Thursday, 9 February 2017

San Gil (200th Special Edition Blog)

Day 1 – No Booking!

Well amazingly welcome to our 200th blog, we can’t quite believe that we have managed to keep this up!  At a rough guess the blogs are on average 2,500 words each which means we have written over ½ million words, mostly made up of the following words: after, however, before, beer and unfortunately/fortunately!  According to google, an average book is about 200,000 words, so we have written 2 ½ books!!  If you are still reading thanks and well done

 back to blog No. 200:

It was just going to be one of those days! after very limited sleep we arrived at the San Gil bus terminal around 10am where the temperature was already kicking in nicely. It was 3-4k outside of town and we didn’t fancy the hike, so after stopping for a well needed coffee, we grabbed a taxi.

Arriving at the hostel, which to be honest was run more like a hotel, the lovely lady immediately showed us to our room (even though we were around 3hrs early). A good start we thought.

Agreeing that Glenn’s shorts were falling apart so we needed to purchase a new needle and thread, we desperately needed a laundry and we needed to book some activities for the following day, our plan for the day was laid out.

 
We headed for the plaza and soon managed to tick off the first 3 points. We then headed off to find a tourist agency as we had heard that the thing to do in San Gil was rafting and canyoning. Easy you would think? We trawled the very hot streets, headed towards the river, back to the plaza and couldn’t find one agency! When we did finally find one, we couldn’t grasp what the trips involved as they only spoke Spanish… given the pictures showed climbing down rocks, crawling through tunnels and jumping off very high things, we thought we had better not rely on our poor translation skills and find a more suitable agency.

A bit more trawling around and getting a bit ratty, we finally decided to seek some shade, have our ‘welcome to San Gil’ beer, some food and find an internet to do some research online. We did, we found an agency which was (would you believe) directly behind our hostel!

We finished our food and headed back towards our hostel and the tourist agency. On our way, we took a picture of a really steep street and patted ourselves on our backs that we had chosen a hostel  at a more reasonable altitude. We turned the next corner, was greeted by an equally steep street and our google map informed us that in order to get to the agency we would have to climb it. It was very hot, we had had little sleep, you get the picture!

 
After climbing up, hot, sweaty and tired, google decided to inform us it was in fact the wrong street and it couldn’t be arsed to reset the map and tell us where we should be! Feeling pretty fed-up, we retired to the hostel to cool down.

Determined not to give up, and knowing we were only going to be in San Gil a couple of days, we re-checked the map back at the hostel and after a brief cool down, set off again.

Another bloody steep mountainlike hill! we climbed, it wasn’t there, we gave up!. I don’t actually think any words were exchanged between us, completely deflated, we limped back to the hostel, resigned and in much need of a nap.

We headed out again in the cool of the evening and found a bar banging out Shakira tunes and I convinced Glenn to go in….well we were in Colombia. We had a couple there and headed to a bar called ‘Doggie Style’ which wasn’t as interesting as it sounds so headed home soon after.

Day 2 – Barichara – straight out of a filmset

Our hostel didn’t include b/f so you can imagine my pleasant surprise when there was a knock at the door and I was greeted with a tray of Coffee, fresh juice and Crackers. Unfortunately, the surprise wasn’t so pleasant for Glenn as it was 7AM and disturbed his beauty sleep!

Given the tourist agency fiasco yesterday, our plan for today was to head to a nearby town called Barichara which is a 300+yr old town resplendent with cobblestone streets, white washed walls and red tiled roofs. It’s now a national monument and where a lot of Spanish speaking films are made.

It’s 20k outside of San Gil so we headed to the local bus station and was soon on our way for the 45min journey over the mountain.

 
We arrived in a beautiful plaza in the very picturesque town around 10am, spotted a church up a hill and headed for that. Another church, a few more cobbled streets later and we had pretty much covered everything, but it was only 11am!. We wanted to at least have lunch there before heading back so we stopped for a coffee to kill a bit of time and found directions to a cemetery that was supposed to be nice?
 
It was!, I don’t think ‘ ever been in one quite so pretty, all of the headstones were unique and a lot included mouldings that were special to the bereaved i.e. a sombrero, a football, a bottle of their favourite tipple…. To add to the atmosphere, there was an old boy attending the cemetery who was sat in the shade drinking and banging out salsa tunes from his portable radio… we think the dead would have appreciated it.
 
We must have spent nearly an hour wandering around, when we left, the church had just finished its Monday morning service (very religious here) and there were a few old boys standing outside the corner shop for a few beers so we joined them for a ‘welcome to Barichara beer’ before heading off to find some lunch.
 
We found a place that looked suitably run down, full of locals and had goat on the menu (local speciality).  We sat outside where a huge woman was attending the Parrilla, ordered the set menu and hoped for the best. What turned up was a Quinoa soup with a goat joint in It (mainly bone), followed by some cut of lamb (mainly fat). Not the best but it was cheap and authentic. We then headed to the bus to take us back to San Gil.

 
Glenn had read about a hostel that organised trips and spoke English so we headed directly there when we arrived. As we now had only one day left, we opted to do the Canyoning in the morning and rafting in the afternoon (hope I don’t regret this). We then had a beer to congratulate ourselves on a job well done before heading back to the hostel to chill.

In the evening, we managed to find a nice little corner bar which I will now re-name our local. It was more a shop than a bar, had about 5 tables but it was full of locals, looked right out onto the plaza and was cheap! We had a few there before heading to doggy style who’s music wasn’t great and was home again around 10.

