Sunday morning:
A five metre high room with a wooden
ceiling is not ideal if right above are dorms with a big group of
young people getting ready for the day at six in the morning – not
if you had hoped for more sleep, which, luckily, we didn't need after
a good night's rest.
San Gil is called 'the adventure
capital of Colombia', where everything from canyoning to ziplining,
paragliding to bungee jumping attracts adventure seekers. We got our
(small) share of it when we asked about white-water rafting at our
hostel. Two options are available here, one for the inexperienced on
the Fonce River that runs right through town, with class 1 to 3
rapids, the other, with class 3 to 5 rapids, on the Suárez
River, which requires former rafting experience – not that we would
have any desire for something this extreme. Of course hostels can
arrange everything. The guy at the desk told us if we registered we
would be picked up an hour later, only to find out minutes later that
the van would pick us up in ten to fifteen minutes, which turned into
not even five. Thus we had not much time to think about what to pack,
just made sure we had sunglasses and sunscreen. We probably would
have opted for bathing suits or at least shorts if we had had a
moment to consider, but hiking pants would have to do: whoever comes
to the door of any house along these narrow, traffic congested
streets to pick someone up doesn't have time to wait even a couple of
minutes before a honking concert convinces him to move on, drive once
more around the block and try again.
In situations like these it always
seems extremely urgent, but when we were dropped off at the tour
operator's a few blocks east and only a block south near the river
(we could have easily walked, had we known) we remained the only
customers for a while, and it took at least half an hour, probably
more, until the necessary amount of people was assembled: three young
Latin American couples and two old Germans from Canada. :) Two rafts
and a kayak were loaded on a trailer, hooked up to our van, and we
were on our way to the starting point, 11km upriver. Three guides
were responsible to get us safely back to where we started. One of
them delivered the safety instructions, all in Spanish, of course,
but thankfully one of the girls was able to help us out in English
when we didn't understand something. We all received our safety gear,
helmets and a life vest, then we were split up: the six young people
manned the bigger raft with one guide, Ciro, our guide, took us to
our smaller one, and the third guy in the kayak completed the crew.
The Fonce river runs brown and fast in
its narrow valley, dense tropical vegetation to both sides, branches
hanging low. Riding in a raft, I found out right away, is quite
different from canoeing: the boat is more stable, of course, and
small waves are less noticeable. We had a few minutes to get used to
the feel – not many – before the first set of rapids. They
looked scary, but to my surprise I found that it wasn't that bad, in
fact, was fun. Big rocks jutted out of the water from time to time,
but our guide's calls of adelante (forward)
or atrás
(behind)
or to hold got us safely around them. I had hardly finished thinking
that this was easier than I had expected when a deep valley appeared
right in front of me, surrounded by huge waves going this way and
that. A moment later I found myself in the water, going under for
just a moment before I emerged, gasping, finding the raft still right
beside me, thankfully. My paddle had slipped out of my grip, but I
was able to grab it before I felt myself being pulled back into the
boat by the front of my vest. A bit disoriented, I scrambled to take
up my position in the front of the boat. All this went so fast that I
didn't have time to get scared, really, and soon was able to join in Ciro's and Johann's laughter.
A
calmer part of the river soon followed, and the young people from the
other raft all jumped in to swim. We weren't so excited about the
muddy water – and I had had my chance to get wet already – so we
just watched them float until the next set of rapids appeared. We got
through without a problem, but I was careful now and hung on to the
strap at the edge for the worst of the waves. Johann had laughed to
soon: he, too, found himself in the water unexpectedly and was pulled
in by Ciro. In retrospect – and looking at the photos and videos he
took of our trip – we arrived at the conclusion that he had done it
on purpose, either for the fun of it or to show us that it was
nothing to be afraid of. The other rafters practiced tipping the boat
over and uprighting it again, but we had no such ambition: we are
most certainly not going to do anything more extreme than those class
three rapids!
Shortly
before the end of the two hour trip Johann started to feel a bit
queasy, and by the time we got out of the water and had carried the
raft up to the road he was really sick. We don't know what brought it
on, but it might have been from the water he swallowed when he went
in: it didn't look too enticing. Now, a day later, he's okay again.
 | |||
| The Fonce River seen from the banks (Parque Gallineral) |
 |
| Roots of an old Ceiba tree |
Later
in the afternoon we walked the five or so blocks to the Parque
Gallineral, a 4 ha green space along 'our' river. The city did a
really nice job with this park, where cobblestone trails lead between
trees hung with the 'old man's beards', a kind of parasite that, as
the Lonely Planet so rightly says, makes parts of this park look like
'Middle Earth' from Lord of the Rings. It was cloudy, and dusk was
setting in, so the atmosphere was almost mystical. Few people were
about, the noise of the river rushing by drowned out even the traffic
noise if you were close enough, and flowering jungle plants added
colour to the many different textures of leaves and tree bark.
Two
bridges crossed small calmer tributaries of the Fonce, and here the
river's sound had receded to make room for frog calls – at least
that's what it sounded like. How nice to close this day of excitement
at such a quiet, relaxing place.
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