When you travel with friends, it sometimes occurs that you have different preferences. Nothing wrong with that, I would find it even odd if such thing would never occur. Liesje wanted to go to the Amazone, to do a 4-day trip. Apparently you would be able to see anacondas, pirhana's, monkeys, sloths, pink dolphins and last but not least: huge spiders. It all sounded very nice, but after hearing some stories from people who have been there, I wasn't that keen on encountering huge spiders. Sorry I just can't. I have been trying to get over this fear, but I don't want to put yself in a position where I feel uncomfortable for 4 days.
So we decided to split up.
Liesje, Geena & Benny (our Swedish friends) took off to Leticia and next to Iquitos; and me and Jelle travelled to San Gil.
San Gil is known for its extreme sports - just what I like!
Because of the long duration of the trip, we took a nightbus from Santa Marta to San Gil, so we would arrive early morning at our destination. If you think about it, it's also a budgetary decision. When you travel at night you save a night at a hostel and the same time win daytime.
When arriving in San Gil, I was pretty tired. I am not made to sleep on buses...luckily I could use both seats, so it was more comfortable. One thing you have to know when traveling by night in Colombia, is to dress very warm or to take your sleeping bag on the bus. They put the air conditioning on MAX, don't ask me why, I don't know. Everyone is uncomfortable but they still do it.
San Gil is a charming town. It probably is a city but I only hung around the old square, so it kind of looked like a town to me. Since I prefer towns over big cities - in Colombia at least - I didn't feel the urge to explore the rest of the city. Our hostel was located just on the square, the perfect location! The main square is always crowded, especially at night. People buy drinks in the shops surrounding the plaza and just hang out with family and friends. You can find children playing, older people playing chess, in the weekends there are foodstands with grilled meat and from the neighbouring shops you can hear latin music which even gives you the opportunity to dance some salsa. I loved this square! I also felt pretty safe in San Gil.
The second day we visited a charming town: Barichara. It was so quiet, as if time stood still! There I bought a bag of "hormidas colunas", giant ants, a culinary delicacy around there. Not many people likes them, I didn't disliked them...
The third day we booked a wild water rafting on the river Suarez, a level 5 river for rafting.
After picking us up in front of the hostel, they took us to the office for paperwork (insurance, payment and e-mailaddress for sending us the pictures!) and half an hour later we were on our way to the departing point. We received a safety talk of about one hour! While this activity isn't really that dangerous, there are risks and I think everyone was somewhat scared after listening to this safety talk. They described us ALL emergency scenarios, so we would know what to do. I understand that they have to, but it's really scary to hear it! I can already say that no one in our group needed to put the safety instruction into practice.
That day the level of the water of the Suarez river was almost too high to be able to raft. A high level of water means stronger currents, so more speeds while rafting but in turn it would be safer. Why? Because of the high level, more rocks were under water, so when someone would fall out of the raft, the chance that he/she would bump into a rock would be smaller. Good to know. But as I already said, no one got overboard!
Here are some action pics. Take a look on the Facebook page for 2 action videos!
Ever since I looked up San Gil, one activity stood out: abseiling from a waterfall. I have already abseiled from a bridge in Curaçao, but this was something new!
I thought this would be a nice activity for my 30th birthday (Dec 12th). I was playing with the iea of doing a bunjee jump, but honestly I was too scared to sign up for it! I already did a skydive, which was amazing, but this is totally different!
D-day - December 12th
After a good night sleep and a high energy breakfast, I took off by myself heading towards 'La Cascada de Juan Curi'. The adventure started when a guy at the bus stop was trying to scam me when paying for the bus. Luckily my Spanish has improved and I was able to ask my money back and take care of the payment directly to the busdriver myself.
While sitting in the bus and looking out of the window, I saw 2 bunjee jumping platforms passing by. Oh boy, I got shivers down my spine just by the thought of it! I was so glad I hadn't signed up for that!
At the waterfall I met a cool Colombian girl, Angela, from Bogota who was traveling by herself. She was just telling me that she did a bunjee jump the day before and how amazing it was. She even showed me her pictures! What a crazy woman! Somewhat later I met 3 Americans and a Swiss guy and we ended up taking the bus alltogether towards San Gil afger the abseiling.
The abseiling itself was fun, but not so amazing as I had imagined. The only difficulty was the water, which made the rock wall very slippery. I slipped once and hit the rocks, but nothing serious. What I was more worried about was my contact lenses, the water from the waterfall was hitting so hard that I was afraid I would lose my sight.
After the activity we all took the bus and again the bunjee jumping came up. On the bus back to San Gil, all of a sudden, one of the guys I've just met, turns around and asks me: "I'm getting off the bus and I am going to jump, are you joining?" #§{$@|µ£ Sh*t!
I felt I had no choice any more, all of these signs today telling me I should jump! So my answer was: "YES"
The company looked very professional, I didn't worry about safety. I went second. I was not nervous, not when I subscribed, not yet when they were putting on the equipment, not even when I was stepping on the platform, nor when it was going up. I was looking at the horizon the entire time and the instructor was asking me lots of questions, so I wouldn't think too much. I got very nervous by the time I had to step to the edge of the platform. The weight of the elastic was already pulling me down. At first I still had to hold on to the platform and enjoy the view. I did as much I could do, considering what was awaiting me. I remembered a conversation I had the night before with my new friends: when it gets difficult, just remember to breath. And so I did. And it helped me. Thinking back to the night before, I remembered what I was asking the universe for: strenght and courage. And that is exactly what the few deep breaths gave me.
And so I jumped into the deep, with water flowing underneath me, the wind blowing through my hair and while I was letting go, I felt free. Like a bird. For a split second I was flying.
This reminds me about a quote I love. I goes something like: "What if I fall? Oh but darling, but what if you fly??"
In the evening I had dinner with some new friends and afterwards I had birthdaydrinks on the main square with new and newer friends I made along the travel. I had such a good time! Everyone was buying me drinks - which I found hard to accept sometimes, because in Belgium the birthdayboy or -girl has to treat their friends with drinks or cake. It's the other way around. But I managed just fine, accepting this cultural difference. Everyone wanted to make my birthday a 10 out of 10, so when they asked me what my ultimate wish was, they made it true! Kind of...
I asked for a unicorn that I could ride. What did they do?? They searched for a tall hairy guy and asked him if I could horseyride him. He did had to hold an empty beer bottle to his head and make a horses noice, just like real unicorns of course. Oh boy, what a night!
The next day I had to wake up early to cath a bus to my next destination. I failed in getting up early, due to my first thirty-hangover...
Next: Villa de Leyva - the dinosaur village!