[pe2-image src=”http://lh3.ggpht.com/-R_RVVdNYglc/UX0m2QjcNvI/AAAAAAAAU-M/IAwkorx4Avs/s144-c-o/P4230012.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/112133179186774955122/SouthAmericaSection2Stage14Colombia2BoarderPanamaToBoarderVenezuela#5871892202759403250″ caption=”One of the many yellow mushroom like jelly fish” type=”image” alt=”P4230012.JPG” ]

Pos: here
Loc: besides the salt lakes
Acc: tent
Dist: 39,7 km
Start: 1:00 End: 11:00

I felt fully safe on this city beach yesterday afternoon, but still had a problem to fall asleep. I got sandblasted in the heat inside my tent all afternoon, but it were rather my thoughts about the forthcoming sections of my trip which kept me awake. I am in the Caribbean in a tough head wind section, where now on the Peninsula de la Guajira comes the hardest bit. Weren’t the many capes in the Tayana National park not already windy enough??

I decided on night paddling now, which actually means part of the night only, starting today at 1 am. It was already less windy at 9 pm, and if I’d have been a night owl I may have done well at that time of the day. I am good at getting up early, but not in the middle of the night…and I could sleep only for one hour from 11 pm to midnight. Means I was dead tired during the the 4,5 hrs of darkness, and surely paddled very slow. The energy came back with the sunlight, also with a call to Peter to agree on the new schedule below.

I knew I had to make a decision, or the stress on myself with my additionally set arrival date back in Buenos Aires on the 10th of May 2014 would kick back very soon or has already… I have to take the wind and weather as it comes, but can’t force more out of myself than is there. This includes the planned holidays of the trip – I had made already a concession to be back home for 4 weeks last x-mas as I had moved my mum just recently in last summer into a nursing home in Husum, and she really wished me back home for x-mas.

But my calculation was I had to now reduce the upcoming second summer holiday 2013 of planned 3 months by these four weeks, plus probably another 4 weeks for next x-mas, leaves theoretically only four weeks also for summer 2013 to stay in the original schedule. But as my progress is much slower and tougher on this leg than expected, I may finish not in the beginning of May plus those four weeks of extra x-mas holidays, would make the beginning of June, but I think it may be end of July when I’d be reaching Georgetown in Guyana as the planned end of the second leg. All too late for a reasonable recovery, or a recovery at home at all, which I am already urgently in need of NOW.

This all means I will have to get rid of my idea of the “Double Whammy” on the arrival date, celebrating arrival *and* 50th birthday together. I will divide the leftover section now into three and not two legs. I will finish this leg after I finished the Colombian coastline, in about 2-3 weeks in the beginning of May, like last year. I will restart again like last year in mid-August with Venezuela, paddling as far as I get until x-mas 2013. Restart again on about 10th of January after my son turns 18 on the 5th of January- an important date to be present for a mum! Then again summer holiday from about mid-May until mid-August – see how it had been going until then – to finish hopefully well before x-mas 2014!

That’s my estimated new schedule now. I feel a bit relieved now to be back home quite soon, and to get the time pressure off me. Still I will do another night paddle tomorrow, but starting only at 2 pm…my campsite looks windy and shady and flying sand free enough to get some day sleep very soon.

I urgently need to recover at home for a while, as I am getting easily aggressive now when things break or go wrong, sick of the available trip food, as I am barely eating reasonably any more, sick of the heat and climate here with all my skin problems, sick of even taking pictures, a bit home sick, but not really sick of paddling and the trip itself! I just need a longer rest very soon.

I paddled today only an average of barely 4 km/h, but good enough for the raising wind. The night is not wind free, but around 10 knots, as in the morning. It increases slowly at 7.30 am, until at 11 am I think it’s too much now and not worth the effort any more. 10 hrs were enough anyway!

I noticed since a few days the pelicans have increased in numbers again, and close to the salt pans I saw a long line of maybe 100 white flamingos, plus another small pack of five with two bright pink ones in flight! Pretty in pink!!!

[pe2-image src=”http://lh5.ggpht.com/-MeLlrWJtcXI/UX0nGTh-tyI/AAAAAAAAU-M/A82v4dSmWek/s144-c-o/P4230015.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/112133179186774955122/SouthAmericaSection2Stage14Colombia2BoarderPanamaToBoarderVenezuela#5871892478436488994″ caption=”The poor jelly fish was swimming quickly away again after my photo session with pumping movements of his head” type=”image” alt=”P4230015.JPG” ]

Also the water got a bit of life the last days – only some round hardish white jelly fish of maybe 15-20 cm in diameter, but better than nothing in there! Today, the same shape of jelly fish were all bright yellow, and they were thousands of them!Paddling was sometimes feeling a bit funny! Was the colour because one headland was smelling so penetrating of urine…? 🙂

I paddled past a nice remote area with desert cactus, but it was too early to stop. At 10 am, I saw a large group of maybe 2 x 50 local Indians standing on the shore without moving, just looking at me approaching…some one must have alerted them! When I finished my camp, a man and his son came by bike, a popular transportation here in the salt pan, and were asking me directly for my picture card – the bush drum must have told them about me and that I have signature cards! 🙂

[pe2-image src=”http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Iez2pUdW4Xo/UX01T2DUE_I/AAAAAAAAU-M/xoNlpR4oPXc/s144-c-o/P4230018.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/112133179186774955122/SouthAmericaSection2Stage14Colombia2BoarderPanamaToBoarderVenezuela#5871908104204194802″ caption=”Very welcome marginal shade on a day camp after a night paddle” type=”image” alt=”P4230018.JPG” ]