Well it was a most excellent trip- 5 full days of driving through some of the best parts of Colombia
Los llanos is part of the drainage for the orinoco river a largely flat palin with long grass, morichals, lakes and rivers wide enough to transport tons of Beef up river to the mountains and the main cities.
There are more cows than people, with wide expanses of farm land covered mostly with a foot or so of water as right now it full winter.
Our group consisted of the following trucks for you technical chaps
Landrcruisers 80 series...4 units
Nissan patrol 2 units
and the Tortuga......a little Vitara !
Two of the vehicles in our group were from Ecuador- they had driven for three solid days just to get to Bogota for the start.
Main mechanical issues that occured during the trip were the following;
2 radiators with leaks
1 clutch hydraulic line sprung a leak
1 rotor cap / rotor body sprung a leak
1 drowned engine
1 AC pully bearing failure
1 blown engine
I taxied from my house to the leaders at 4.30am
The ecuadorians had just arrived from their motorway slog, and were busy showering and freshening up
last minute gear issue and loading up was being completed, some had not slept much in days
The Bogotanians split the driving of the first stretchs between the people who'd slept well to give some people some rest.
The ecuadorians were snoring by the time we hit the highway south to the meet point
The start was an army barracks in Bogota where there is a cenotaph to the fallen heroes of the military units fighting against the Farc and the cartels.
registration was carried out and the grid points downloaded onto the GPS units.
Although we were part of the "rally" the leader had chosen a different route for the first few days , rather than hitting KMs of boring dirt roads he'd chosen to repeat a route from a previous year, bring us through more interesting terrain duing the first days.
This plan was our undoing..
While the main group swung east out of Bogota we swung north along the mountains and dropped down into the Llanos at Yopal
arriving at 2am at a campsite near the end of the pavement.
4am and dinner was finished and the hammocks slung from the roofs.
06.30hrs a storm blew through with horizontal rain and winds, destroying what had been a peacefull night.
Wet cold and trying to hide from the wind - we waited almost two hours for calm
Most people had been flooded out drying gear was hung everywhere.
Note to self- use the hammock cover even if under a roof !
Fridays start was late- of to the garage for filling up with gas and the last supplies
todays drive was just about only 150km
We were due in La hermosa that night
By the time the whole group had got ready it was almost 12pm - a sad time to start with only trails ahead of us and unknown conditions
the rally route had been checked.......this was unknown territory.
Amongst the group I identified at least 3 people carrying pistols..........after investigation they were ex military working for a UK security company- their two trucks were also bullet proofed level 2
Farc are known to operate in Los llanos !
1 hr into the trail the ironman patrol blows its radiator after its fans failed
beers came out -music while the crew worked to fix both the issues
a cable was dury rigged for the engine fans and resin for the radiator.
AC was deemed to risky to use so why the truck was being repaired floor mats were turned into mud flaps so they ride with the windows open !
First river crossing we drowned the electrical system of the Vitara, a spare alternator was fitted
Night fell along with torrential rain
navigating the trail full of water at night was a challenge- no way of knowing what lay beneath the water, mutiple stucks and tows were carried out.
at the rivers two guys wet ahead and walked the route, we decided to tow the vitara across engine off to limit the splashing
arround 12pm the lead car blew its radiator too we corraled the trucks and slept in the seats while half the atlantic emptied its self onto the plains.
A lights up the repair crew started on radiator two
1 car set off to reconoiter the route ahead.........with an early mornings enthusiasm he complete drowned his patrol
with the radios soaked he set off on foot back to the rest of the trucks for an urgent tow out.
By the time he made it too the group we back up and running using river water for the cooling system.
The patrol looked to be in a sorry state, if he'd hydrolocked the truck, I was worried about how we were going to tow him back out- as it was the blindado one too weighing an extra ton.
Plugs were pulled, rotor and distributer stripped and dried in the sun
luckily the engine still turned over.....drying and cleaning carried on while a local farmer arrived by canoe
he had not seen a car on this track for over 3 months...........
Bartering was discussed and he came back with his family and two pig hind legs which were rapidly striped cooked and eaten by the group.
a little more bartering later and we had secured another crossing in a shallower area, with the locals dropping fences for us to get there.