Day 3 – I did regret it! Canyoning and Rafting and bruises and aches

It was going to be a pretty full on day so after finishing our now expected coffee and juice, we headed to the hostel where we had booked our trip. As we were a little early, we stopped off in our local for a coffee first.

There were to be four of us and the guide for our Canyoning adventure, two nimble, fit 20 somethings and me and Glenn! Canyoning, in case you don’t know, involves scrambling through narrow caves, jumping off high rocks into water and abseiling down cliffs. I was feeling okayish about this, after all, we had already done some pretty adventurous stuff before. However, when the guide took one look at me, probably spotted I had said goodbye to my 20’s and 30’s some time ago, and asked if I had ever done anything like this before… when what he really meant was can you manage this?  I did start having 2nd thoughts!

 
Those were to be practically the only words he mumbled throughout the entire trip! My nervousness quickly turned into hardy resolve, I’d show this little shit that my 46 year old body who had been solidy drinking and smoking for the last 15 months would not only keep up, but would smash the course! (but hopefully not my bones)

To Glenn’s relief (who doesn’t like small spaces) we had to forego the caves due to lack of rain, and after clambering down to the river bed, started to make our way over rocks and boulders above the route the cave would have took us.

 
It was hot so we were all releived when we soon reached a spot where we were told to jump into the water. It was only around  6bfeet so pretty easy and the water was refreshing. What wasn’t easy was that the route was getting harder and harder, now wet, we started to slip and slide across the boulders. It’s here I should point out that the guide asked us not to report back that this part of the route wasn’t in the plan and he would get into trouble so to please keep quiet (one of the only other illuminating pieces of info he had to offer). The drops got sheerer, we had to make our way back and re-route several times and it became progressively difficult. At one point we were asked to leap from one boulder to another with a huge gap and a long way down, I declined and opted for a rather long re-route instead. For someone who has a tendency to fall off pavements and trip over matchsticks it wasn’t good!. After crawling under an overhang of rock where we were told not to touch the stone as it would fall and crush us, we finally made it to the route proper (I was inwardly sobbing by this point!)

 

Here was the next jump into the deep. However, the guide said that he wasn’t exactly sure how deep it was due to the lack of rain and understood if we didn’t want to jump. He ‘hoped’ it was around 6ft deep. Both Glenn and I declined, wanting to be in good health for the rest of our trip, but the two 20 somethings said they would give it a go. We made our way down to the bottom you can see us looking smug in the pic below) and waited whilst the 20 somethings finally and safely jumped after a lot of coaxing. (1-0 to the 20 somethings)

More clambering and we were at our first abseil point. Glenn volunteered first (he wanted to show the youngsters that we still had it). He was given very limited instruction and then he was off over the edge. I couldn’t look at first, but when I did I saw him making his way down the 30 metre drop, clear the cliff face and then just sort of hang there and release the rope until he safely made it to the ground.

 
I was next, and with the benefit of watching Glenn’s decent, I was (if I say so myself) pretty smooth, making it down in record time, smoothly and no hitches. I think I saw a tiny look of admiration on the guides face.

 
It took the 20 somethings quite a bit of time as they were both nervous and the boy kept getting stuck. That evens the score out to 1-1

More clambering and then onto the next jump point. This was around 25 feet and you had to take a running jump so that you didn’t crash into the overhang.  Nobody really wanted to be first! We were in the middle of a debate when I just resigned and said I would go first, where Glenn (my hero) said he didn’t want me to do that and the next thing he was running towards the edge and hurtling over the other side.  He landed safely, phew!

My turn next, after a couple of false starts I was sailing through the air, I must say it felt like a lot longer drop than I had expected. After retrieving my helmet which had came off in the impact (nice) I made my way over to Glenn where we waited for around 10 mins for the 20 somethings to be coaxed into jumping (2-1 to us!)

We had one final and smaller abseil and lots more clambering (the pics really don’t do it justice) till we arrived at the end, battered, bruised and lots of new grazes but we made it! Thank you Glenn for helping and ensuring I didn’t kill myself.

 
We were returned to San Gill and had an hour to kill before the rafting started. Deciding we had earnt a beer we headed to the local bar before returning back and being led to the rafting agency.

It seems that if we had walked one block further on the first day, we would have found all of the agencies, there were bloody tonnes!

We boarded a mini bus for a 20min journey and was soon at the river bed and being introduced to our Colombian rafting companions. The raft looked pretty basic and we had heard the river was tame with a grade 2, 3 if you were lucky so Glenn opted not to go for the pics.

This was a shame, as the rafting wasn’t particulary scary, the guide made a bit point of capturing people jumping off the raft, being taken by the current, balancing on the front  etc. and we could have got some good shots. As it was, Glenn and I just stayed on dry (apart from one time when the guide pushed Glenn in)

Out of all the time we had been in San Gil, today, the clouds decided to make an appearance so we were glad when the 2hrs was up and we could head onto dry land as we were freezing cold. The team we were with were fun, and we were glad we did it but it wasn’t a patch on our Chile adventure.

We headed back to the hostel for warmish showers and then straight out for food as we were ravenous. Gringo Mikes was our destination, not very Colombian I know but we’d heard they did the best burgers (they did) and we didn’t want to risk having crap food!

 
A few beers in our local and then in a couple of other bars, we headed home as we were both knackered. I bet we will ache in the morning!

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