Rafting in San Gil

San Gil's a nice city: it's got pretty mountains, a peaceful river, some nice colonial buildings, and a relaxing park. But really, who gives a toss, cause you can see this sort of stuff in plenty of places in Colombia. The real reason people go to San Gil is cause it's the adventure capital of Colombia. Early Sunday morning (about 5am) we met up with Kelly (a Colombian intern with the project, and also Carlos Leon's lucky girlfriend - trust me girls, the guy's a catch), and got the bus to San Gil (just over 2 hours from Bucaramanga). Once we arrived, we had a bit of breakfast to remedy some hangovers from the night before (mine hangover hadn't hit yet, cause I still hadn't slept), and checked into a cheap hotel while Carlos went and checked out some prices with the adventure tour companies. We eventually settled on a 50,000 peso (AUD$28) deal that was made up of whitewater rafting in the morning and caving in the afternoon, and headed down to the tour operator's office to register for our rafting trip.

Rafting: after a bit of a wait while the rafts were prepared, we were taken high up on the Rio Fonce. We had a quick chat about safety, learnt some basic paddle maneuvers, and ten minutes later we were on our way down the river with our instructor, Mario. The rapids on the part of the river we were on go up to level 3, and apparently when the river is higher (in October and April) they reach level 4. It started off pretty easy, in fairly calm water, but as we got further down the river the rapids picked up in intensity, and it got more fun. About half way down the river, Mario suggested that it would be a good learning experience to capsize the raft in a rapid so that we could practice our rescue techniques, and this was probably the most fun part of the time on the raft. After that we got to float outside of the boat for about 20 minutes which was really relaxing, and probably the highlight of the morning. It felt really good to be able to spend some time outside of the city after a full month in Bucaramanga - it was a similar sort of feeling to the relief I feel every time the train from the city gets to the Hawksebury, which for me marks the start of the Coast...

Next update will be caving...