Panamericana road trip memories 10

Team 68
Colombia is without a doubt the most beautiful country on this trip. Ecuador is lovely too, but a bit more charming. Here, the salsa seems to burst from everyone’s pores. Thousands of people have settled along the Pan-American Highway in the hope of scraping a living. They’re cheeky, laughing and waving at us, shouting, whistling and begging. They damage the road surface, then stand there with a spade as if they were ‘road workers’ and hold out their hands. They live in huts, sometimes made of stone and painted in all the bright colours of the rainbow. They draw water from the many waterfalls, call themselves ‘car washes’ and wash the lorries. The rest sit, lie about and laze around a bit. We drove through this enchanting, subtropical landscape for most of the day. At lunchtime, we enjoyed a lovely meal under a thatched roof, the table laden with grilled delicacies.

Team 60
It’s all over. The experiences we’ve had have been, in a word, brilliant! I’d like to say one more thing about Colombia. We’d always had the impression that this was a bad country, a place you really shouldn’t visit. It’s mainly been portrayed in a negative light by the media. Of course, there are crime-ridden neighbourhoods in the big cities, but the remaining 90 per cent of the country and its people are, in a word, fantastic.

It’s time for the car to reach the finish line too. There are more and more of those little niggles. The boot lid keeps springing open, and Henry has to crawl over the luggage again to close it. We’ve made it, and without a scratch or a dent! Our odometer reads 16,823 km! Everyone is happy and satisfied, but above all tired, and I think most of us are only now really ready for a proper holiday.