The bus to San Gil was pretty terrible; seats were uncomfortable and didn’t lean back very far, it was a bit too cold (air conditioning!!), the seat belts didn’t work and the road was insane. For eight hours, overnight. I looked out the window at one point a few hours in and found myself looking down a steep mountainside and endless switch back roads going down. We were just getting tossed around all night, but I did manage to get a little sleep somehow. We got into San Gill pretty early and found a place to stay at Hostel El Dorado after turning down the first two. Favio, the twenty-something owner, told us about what there is to do in the area (anything you can think of, pretty much) and got us settled in.
The second Colombia game (against the Ivory Coast) was on that day so we went out to a store down the street near the main square to buy some Colombia jerseys, and joined the hundred and something other people from the area to watch the game on the big screen in the main square. It was very fun, and loud!
Go Colombia!
vuvuzelas for sale All the locals had their vuvulezas (annoying noise maker) working overtime and were cheering excitedly every time the ball went over the halfway line in anticipation of a goal! Sure enough Colombia scored and the town roared with excitement! In the second half of the game they scored another goal and a group of guys standing near us grabbed us and made us jump around and celebrate with them. Good times!
One evening Andrew joined a group of guys for a game of Tejo, the National Sport of Colombia. Mandrew here: Tejo is a little difficult to explain - kinda like horseshoes, but with beer and explosives (so way awesomer). The object of the game is simple enough: try to hit the target that's across the room with your small iron disc-like projectile (the "tejo"). The target's about the size of a horseshoe pit, but filled with a kind of firm clay and slightly inclined toward the opposite end. Embedded in the centre of the clay is a metal ring about four inches in diameter, and resting atop the ring's rim are a couple triangular pouches of gunpowder (booyah!). If you manage to collide with these magic little pouches, you're awarded with three points and an epic explosion. Otherwise, six points are awarded for landing within the centre ring or a single point for whoever is closest to the centre. As our crate of beer was being assembled we got a chance to watch some of the locals at work - they made it look easy as pie, consistently landing close to the centre and producing a gringo-shaking explosion every three or four shots. Once we got to throwing, we quickly learned that these other dudes were just plain incredible - even standing at three-quarters distance (as requested by the owner, likely for the safety of the light fixtures overhead) we consistently missed the pit altogether. The below photo was taken after the hairy guy in front scored my team's game-winning point with the one and only tourist-produced explosion all night. Hooray!
the Tejo gang
getting ready for our flight! Back to Chels: while drinking a couple smoothies (with protein!) from the shop across the street from El Dorado, we decided on a couple activities: we'd spend one day checking out a nearby waterfall with rental bikes and another giving paragliding a try.
The next morning we took off on our first adventure – paragliding! I honestly thought that it was going to be like, jump off of a mountain or cliff with a parachute on your back which you use to steer and glide to the bottom, in a valley or something. Nope! Paragliding is actually running off of the side of a mountain and then going UP. We went so far up it was ridiculous! Into the clouds and above them. At one point I asked my pilot, Cristian, how much farther we would be going up and he said still more! We chatted a little bit in Spanish, about where we’re from and who we are. I found out that he had a little girl who would be 8 years old the next day. He takes her up all the time, the first of which when she was only three years old. Cristian had been paragliding for 14 years, nearly every single day, and had never had an incident (real life foreshadowing).
The next morning we took off on our first adventure – paragliding! I honestly thought that it was going to be like, jump off of a mountain or cliff with a parachute on your back which you use to steer and glide to the bottom, in a valley or something. Nope! Paragliding is actually running off of the side of a mountain and then going UP. We went so far up it was ridiculous! Into the clouds and above them. At one point I asked my pilot, Cristian, how much farther we would be going up and he said still more! We chatted a little bit in Spanish, about where we’re from and who we are. I found out that he had a little girl who would be 8 years old the next day. He takes her up all the time, the first of which when she was only three years old. Cristian had been paragliding for 14 years, nearly every single day, and had never had an incident (real life foreshadowing).
