Baru, Colombia, South America

I slept pretty well on a trundle bed in the same room as Juan last night. I think it was because I was just so exhausted from not sleeping the night before. I wasn’t thrilled when my alarm went off at 2:45am though. We got up, got our stuff together and were ready to leave for 3am. The women however, were not so punctual. We finally left the hotel at 3:45am to head toward Baru. Before we could get on the road though, Melissa had to maneuver her big car out of the tightest parking lot I’ve ever seen. Luckily she has a lot of practice from parking her car in Bogota, because I couldn’t have done what she did to get it out of that lot.

Melissa decided to drive the whole way to Baru today, so I had the front seat all the way. That didn’t really stop me from falling asleep though. Luckily Melissa didn’t need much copiloting along the way, because I was little to no help for the beginning of the journey. Unluckily, something happened to Melissa’s car where she lost the turbo in it, so it made it really difficult for her to gain speed quickly and pass people. At the same time, her car starting spewing black smoke, so we got a little worried about how serious the problem was.

We stopped at a mechanic in a small town on the way and had a guy work on it for about an hour while we got breakfast. There was a tube that was used for pushing air into the turbo system, and it had become disconnected. That would explain was the pop and hiss sound was that I heard when the problem first manifested. He took the whole pip out to make sure there was nothing wrong with it, then reconnected it and added a bunch of zip ties to make sure it would stay connected.

After breakfast, we headed off and and within about ten minutes, the same thing happened again. Pop. Hiss. No turbo. The thing that worried me was the black smoke. It’s very possible that it was nothing serious, but without knowing, it made me nervous that we were going to continue five more hours to Cartagena without getting it checked. We decided to stop in a small town on the way and get it looked at again.

They said the tube got disconnected again somehow, and that the black smoke was due to some watered down gas that had been put in the car. I guess that’s something that we just don’t have to worry about in the States or the UK, but here you can get watered down gas at a big station. Crazy. So we paid to get it fixed there too, and then headed off again, only to have the same thing happen about ten minutes down the road again.

Since we were so far behind schedule, they decided that they wanted to just keep heading toward Cartagena and Baru instead of stopping again to have it looked at. So five hours later we ended up in Cartagena. Melissa had bought me a really nice pair of linen trousers for Christmas, but they were too big, so we needed to exchange them and there was a store in Cartagena to do it at. We went to the mall, exchanged the pants, and then left for Baru. After leaving Aguachica at 3:45am, we finally pulled into the Royal Decameron Resort at 6pm. We were all tired and hungry, but really happy to finally be here and not have to worry about getting in a car again for a few days.

This place is paradise though. You could tell just how amazing it was going to be from the lobby and the bar. And as soon as Juan and I got our bracelets for the free drinks, we went straight to the bar for a couple of mojitos to set the trip off on the right foot. We have three rooms here at the resort. One is for Paola, her mom Leo, and Grandma. The second room is for the Jaramillos (Melissa, Vanessa, and Luz Mery). And the third room is for Juan and me.

The rooms are amazing! We have two huge queen beds, a nice balcony, and very nice big shower. This is a heck of a change from all the hostels I’ve been staying in, that’s for sure. Our bags were delivered to our rooms, and we just dropped them there and headed down to the restaurant for dinner. We went to the big restaurant called Portonao where there is always a buffet open, and you can sit anywhere. There are other restaurants, but you need to book in advance for those.

The buffet dinner was really good, and Melissa even managed to get me out on the dance floor for a few songs before the live band finished for the night. After dinner, Melissa and I had a drink at the bar, and then headed down to the show to meet the rest of the family. There is a show they put on every night at this little outdoor theatre. It consisted of dancing and some comedy that represented a few different countries. It was a nice way to finish off the day, but I think I fell asleep about eight times in the one hour show. I was exhausted, so right after the show I came back to the room for a shower, and now it’s straight to bed for me. Sitting in a car for 14 hours shouldn’t be too exhausting, but it really is! At least tomorrow I don’t have to get up early for anything. Vacation really starts then… 🙂