Ants, Rivers and the Best Market so far

After making the long journey out of Mompox, we arrived in the town of San Gil, the self-proclaimed adventure sports capital of Colombia. We settled into our small but comfortable hostel, and spent the next few days indulging in typical tourist activities. Our first priority was a thorough cleaning of ourselves and all of our belongings, as somewhere along the way we both suffered from an attack of bed bugs. While waiting for clothes to dry, we discovered for the first time real salsa in Columbia and enjoyed the first of our 6 days of cheap breakfast and juice in the main marketplace. This is by far the best produce market we've encountered in Colombia, and we made sure to visit it daily during our time in San Gil.

After the necessary laundry day, we chose to go rafting on the Rio Suarez, Class 4-5. Unfortunately, our choice to join three German men in a raft wasn't the best, as they screamed like little girls and stopped paddling the second we encountered rapids. After coming very close to flipping at the first big hole, our guide did an excellent job of making the best of it and keeping us out of trouble. However in doing this, we were heckled by other rafts with competent paddlers for our attention to safety. We concluded our rafting day with a trip out to a farm owned by the hostel owner for a little BBQ party, where we both gradually seemed to speak better and better Spanish as we drank more rum.

The following day, we opted for a more low key activity and visited a local creek for sampling of swimming holes. Fortunately, a friendly local provided us with a ride to and from the spot saving us from a long, hot walk. At one particular pool, very brave locals practiced 15' swan drives into about 6' of water. Very brave...

Next on our list was a day trip to the beautiful, tourist town of Barichara. As far as small colonial towns go, Barichara is about as picturesque as they come, but this doesn't really change the fact that there's not much to do there. Like most tourists, we ended up at local restaurant famous for it's use of large ants. The giant winged ants in this part of Colombia are traditionally fried and eaten, and this particular restaurant is extremely proud of this culinary legacy. Kadie and I opted for the special of the house, steak covered in ant sauce. Truth be told, the ants don't really taste like anything but crunchy.

Despite being congested from a cold, I attempted to go parasailing the following day, but because of all the congestion in my ears I was crippled by vertigo and unable to go for the flight. Kadie however, let out squeals of delight as her pilot spun and dropped through the sky. Evidently, apart from spinning, being the passenger in tandem parasailing is actually quite boring.

After my experience with dizziness we decided to stay in San Gil one extra day to give my cold time to pass, and hiked to a local waterfall. All in all, San Gil has been a great place to visit, but after six days we're ready to get moving. After making the decision to skip Bogota until the end of our trip, we're ready for our first night
bus to Medellin...