Südamerika mit Winnietwo

17.03.2020: Barichara

We got up at 7-30 am and, after breakfast, drove through road construction back to San Gil. We filled up with diesel, emptied our toilet, and went to the supermarket. Everything seemed to be normal, no one was panicking, and no one seemed to be worried at all. The shops were all open as usual, no queues or anything.

I stayed with the motorhome because we were parked in a taxi area - the multi storey car park had a height restriction and we're too tall to get in! Kirsten went shopping and was gone for over an hour! She came back with a huge trolley absolutely chock a block full!! She'd spent $170 US!! Holy moly!! Are we panic buying?? Well no, this was 4 to 6 weeks worth of shopping. We'd already seen that there were only really small shops in Barichara.

What she couldn't find was limes, cakes and juice. So I took the trolley back and then walked around and found those items in various small shops. Then we spent 90 minutes trying to do a Western Union transfer with a credit card and then a different card. Neither worked so we got money from an ATM using various cards. It's more expensive than a transfer but we didn't know when we'd be able to get money again.

Then we drove 6km south to the propane plant ... but it was closed! I'd already weighed both gas bottles whilst Kirsten was shopping and knew we had just over half of our maximum. That meant we could last for 2 to 3 months so it wasn't critical. Heading back to San Gil we stopped at another supermarket to buy some Ritz crackers and a drink. Next door was a small restaurant where we bought some fries for a late lunch.

Our next decision saved us from getting stuck in San Gil for 6 months! We found a different route back that cut out the city centre of San Gil. That sounds like a really simple decision but, unbeknownst to us, road blocks had already been set up because Santander, the province where we were, was already going into lockdown two days before the national lockdown.

By taking this shortcut we avoided a road block set up in San Gil town centre where we would've been stopped by the police and not allowed back to Barichara. We were blissfully unaware of this as we took the shortcut but then got stopped by the police at the entrance to Barichara. So when they told us no foreigners were allowed to enter, it came as a total shock! We could also tell that they were very tense when they saw us but visibly calmed down when we showed our passports to prove we'd been in Colombia for two months. They probably thought we'd just flown in from Europe and brought the virus with us!!!

We'd only left that morning and there hadn't been a road block then! Fortunately we could explain everything. Thank God we can talk reasonably well in Spanish and that we'd also arranged to stay at Guaimaro because we ended up having to phone Joep, the campground owner, (pronounced "hoop") and ask him to explain to the police that we could stay there.

Eventually we were allowed to go to the campground but we weren't allowed to stop anywhere in the town en route. (A bit ridiculous because we'd already spent two nights there!) So we had a police escort!! No kidding! We had to follow a police motorcyclist and sent a Whatsapp to Joep who met us at the gate. We had to wait whilst the police officer spoke to him, took his name and details, and told him that we were not allowed to leave the campground for 14 days!

Then we were allowed to drive up the steep sandy road. Despite being so heavy due to all the shopping, we made it up the hill. Julia, Joeps wife, opened the gate for us and we parked between two trees next to the water tap and electricity post at 3-45 pm. We spent over 2 hours talking, 2 metres apart (but without masks because that issue didn't come up until later and no one had any masks anyway!)

We also met Stefan from Germany and Lone from Belgium who are workaways - they get a place to stay with breakfast in return for working 20 hours a week i.e. 5 hours every weekday from 7 am to 1 pm including breaks. They've been there for three weeks and were due to fly to Mexico next week but that wasn't possible now!

Normally as campers we would be able to use a campground shower and bathroom and kitchen, shared with other campers and the workaways but we were now in quarantine for two weeks. Joep and Stefan spent the next 2 days digging a hole and setting up a dump toilet for us! That meant we could use our own toilet. We also hung out our solar shower - the motorhome and trees blocked peoples view! (Mind you, who would want to see two naked old biddies!!)

Back in our motorhome it took us a long time to put all our shopping away. We had hoped to use the campground fridge but that's not possible now so some things had to be left in the coolest place. We set up our mozzie net again so we could get some sleep. Would we wake up in the morning and find out that this had all been a nightmare?

18.03. - 12.08.2020: Guaimaro Campground near Barichara

We had no idea what was going to happen. It was the start of a very uncertain future. But most of the world was experiencing the same thing. There were so many questions but no answers.

Starting from midnight on Tuesday, 24th March, Colombia declared a 19-day nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of Coronavirus. At that point there were 378 confirmed Coronavirus cases and 3 deaths in the country.

Stefan and Lone, the workaways, made a last minute decision to go back to Germany and stay with Stefan's family and got onto one of the last flights out of Bogotá. On arrival in Germany Lone, who is Belgian, was not allowed to enter the country and was escorted to a Brussels Airline counter to buy a flight to Belgium. What a mess! Seperated during the corona crisis - not a good idea. Who knows how long it's all going to last?

We decided to stay in Colombia for as long as it takes along with another 100,000 foreigners. We have nowhere else to go and found a good place to sit it all out. Our visa has been suspended and President Duque has already announced that all airports will be closed until at least May, 30th.

All in all we spent 5 interesting months at Guaimaro and then decided to rent a small place on the other side of Barichara (see next report).