Having conquered Punta Gallinas, I had some new found inspiration to get on the road and head to Ushuaia, The most southerly town in Argentina and one of my main goals of this trip. I hope to be there by Xmas. It’s 10,000kms if I take the shortest, straightest route which I obviously won’t be doing.

I have to admit that I still find this whole trip scary. Even though I’m well qualified for such an adventure I have waves of anxiety and doubt. Doing it on a motorbike doesn’t help. So I just push on regardless. But I decided not to push on too far and booked a hotel room on the south side of Cartagena for 2 nights. While I am still booked in and paid up in my current place for another week I decided to be able to pack up properly I needed some aircon for me, and a shaded cooler parking place for the bike. The Hotel Mar de Plata fitted the bill and was about $30AUD a night with aircon and a pool. And matching basin and chair. Like all the places I’ve stayed since I have been here it also had only a cold shower and no shower rose. None. Not one?

I still had too much luggage and so I made one trip over to the hotel in the morning with the extra bag and then returned in the afternoon with all my gear after I had said my goodbyes at Eco Arte Casa Yulda. Unfortunately, the half hour ride across town was done in a tropical downpour but at least I was able to test the waterproofing abilities of my luggage and the discover how wet my motor bike clothing gets if I don’t put the waterproof gear on over the top of it. I learn lessons every day.

It was nice to be able to spread my gear out and work in the cool. The bag on the right is all of my clothes for the year (excluding my motorbike safety clothing and what I’m wearing) I managed to minimalise enough stuff so that I could fit it all in my Mosko Moto luggage panniers. The left-over gear I had decided to send to a friend in Bogota. Fortunately, when I googled DHL, there was a depot only a five minute walk from my hotel. Most of the stuff I was going to send was the bags that I had used to get to Cartagena with all the new trip gear I’d bought in the States and which I will need again when I fly home.

It started out like this and after 5 minutes at DHL it looked like this. It was about $25AUD to send it which was great. And it arrived in a couple of days. DHL was in an industrial port area (slightly dodgy), as was my hotel but I still managed to find some nice food nearby and the biggest fresh fruit drink I have ever had. And I got my bike washed.

I was feeling chicken and probably still a little sore so decided to book in for an extra day in my cool hotel and do one of the tourist attractions I had been meaning to do since I first arrived in Cartagena. The Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas. It’s a huge landmark in Cartagena, just outside the old town and I had walked past it dozens of times. I don’t know why on one of those times I just didn’t go in and have a look around. Nope. I left it until the day I was leaving, which happened to be a Sunday and the place was packed.

It was still kind of cool though. It has a great view and probably a nice place to look out over the city and reflect on the 7 weeks I had spent here. The fortress was constructed in the mid 1600’s and with its towering views it was built to protect the city from all sides. It was built by African slaves under Colonial Spanish supervision. It must have been tough being an African slave. There was no real castle but series of tunnels and bunkers. It used to house 200 soldiers who I also guess had a tough life. It definitely paid host to many battles and invasions over the centuries. Like the Old City it was listed as a world heritage site in 1984.

Back to me now and not doing it tough without aircon. I took a couple of photos of a map that I had brought with me. I put them on my double bed for scale and marked out where I had been already. It was nowhere. It’s a huge continent and I have so far to go. I needed to get going. So next morning I did. By 10:00am I was on the road and on my way to Medellin. Google says it was 652kms and 12.5 hours of travel time. I decided to break it down so that I had two overnight stops. The adventure was beginning.