Holy High Water

Welcome back to me! Well, I had quite the adventure, as always. Halfway through the week I got bored with riding horses, and being trapped in the madness of Bogota, so we left. We, being Alejandro, Myself, Julio Ceasar (a rider), Juliana (more affectionately called Huli Huli, also a rider), Mauricio (nicknamed by Alejo "Mauricito", which means "little Mauricio" - he is only 5'1", also a rider), Bear (okay, they were all riders), and about five or so other horse peopole who wanted to venture out into the jungle with us. We left the city at about 55 degrees, overcast and rainy, drove down the mountains into the rainforest, and within 3 hours of driving, it warmed to 90 degrees, sunny, and humid like the steam room at Dad's gym. We wound around muddy, unpaved roads in the mountains, driving in and out of clouds all the while, until we reached a tiny town called Tobia, where every surface built by man was covered with Orchids, and strange tropical growths built by nature. We then began our half-day hike up a particularly difficult/muddy/slippery mountain path until we reached near the top, and came to rest below a 4 tiered, 200 meter waterfall. All I can say is, WOW. We climbed up alongside the cascade assisted by bamboo poles stuck in between rocks, and aged twine loops for handholds, the ingenious placements of which we owed to our hosts, these men who clearly spent all their lives climbing these cliffs, and rapelling down these waterfalls. A small man inquired if we understood that "under these SEVERE conditions, you AND your party are acting COMPLETEly at your own RISK and TO attempt climbing under YOUR own judgement you must decide that you are PHYSICALly capable, oh, and there are no HEALTH professionals available at all, in case you may be wondering." I could read between the lines. So, we climbed, then we joined a slipperry knot of ropes tied in an incomprehensible network to various trees and rocks, tied ourselves off to one of the ropes with a loose end dangling over the falls, and threw ourselves backwards over the edge, in the midst of the pounding water. It is quite a thing, to put your life in the hands of someone you do not know, and whom you understand even less. Nonetheless, rapelling is one of those things you tend to figure out very swiftly, because you have no alternative. We would rapell about 150 feet, and then drop into a lagoon (the ropes always seemed to end about 20 feet above the lagoon), before tying off to the the next rope, and going over the next tier. It was so...#@%*#@*...fun!!!! I didn't get too many good photos, since I was trying not to get the camera wet, but you can hopefully grasp the scale, you can see the lowest section of falls to the left of me in the first PIC, the second is Me, Alejo, Julio, and Huli Huli. We also went rafting in the Rio Negro, and boy was that river pissed off. Did any of you hear about the mudslides there last week? Well, we decided to go rafting downstream while is was doing all that raining upstream. The result was Level 4 & 5 rapids, that we had no business attempting, but once again, we all survived, and had a great time doing it. I have so many pictures to post, any suggestions on the best way to do that? Anyways, I love Columbia, and can't wait to go back, next time we are going to go Canopying across the Coffee Plains and Cloudforests!! I will write about things as I have time to upload pictures, and post them, the benefit there being I don't bore you all at once. A couple other things happened while in the land of RRRapids and RRRRigaton and (I finally learned to roll my "rrrrs"), first, I quit smoking, again and for the final time (YAAAAY!! TNT, you are next!!), second, I caught one hell of a cold. So I am going to bed now to try to kick it. I miss you all, and glad there was so much to read when I got back. LOVE, BREE :) :) :)