There were frequent military road patrols where an inspection for guns and drugs would be made, but as we were members of the London – Mexico Rally they simply peered into the car and waved us on, whereupon, having had several of these, I decided this was too much time wasting and besides we were still racing with Alberto and John Smallwood who were no doubt bounding along in the gloom somewhere close behind. I therefore decided not to stop at one of these road patrols and slithered by with a wave at about 25mph only to be met 100yds up the road by a soldier standing in the middle of the road offering a machine gun towards our window; we stopped. A young officer came up to our open window and seeing we were of the Rally, waved us on wishing us good luck in the race.
We were driving alone by the dark of night in Colombia but apart from stopping to buy petrol in a little village and those obligatory stops by the army, we had no contact with the Colombians. As we sped through the countryside passing the little roadside villages, all illuminated by kerosene lamps or naked tungsten bulbs, we observed a typical jungle way of life and were oblivious of any dangers despite our being alone and our awareness of the bad reputation Colombia had been given. In fact, the only incident came as we were about to cross a bridge over a fast jungle river which was guarded at both ends by armed police units. We stopped and an officer looked in and said “Dollars”. Perhaps I was tired because I asked him to repeat, which he did, and incredulously I grasped the realisation that he was demanding a bribe before he let us cross the bridge. “Dollars?” I said. “Yes. This is Colombia and I am the police. Dollars.” I leaned out of the window and, without thinking, slapped him on the shoulder saying “Now don’t be silly”, whereupon he guffawed and said, “go on”. That was the only incident from the allegedly nasty authorities of South America, which at the time and in hindsight was not really too bad.
Exhausted after one of the worst nights driving of our lives, we pulled into the rambling city of Cali and presently, though not without difficulty, found our hotel, which was also, Rally Headquarters for the night, and there we encountered a full lobby of exhausted rallyists. We were to find out later that we had made the journey between the Travelodge and the hotel 1½ hours ahead of Alberto and John. I will never forget David Hall’s skeletal face with bulging eyes and marbled with veins saying through the froth of a too expensive beer that he had never experienced a drive as dreadful as we had all just been through – quite something for the pilot of Bronco Billy and a Boeing 747 to concede, I thought.
It was only 300 miles, one of our easy days, from Cali to Medellin and the Special Stages were a ‘piece of cake’ with the first one lasting for 10 miles on tarmac and the second for 17miles with a short section of gravel. Afterwards we turned into Columbia’s second city made famous the world over by its notorious Cartel. As we slipped along the roads we could see how all the narcotics of the world could be grown here. The lush vegetation squeaking with insects yielded forth bananas, guavas, mangoes, coconuts and an abundance of tropical flowers although it seemed to be perpetually overcast with slight drizzle running at Turkish bath temperature – tropical jungle at last. Troop manoeuvring and police activity was everywhere while the police were indistinguishable from the soldiers except for their automatic guns being larger.
In the light drizzle we arrived at the outskirts of the city of Medellin and were soon in the rush hour traffic, which I am told lasts all day, and bullied and pushed, hooted and waved our way through to be received by the most enthusiastic crowd so far met on the entire trip. Any fears or doubts we may have had about this city were soon dispelled. The happy and jubilant crowd lionised each of us as if we were Grand Prix winners and thronged the hotel, the road leading to it and the departure from it along which we drove ceremoniously to the car park. Here, a totally recovered Gordon found one of the nagging problems Hero had been suffering from: a loose track rod. This component with 3/16” play had been worrying me on the fast descents over the Andes, but the malady came and went not revealing itself when parked. I had suspected the steering box or the power steering ram or even the wishbone joints, but thankfully Gordon located it as being two loose bolts which fix to the back plate holding the knuckle-end of the track-rod. We had driven all over South America with a loose steering-joint. Medellin fêted us and wandering around the city we found the happiest and most relaxed city people we were to meet throughout the rally.
Another tough day, this time to Cartegena 440 miles. There were two Special Stages which we avoided and therefore got ahead of the pack for a change. The mountain route brought us to over 13,000ft and all was going well until we had to negotiate a landslide, which all but blocked the road. Adding to the problems there was a tailback of the usual huge lorries, Kenilworth, Peterbuilt, Mac, White, et al, and this tailback was to rundown the mountain road for some miles in each direction. To make matters worse, where we had to surmount the slippery mud landslide, a bus had broken down leaving just enough room for the Bentley to nudge through. Several of our rallyists bottomed out and were caught on the slippery clay, but with the help of some of the friendlier lorry drivers, they were pushed and pulled till they were free. These delays of which there were another two added to our anxiety about making it to the Port in time.