Day 1 – No Booking!
back to blog No. 200:
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
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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