We could write for days about how great San Gil was; however we will try to spare you the boredom of reading all the nitty-gritty. After our bus ride through the night, we arrived in San Gil, known to be the town for "Extreme!": paragliding, rafting, rivers, mountains, downhill biking, caving, abseiling, repelling, waterfalls, hikes, etc. Luckily there was also plenty to do in San Gil for cheap. Always a plus. The first day we checked out the botanical garden which was just okay. That night, the hostel had a "bbq" with some pretty big steaks and it was great to meet a lot of people (Matt wants everyone to know that the term BBQ is used very loosely with most and means nothing of the sort as to what actual BBQ is).
Our second day in San Gil we went canyoning and it was quite the adventure. You may notice plenty of pics from this outing on flickr with random people in them because we were volunteered as group picture taker with our waterproof camera. The outing involved crawling through a muddy cave ("caving"), abseiling through a waterfall and off a cliff, jumping off waterfalls, and hiking down the river by climbing over rocks. Here are some pictures of what we did:
The next day, while our companion Ben was extreming it out on the rapids, we met up with a Swiss friend, Marcel, and headed out for about a 1.5 hour hike from Barichara to Guane, two colonial towns a short bus ride from San Gil. The hike provided wonderful views of Colombia's mountainsides while enjoying conversation. Both towns had pretty town squares, but not much else.
The next morning we teamed up with a few guys from the hostel and headed out to find the waterfalls near by. On top of that, we were on a mission to head across the river and find the hostel owner's farm house on the other side of the waterfalls. We got to jump off some more waterfalls and then walk behind another while crossing the river which was pretty cool. Colombia is quite beautiful.
The last day we had time to go out and have a whole day of adventure due to buses leaving at all hours of the day(for us it left at 11:30 pm). We went with three others to Pescorita, about 20 minutes away from San Gil and it was pretty stunning. We managed to turn a 40 minute hike up the river into 2 hours of round about ways and through paths less traveled, but the scenery was great so we didn't much care.
On a side note, one of Matt's favorite things so far from Colombia would have to be the "meatsticks". He and Ben got to know the meatstick lady in San Gil pretty well! (pictured with Marcel in the middle)
While in San Gil we stayed at Macondo hostel, owned by a nice Australian, Sean. He was always around, more than willing to answer our questions, and was super friendly. The hostel had a low-key, fun vibe and was a great place to stay. We had a different room for the first two nights and paid about $12 each, then moved to the other dorm for our next two nights at $9 (every little bit helps).
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