Van Life Travelers Make it to South America - WELCOME TO COLOMBIA

I just turned on my computer and hit refresh because we just got back to our little Airbnb here and I'm so excited. I wouldn't even tell Kurt what was going on until he turned on the camera because I want you to know at the exact same time our ship is leaving Texas. It is moving. It is going 14 knots an hour pulling out of the Galveston port. I am literally crawling out of my skin excited and now we can leave Panama. Well we can start to get ready to leave Panama. We were literally stuck and now we're not anymore. Ah 12 days and now it's finally moving. Final preparations for our trip to Colombia and South America are underway. I've got to do one last thing. I've got to go over and pick up the revised cat paperwork because the ship was delayed. Our paperwork expired and Snow is going to stay behind in the Airbnb and she's going to pack everything up because tomorrow first thing in the morning we're going to Colombia. Okay Kurt has gone to the vet to pick up our updated health certificates. I'm staying here trying to get us packed. We've run into what could be a problem. Our suitcase is getting really really full and I still have to fit all of those clothes in there after I wash them. The kitty cats count as our carry-on so we get them in a personal bag. I have our camera bag that Kurt will be carrying so full. My bag will carry our laptops. I put them in there. It's so full. Houston we have a problem. All right G and Vanna are getting to be about as stir crazy as we are. No G. That's a perfect example but you have to book your plane tickets at least 48 hours in advance in order to do the reservations to get the cats to be able to fly on the plane with us. A lot of you keep asking what we're doing with the kitties. Well kitties can fly in the plane up front with us in a carrier as long as it fits under the seat in front of us. So that is the plan. We're calmed down a bit over our excitement last night of the ship finally leaving the port. We have booked our Airbnb in Colombia and Kurt is about to book our plane tickets. Cartagena here we come. Here we come. Yeah I gotta book the plane tickets. The boat still is well it's left the port. We don't know where it's at but we're gonna make arrangements and move forward like uh we're traveling around the world. Let's do it. Kurt just got back with the updated health certificates. I'm walking two blocks down the road to the copy shop so I can make some copies of our new certificates with the new dates on them and then I'll head back try to finish packing. So I'm getting the copies made and they do lamination so we're getting our COVID vaccine cards laminated because that's starting to be something we get asked for a lot so we want to make sure they don't get messed up. So this is good stuff. Just when I thought I had done the last chore I've been informed by snow that we do not have enough storage to carry everything we need on the plane which is not really a huge surprise. You guys know we have everything we need in the van so putting it in suitcases and figuring it out was tough. Anyway long story short I gotta go find just a bag to carry on. So I'm gonna hop on one of these guys. I can't take it the whole way but I can get it close enough. This little ride brought me up to the Santa Ana district and this is kind of where all the little markets and shops are and so they got a nice little square here that leads down to this road but it's also the edge of the range for the scooters so they actually stop right down the road. Now I imagine I'll have to carry the bag back anyway so I won't be able to ride a scooter but those things are fun. We've been taking them all around and having a fun time with them. They're not cheap. You know it's like three bucks a ride or something like that so Uber's actually cheaper but sometimes they're funnier and just quicker. So you can see there's used books there. There's a little shop set up there for manicures, pedicures right on the umbrella and we got the graffiti and the rubbish and basura and of course the little street stands and street markets and things like that but we're here to find some kind of bag that we can carry on to the plane for the little bit of extra stuff that we brought. So Kurt saved the day. He walked up to town and pretty good ways away and bought us a $20 suitcase so we got another suitcase. Problem is solved. We are packed everything is ready except for we got to sleep one more night here. We have a car picking us up at five o'clock in the morning. We're gonna see you guys in the morning. It's like Tom Petty says the wait is the hardest part. It is the hardest part but in the morning we head to Colombia bright and early. Kitties are in their carriers. Everything is packed. Our driver to the airport is downstairs. Let's do this. South America. All right we are at the airport and she talked the whole way here in the car. It was dark. We didn't film it but let's go in and get checked in. We're checked in. Everything is good. We're getting good help here at the counter. What is your name? Edgar. Edgar helped us out. The kitties are ready to go. You ready to go find this plane? Let's go Colombia. We have made it through security with both cats and the only thing we have left. We may need a return ticket and with the land borders closed I'm not sure we're going to squirt through without having a return ticket. Other than that we're about to get on the plane guys. Oh they may have perked up at that. You guys can probably hear G yelling at me but