Mexico to Colombia - via Colorado

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We reluctantly left San Miguel de Allende (and our clay tennis court lifestyle) at the beginning of May, travelling in convoy with Jen, Gav and Ruby the Land Rover to the US-Mexico border. Our last night in Mexico was spent at a campground in Potrero Chico, popular with climbers from all over the world who come to scale its enormous cliffs. Jen and Gav very kindly threw me an early 40th birthday party, complete with cake, candles and a 'tuneful' rendition of happy birthday, and I spent the rest of the night explaining to all the campground well-wishers that the actual day was still 3 weeks away! I wanted to cling on to every last day of being in my 30s, after all!

Crossing the border was uneventful, and we didn't even see the office where we were supposed to hand in our immigration cards to the Mexican border officials, so were never officially stamped out of Mexico. Jen and Gav aroused a little more suspicion, being British and all that, and were subjected to a more thorough questioning and vehicle inspection. We all met up at a state park just outside of Laredo, Texas, and spent an enjoyable night reminiscing about our days in Mexico and lamenting the high cost of everything back in the States. We then travelled towards San Antonio, and spent a last night together in a cheap hotel in Cotulla, with a few final rounds of 'Golf' (our favourite card game) and some inevitable mocking of Ken's Americanisms, before saying a fond farewell to our new dear friends, who were flying back to the UK shortly afterwards.

The following month has been much more eventful than our border crossing. First, after months of reliability in Mexico, our truck broke down outside a remote, little town in New Mexico at 8pm on a Friday night. The alternator had burned out, so we literally came to a stop when all power was lost to the truck, and Ken just managed to pull off the road onto a scrubby patch of dirt before out trusty companion died. We were already morosely entertaining thoughts of being stuck in this little town until at least the following Monday, but decided to try to call a towing truck to at least take us to a hotel for the weekend. The sequence of events that then unfolded were surprisingly un-American, and very much Mexican... in a good way. A friendly tow truck operator named Carlos came to tow us, and then his mate Alan showed up, who happened to be a car mechanic and helpfully offered to get us back on the road that night. Alan first had to drive home to deliver some ice cream to his family, and told us to meet him at his work shop down the road. "It's in a dodgy area," he said, "near to a crack house, but don't worry - you'll be fine if you stay close to me." Any reservations we had about this dubious statement were quickly quashed by our desire to get back on the road as quickly as possible, so we dutifully let Carlos tow us to Alan's workshop. Within 10 minutes, another guy looking very much like a burly, heavily-tattooed, nightclub bouncer drove up with a brand new alternator (at 9pm on a Friday?!!) and Alan quickly got to work. We asked no questions, Ken held a torch for Alan to help him work in the dark, and within an hour and a hefty amount of money later (cash only transaction!) our truck was fixed and we were back on our way! Definitely the kind of thing that would happen in Mexico, but not so much in the States...it was great! We really owe Alan a debt of gratitude for opening his shop on a Friday night to get our truck back up and running.

So with a brand new alternator we did a few long days of driving to get back to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, where we then camped in our front driveway for 12 nights as we emptied out our house of all personal effects, and put everything into a storage unit. Our neighbours were a little surprised that we opted to sleep in Tortuga rather than our own house, but it was more practical to keep the house clean and tidy for viewings, and to keep all our travelling stuff in Tortuga so we didn't get it mixed up. It was actually quite fun, and we enjoyed being able to meet up with some of our friends while there. Our neighbours Paula and Jo even put on a Royal Wedding viewing party for me on the 20th (Ken did not attend, opting to drink beers with a couple of buddies of his in town), complete with homemade scones, a wedding cake, wedding flowers and plenty of wine! We also took advantage of the good weather to do a couple of our old favourite hikes, and scattered some of Goldie's well-travelled ashes along the trails.

The day we left Pagosa, we received an email from our shipping agent saying that the vessel we were booked onto was no longer stopping in Colombia. Well that was a bit unexpected, as we'd been planning on travelling straight down to Houston and putting Tortuga to sea shortly thereafter. So after a great deal of back and forth with the agent, we are now booked onto a later shipping date, and will be dropping off Tortuga in Houston around the 20th June and then flying ourselves to Colombia. Anyway, we had already booked into a hotel in northern New Mexico for my real 40th birthday, so we spent a lovely couple of nights at the Columbine Inn near Taos ski village, and climbed Wheeler Peak on the day, the highest peak in New Mexico at 13,100ft. It was a gorgeous day and we had the summit all to ourselves and were able to linger up high, out of the wind, to enjoy the amazing views. The hotel even had an outdoor hot tub, so we soaked our sore muscles later that night and enjoyed the luxury of being in a hotel room with ensuite bathroom and fluffy white towels!

While in Pagosa, I also decided to get my follow up ultrasound scan to check that everything is still ok after my surgeries last year. It turns out that I have a new, small growth, which may necessitate follow-up surgery at some point, but which the doctors are happy enough to keep monitoring for the time being. So I was quite relieved to find out that we can still travel to Colombia as long as I get regular scans down there! At present, we hope to spend several months exploring Colombia, initially backpacking until we are reunited with Tortuga in Cartagena, and then drive down through the Andean countries all the way to Chile. We'll probably spend the next couple of weeks in northern New Mexico, staying away from the heat of Texas until we are closer to our shipping time. The irony that after seven months on the road, we are only a 3-hour drive from home, is not lost on us, but such is the nature of overland travel - plans change, and we're happy to have finally sorted out our house in Colorado so that we can now complete the sale remotely! We'll post another blog once we arrive in Colombia towards the end of the month. Thanks for following our travels and we hope you have enjoyed reading this post. Check out the additional photos below: there should be 15 in total.

Cheers

~ Fi and Ken

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Photos

Last night in Mexico
Ruby and Tortuga at Potrero Chico, with the enormous cliffs behind.

Leaving Mexico
Jen and Gav fending off last-minute hammock vendors at the border

Waterproofing the roof
Ken does a spot of DIY on Tortuga's occasionally leaky roof. Garner State Park, Texas.

Poorly Tortuga!
Carlos loads Tortuga onto his tow truck in Clovis, New Mexico.

Late night repairs
Alan puts a new alternator into Tortuga

Desert campsite
On the way back to Pagosa, in northern New Mexico

Royal Wedding Viewing Party with Paula and Jo
Watching the nuptuals between Prince Harry and Meghan, with a little bit (a lot) of wine.

Piedra River trail, near Pagosa Springs
This was one of our favourite hikes, so we decided to do it one last time.

Sprinkling Goldie's ashes
Piedra river trail was also one of Goldie's favourite hikes, so we sprinkled some of her ashes here.

40 years old, at 13,100ft above sea level!
Wheeler Peak, northern New Mexico

Wild Rivers recreation area
We camped here for a few nights after leaving Pagosa. A beautiful spot where the Rio Grande and Red River meet, cutting stunning deep gorges through the high desert.

Fi at the Rio Grande
This is the same river that marks a long portion of the US-Mexico border, and which we drove across at Laredo.

Red River campground
This is where we currently are, waiting to ship down to Colombia.

Comments

[Gayle Dixon]

Safe Travels!
Have fun on the new adventure!