San Gil: Adventure Town!

We have been in the outdoor-adventure town of San Gil since last Thursday morning, and what an adventure it has been! From white-water rafting, to paragliding, to Jon getting sick, our stay has definitely had its physical and emotional ups and downs.

We have come to know a good group of travelers here during our stay in San Gil, a few that we arrived on the night bus with from Santa Marta, and we have done most of our activities with them. Bay and Deeg are a couple from London, who we liked right away when we sat in the back of the night bus next to them and Deeg promptly pulled out a bottle of wine and offered us some. Another good friend is a lady named Griz who we met at our hostel in Bogota. She is a Mexican citizen, but has spent the last 13 years working seasonally for a rafting and canyoning adventure company in Interlaken, Switzerland as a photographer. She travels in her time off. Not a bad lifestyle.

On Friday we went white water rafting on the Rio Suarez. It had dumped rain the night before so the river was reeeeeallly pumping. We did a grade 3+ to 5 section of the river. This was intense stuff, as we all soon realized when our safety talk was about 25 minutes long and involved information in broken english about what to do if we fell out of the raft, flipped it, had to go through rapids on our own, kayak rescue and most terrifyingly, what to do if we got stuck in a hole. A hole is basically a churning wheel of water that forms behind big rocks on the river in big rapids. It continues in a circular pattern, like a ferris wheel, and if you get stuck in one, you do the same. The best way to get out of a hole as you are tumbling around underwater is to curl up in a ball, and supposedly it will spit you out. If you flail about, you will be stuck until you basically drown. With Jon and I, and maybe one other guy having the only previous white water rafting experience between 12 people, as nervous as I was I cant imagine how nervous the first-timers were.

Luckily our guides were completely badass. According to the hostel owner we booked the trip through, they compete in rafting and kayaking world cups and were the top in Colombia. After seeing them in action, I believe it. Our guy, Henry aka Redbull, was a burly Colombian with hair three times as long as mine pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. He joked that it was his first time on the river, but he knew that thing inside and out. He expertly maneuvered us through the rapids, sloloming through graveyards of boulders and holes, which I would sometimes catch myself staring at wide-eyed as we passed, so thankful that Redbull knew their exact location since we couldnt even see them until we were on the downriver side. Our raft was extremely successful at staying together, until the last grade 5 rapid. Towards the end of it, there were some HUGE waves. We all got tossed from the boat, Redbull too. I remember flailing around underwater with people on top of me but eventually getting to the surface and assuming the safety position in the water (feet up and pointed downriver). Luckily, the rapids toward the end werent huge, so as the rescue took place, those of us still in the water werent in much danger. Jon stayed in the longest, floating through the entire rest of the rapid calmly by himself in front of the boat, collecting paddles along the way. Most of us, myself included, had ditched our paddles as we were being tossed about, thinking: screw saving the paddle, Im saving myself! Anyway, good thing we have Jon around. Looking back on the video of the tossing (yes, we have a video) the whole ordeal went incredibly smoothly. I think Redbull spent a total of 1 second in the water before he was back in the boat and pulling people in. The video continued for about 7 or so seconds after we were all ejected from the boat, and by the time it cut, 3 or 4 people were already back in.

The next day we went paragliding. Jon and I had never done this before, and the views of the surrounding valleys and mountains were absolutely stunning. The best part however was the spinning the guides would do if you asked. They coud manuver the parachute so we were falling facefirst towards the ground until the harness gently caught us and swung us out of the dive. Jon unfortunately didnt get to do as much swinging and diving since some clouds moved in and brought cold air that competed with the thermals that are best for paragliding.

That evening, we got to play the national sport/game of Colombia: Tejo (pronounced tay-ho). This is an awesome game. Two boxes filled with soft clay sit about 15 meters apart and are usually backed by rubber from tires. In the middle of the clay boxes are iron rings that are level with the top layer of clay. You place two triangular explosives on the iron ring. Your goal is to stand by a clay box and toss a heavy oddly shaped hockey puck made of metal at the opposite clay box 15 meters away. If the iron puck/stone thing lands on the iron ring on top of the explosive, the metal on metal contact causes the triangular explosive to explode. You do this all while drinking beer. Beer+Exploding things=AWESOME.

That night Jon and I went out to eat for our first time in Colombia. We ate at Gringo Mikes with a group of people, and actually got to meet the gringo, Mike, who opened the restaurant. Turns out hes one of the few Americans weve met in Colombia, and hes a Seattle native! He came down here to Colombia two years ago and started a mountain biking tour company and decided to add a restaurant to appease his hungry mountain biking tourists. Now, travelers and local Colombians alike, want him to franchise his restaurant and add several other restaunts throughout Colombia. The food was delicious, from burgers to burritos, oreo shakes and melt-in-your-mouth brownies for dessert...it was a real treat after all of the stir fries, arepas (corn cakes) and PB&J tortillas that Jon and I have been eating.

Unfortunately, Jon got sick later that night. We are pretty positive it was not from food (as Ive also eaten everything he has eaten, and most travelers dont have food problems in Colombia) but we were both up all night and he ran a fever the whole next day. But, with the help of our friends, the owners from our hostel and other random travelers, he is doing much better now (and to his delight, probably a few pounds lighter). We are pretty certain he got the bug from all of the dirty river water he ingested when we were flung off our raft the day before.

Now we head to Bogota to catch our flight to Ecuador! We are bummed to be leaving Colombia so soon and wish we would have given ourselves another week at least to travel around here but we figure less time in Colombia only means more time somewhere else cool. Not sure yet where we will be for Thanksgiving, probably Quito, but like we said, we have not met many American travelers with whom we could celebrate with. That being said, Happy Turkey Day to everyone back in the States! We are thankful to be on this journey, but we are even more thankful for the family and friends we have back home and we are always looking forward to the beautiful Pacific Northwest...home sweet home! You will hear from us in Ecuador!