we see land. We see South America. There's some islands out the window. We're actually on their descent. G has been screaming most of the way. I can see down there some beautiful turquoise water and yeah we're excited to land. Welcome to Colombia. All right guys we're off the plane headed to get our bags and go through customs. Okay guys when you're going through customs you're going to look for the guy in the yellow vest. He's very nice and he's going to bring you back to an office where you fill out some forms. You show them your health certificates. You pay the fee. How much was the fee Kurt? We'll check later. We'll put it on the screen and we'll just wait a little bit for the paperwork and then we will get to go and the cats will be all legal. Right now they're pulling up and checking the YouTube. We had some great help here. All right and we got the taxi on the way. We're headed to the Airbnb. Here we go. So we're done at the airport. The people to check the pets in were super nice. They were even watching our YouTube channel while they were filling out the form and now we're in the cab and he has stopped here at the pet store because we got to get a new litter box and litter for the kitty cats. Then we will head to the Airbnb and get G out of this carrier because he is not happy. All right guys we have made it to our Airbnb. The kitties have recovered from the traumatic flight. Even G who sounded like it was the most horrible thing ever but guys it was really only 50 minutes on a plane. We took a little bit of a rest. Had a snack but I think it's time to go find some lunch Kurt. Let's go explore Cartagena. Today Cartagena has grown rapidly and is home to over 1 million people. It is the most popular tourist city in Colombia. Many come just to explore the historic city center. There are also more glamorous neighborhoods like Castillo Grand and Boca Grand with their shiny skyscrapers that line the beaches. But we chose to stay in a neighborhood near the historic city center. Hetsamani, a trendy little eclectic part of town. Perhaps the coolest part of Cartagena the fact that the fortress of walls and forts still stands today. Yeah. It's another dimension, unnaturally. Waiting for the sign, believe that this is real. I'm lost in your eyes, don't need to pretend. My mind gets lost again and again. So this place is definitely unique. They have little wooden utensils and the knife is even serrated and sharpened. But the food is kind of unique. It's I guess Caribbean style. Caribbean bowls. Caribbean bowls and you pick your protein and your rice and and your veggie or your salad. It's a small little place. Kind of has a little view overlooking. We just got this yummy yummy drink, chicha de piña or pineapple chicha. And it is pineapple cooked down with cinnamon and ginger. You want to give it a try, Kurt? It is so good. So good. So I got the bowl with fish fish bits. There's little beans, black beans and rice down there. Sauteed veg, eggplant, onions and peppers. And then it looks like we got some fried plantains along with some lime there. So this looks pretty tasty. I'm pretty excited. What do you get, Snow? All right. Mine is Jamaica jerk chicken over some grilled veggies and some fresh tomatoes and onions on the same rice, which is a coconut rice with black eyed peas. 20,000 pesos per bowl, which is about five dollars per bowl. The juice is about another dollar. And so six dollars each, twelve dollars for the meal. Not bad. Let us show you a little bit about our really cute Airbnb down here in this old section of Cartagena. First of all, we have this whole big giant porch, a nice little gas grill. You walk out into this courtyard area that we don't share with many people. There's maybe eight or nine apartments up there and maybe 15 or so that cover the area. But it's a nice, safe, little secure oasis. It's got a 24 hour doorman locked in. Everything's pretty cool. All right, guys, I just ordered arepas from this place right here. So it's almost like a pita pocket stuffed with various meats and cheeses and other stuff. They're right around 10,000 pesos a piece. So a little over two dollars a piece. I got two for me and two for Snow. I don't think she'll eat two, but in any event, some interesting street food here in Colombia. Yeah, there you go. Tonight is a, I believe a Colombian dish, arepas. It was takeaway day, so I went for a walk and picked up a surprise for Snow. What do you think, Snow? Well, they look good. I have not tried them yet. I like that it came with this variety of sauces. Now, I've already done a little taste touch test on each one because y'all know I don't eat spicy food. And this one has just a little bit of spice, a little spicy mayo type thing. So I'm going to put some right here and that'll be my sauce for my first bite. Look at that bite, guys. They are good. One thing about Colombian food, though, and maybe it's just because we've been eating really, really healthy. They like to fry things. Yeah. So stuff is not like dripping and grease grows, just greasier than food we've been eating lately. So as soon as we get our van back, no more greasy food. This is good and worked. First sauce was good. This one's like a little jelly type sweet thing. So we'll give this one a try now. Oh, I like that one. That one's good. See any monkeys? So if you like this video, be sure to subscribe to our channel and hit that notification bell so you guys know when we put out new videos. And don't forget, you can always follow us over on Instagram to see what's going on in between videos. Cheers, guys.