SAN GIL AND OUR ENCOUNTER WITH SOME HUMONGOUS FRUIT SALADS
Lovely town, just North of Bogota....still heading towards the coast! This is the equivalent of Baños, Ecuador...a pretty town, with a varitey of adventure sports to be getting on with!
Available: Rafting, Waterfalls, Cycle rides, Paragliding, Swimming, Sightseeing, Botanical Garden...to name but a few.
We achieved: Umm, well there were those huge fruit salads we ate each morning.....
First Day: Arrived at the bus station in San Gil, after an eerily uneventful bus journey (oh, but i did discover that if you stuff a brown roll with peanuts, raisins and caramelised peanuts, the resulting effect is just...delight-ful-icious!) to find that it was a draw between France and Italy (World Cup final) and so we sat ourselves down on the floor of the bus terminal with all the other transfixed commuters and watched the penalty shoot out. What timing.
Second Day: Decided to head to a 180m waterfall nearby. Two ways to get there...2 hour cycle ride or 20 mins bus journey. We decided on the cycle ride, but in the process of walking the 4 blocks to the rent-a-dodgy-bike shop in the heat of the day (this was only 9.30am...what was it gonna be like later?!) We managed to make an executive decision to grab a bus instead. I like it!
The waterfall was... ok wait, you have to bear in mind that I have been to Iguacu falls....anyway this waterfall was....was...so....ummm...hate to say it....i do appreciate nature and all that jazz...but...quite frankly...it was....how should i put this....puny? Yep. Thats how I would put it....! However, it was great fun hiking through the rainforest-like vegetation, scrambling over rocks and wading through the water in order to get to our desired picnic spot....then the rains came. God damn it got cold.....
Grabbed a bus back after a couple of hours and set about making a stir fry for dinner...highlight! (Tip: Soak garlic and ginger in the soy sauce a couple of hours before you are about to cook...intense!)
Third Day: Head to Barichara, a small town nearby for the day. Was a lovely little town situated on the edge of Chicamocha Canyon. Incredible views, great pasta for lunch, an incredible drink called Sabajón....a Baileys like concoction infused with a variety of flavours, we opted for coffee and proceeded to spike every subsequent cup with the good stuff!!
Back in San Gil, we paid a visit to the Botanical Garden...was strange walking around and looking at all the exotic plants..most of which could be found in our garden in Nigeria....blast from the past! (Mum, maybe Emmanuel has come to Colombia?!) They also have heaps of huge trees all covered in Old Man`s Beard (Clematis Vitalba), a fast growing vine that covers and strangles trees and shrubs. Its thick blanket of growth blocks light from getting through to the plants underneath, eventually killing them. Looks pretty though!
And here endeth another installment! Caribbean here we come...one stop to go!
posted by Priya @ 2:20 PM
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