After about 30 minutes of going up into the clouds and then gliding back down again, the radio started up. Juan, our man at the launching point was letting us know it had started to rain there (we were supposed to land at the same spot that we took off from) and told us to wait for a little while to see if it would stop. After another 5 or 10 minutes he then radioed and told us to try and land somewhere else, about 15km away toward San Gil (we know the locations because we sent SPOT GPS messages). So up and up we went again into the clouds and then made our way across a very large and deep valley below to another hill range on the other side. I had no idea that you could do this, travel by paraglider. Andrew's pilot, Andres, said he has stayed in the air for over 6 hours!
our nice, soft landing tree When we were nearing our landing spot there were some people in their yards looking up at us as we flew by. I waved at them and they waved back. I thought I could see where we were aiming to land and prepared myself, lifting my legs straight out in front of me. The ground was coming up pretty quick and I just trusted that Cristian would be able to land us safely, not too concerned about anything at all. At the last moment just before we touched the ground, something happened and we swung 90 degrees and straight into a nearby tree! It was fairly tall, maybe 10-12 feet up. I tried to get my feet in front of a large branch that I could tell I was going straight into and tried to absorb most of the impact in my legs. I don’t really know what happened exactly, only that a few seconds later we were hanging closer to the ground and Cristian had unhooked me from him so I could get up. I was kind of backward and almost upsidedown but managed to get myself up and out of the tree without too much trouble. I checked myself out to make sure I was ok – I had felt a branch scrape across my left arm and shoulder and found a couple of little scrapes there, but luckily no more damage was done. Cristian was clearly embarrassed and I think worried that I would over-react so he was trying to laugh it off and blame it on the wind (though I am certain that the wind couldn’t turn you like that 90 degrees – I think it is more likely that he lost hold one of the steering toggles or something). I looked up the hill to see Andrew and Andres heading over to see if we were ok. They had landed perfectly, Andrew said he barely felt them touch the ground, nice and gently. On the drive back we laughed at how ridiculous it is that I crashed into a tree.
The next day we rented bikes from El Dorado and set off down the road to the Juan Curi Waterfall. It was a 20km ride and took us a couple of hours to get there at a nice chili pace. The road was nice and fairly quiet. There were only a couple of short uphills and downhills, although it was a little bit uphill the whole way. We were pretty pooped by the time we got to the waterfall, and then found out that it is another 10-15 minute hike up to it from there. We paid our fee and set up on the trail through very nice and lush jungle. We arrived at the bottom of the waterfall where there were a couple of pools where people were swimming and lots of ledges to sit and enjoy the scenery. There were also some people rappelling down the waterfall, another adventure activity offered through our hostel. We hung out for a bit, taking photos and having a quick dip in the water, and after an hour or so headed back down the trail, hopped back on our bikes and headed back to San Gil. The ride back was much nicer, mostly downhill so we hardly had to pedal at all. I hadn’t realized how much uphill there was on the way there.
We spent a couple more days in the San Gil area, hanging out and enjoying the relaxed atmosphere, wandering around the town, and cooking some food in the hostel's kitchen. One afternoon we took a colectivo to a nearby town called Barichara, one of the most beautiful towns I have ever seen. Very clean and grand, with brick roadways and sidewalks, old and elaborate architecture and lots of vines and plants growing over everything. It was very picturesque and breathtaking.
picturesque cemetery in Barichara
jumping around with our foster family for the day
We enjoyed our last day in San Gil, hanging out, reading and chatting with people. We watched another FIFA World Cup game, Colombia vs Japan, and of course were happy when Colombia won 4-1! The streets were wild again and we celebrated with the crowds. After a fun-filled few days we were excited to head north to the beach and embark on a five-day trek to La Ciudad Perdida (The Lost City) near Santa Marta. We left San Gil at 7:00pm on a pretty uncomfortable bus and made it to Santa Marta early the next day.
There are better places to be chili than on a crappy overnight bus!
-Chelsea
There are better places to be chili than on a crappy overnight bus!
-Chelsea
Paragliding Video
Photos from San Gil
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