t speak and would only mime in Spanish so it was extremely difficult to work out what was happening. Gaby and Hiske soon returned and we told them to get going. We were really holding them up and it was starting to get late and we had no idea where we were going to spend the night or even if we would get going again. They agreed to tie a red ribbon on the fence of wherever they stayed for the night so we could find them if we got back on the road. We said our goodbyes, they lent us some money as we had
absolutely no cash on us and we waved as they set off.After an hour of playing around with the wheels, the brakes, filling the brake fluid and whatever else he could think of the mechanic gave up. He mimed at us that the next garage was in San Gil…over the Chicamocha Canyon and 80km away!!! We just had no idea what to do but the mechanic kept on miming that it was up all the way to San Gil so we would be fine to go without any brakes!

(insert manic, nervous laugh here)

We paid him and he left on his moped and we looked at each other and decided telepathically that we had no choice, we would have to go with it and hope he wasn’t lying. We waited for a gap in the traffic and slowly set off at a snails pace.
The road did indeed go up, and up, and up…the road wound wildly along the dangerously steep edges of the canyon (which is deeper than the famous Colorado Canyon) as we tootled along as slowly as we dare, pulling over at every opportunity to let the cars pass. Luckily alot of the traffic was the heavy slow sort so it wasn’t so bad. Alex kept trying the brakes as we rolled slowly along and they did show a teeny eeny weeny bit of resistance…luckily so as towards the end of the looooonnngg road, with amazing views I might add, the up…started to come down.
By this point we were so over the panic of driving at a snails pace for 80 km that we just carried on regardless. By some miracle of holy proportions we were driving along a flat pice of road when we saw a red ribbon blowing in the wind…Gaby and Hiske! We pulled over into the field to see them running towards us waving their arms. We poured out of Peggy with jelly legs as the adrenaline had worn off and regaled them with our horror story! We broke out the rum that was left from the Belize wedding and raised our glasses to surviving the Chicamocha canyon sin frenos!

Find out what happens next on our travelling wedding adventure!