San Gil - Gringo invasion

When Americans invaded Mexico, they were wearing green army uniforms. The locals wanted them to leave and they didn't know much English, so they said "Green Go" as in leave. Since then the term for the foreigners who look American is "Gringo". Gringo is basically something like an African man in China. You recognize him right away, he looks different, wears different cloths, can't speak the language, you could recognize him in the middle of 1000 people, and he basically looks lost all the time :) At first it was offensive, but now we call each other that and definitely most of the people in San Gil. And OMG the people !!! We've seen so many weirdos that's incredible ! "Do you speak Canadian?" was a question that I didn't really know how to answer :) One guy was travelling for a year didn't know that water in a bag costs 5 to 20 times less than a water in a bottle, didn't know that all the buses in the little towns leave from the main square, didn't know the difference between tomato and a fruit (called tree tomatoes), and didn't know how to make fruit juices. All of that we learned in first week in Cali. That's so strange how the experiences are different, and it seems that we know so much about the culture and people than most of the backpackers. For him an hour walk between cities looked like forever, and for us after 12 hour hikes it's just like a walk in a park :)
It still surprises me how easy it is to get to know people so quickly. After 5 minutes of knowing each other we already eating lunch together. I can imagine meeting someone on a subway in Toronto, having a quick talk like which station to get off of and asking the person for lunch ... maybe I will try it one day just for the heck of it :) It's also very easy to find people to travel with. In the duration of 1 week we met 1 guy, and 3 lawyers who invited us to travel together. With the lawyers, all it took is 1 trip to the cave and 1 lunch. It was a good idea, we got along quite well, but they were leaving way too early, and we haven't done all the activities yet. We also met a 75 year old man who was travelling and he did paragliding. It's very inspiring to meet people like that and to know that it's never to late or we're never too old to do anything we wish to do.
On Thursday we went to a cave. It was quite interesting. The cave was huge with very big halls, and hundreds of hundreds of bats. We turned our hamlet lights off and could feel them flying around us !! There was a place in the cave with vampire bats, and everything underneath was covered in blood ! At the end we reached a cliff where we could jump off 4.5 meters into the darkness with just a spot of the flashlight indicating where to jump ... nice !!
On Saturday we went to another cave which was by far more interesting than the first one. It was much narrower and people can actually do 3 day hikes in there. There is a river passing through out all the cave, so we were constantly in the water and surrounded by stalagmites and stalactites. The minute we got there, we had to get down on the bottom into the river and use our arms to get us through, since the height was only 1 meter. Then there were mud slides, and we had to sit in a mud bath to get ourselves fully muddy so that we could slide down. We also turned our lights off and walked in complete darkness in the river with our right leg on the edge to feel the path. There was also a spot where the water was high and the ceiling low, and only 10 cms of air in between. So we had to float with our legs forward, everything in the water, and only with nose and mouth outside, and with the help of our hands on the ceiling to get ourselves through. Another cool part was about 30 meters long with about half a meter of height, and we were just like soldiers lying down, and rolling all the way through :) Some guys couldn't do it though because they were stuck when they turned on their sides :)))
On Sunday we were thinking to leave but it was raining a lot of the time and the river was too full of water with big current, so they kept on canceling rafting. And a bunch of people stayed extra days just to be able to go. The owner of the hostel said that usually the rafting is canceled about 15 days a year, and only when we were there, it got canceled for 4 days ... just our luck. Anyway, so we decided to do hydro speed. It in a grade 3+ river, and you have a boogie board which you lie on top off and kinda cruise down the river. At the beginning it was fun because the waves were kinda big. But we were scared to go in since the current was so strong and fast, and the waves were big and there is only a life jacket, hamlet and a 0.5 by 1 meter board to save you. But once we were in, it wasn't too bad, except that there is no way of knowing the waves. Sometimes they get big, but by the time you get there, they kinda smooth down, and you pass on top of them very easily. So it happened a few times, except that one time when 2 waves from different directions converged, and I got just in the middle of it just in time to cover myself completely by a huge and powerful 2 meter wave. Immediately I lost my board, did a few turns in the water. It wasn't a big deal, but for some reason I started to panic. Good thing that the safety kayak was there very quickly, so I grabbed onto him, but still I was gasping for air since a lot of waves still were covering me by the time we got my board back and finished that set of rapids. The rest of the trip was very peaceful, with no more rapids, so we just went along with the current. The guide even told us that we finished the trip in half the time because of the strength of the river. The flip was very scary, but it was an extremely good preparation for what came next.
Since we were done so quickly with the trip, we decided to go to another town for some river. Got a bus there, and then had to walk for half an hour. It was nothing special, we just sat there for a bit, didn't even get into the water. We were so lazy to go back, and there were a few buses standing there. We asked the first one, and apparently he was going to the village. YES !!! We were allowed to get in. It turned out to be some tour bus with senior citizens. Of course he announced to the whole bus that we're Russian/Canadian tourists :) The driver was driving around showing us different places. He took us to some night club which was in a natural cave with a waterfall in front of it! Amazing !! So we thought if he's gonna charge us or not, and just in case we got out 5000 pesos, put it aside to tell him that we don't have any more money. But when we got into the town, we asked if we need to pay, and he said something like "only if you want to", and we were more than happy to give him that money :) ... Only in Colombia - hitch hiking a tour bus :))
On Monday, the rafting trip was finally on ! 18 eager backpackers hopped into the bus, got to the start point, and went through the most extensive safety procedures that I've ever been to. Grade 5+ river (the hardest river you can do rafting on) is not a joke, and everybody tried really hard to absorb and understand everything to stay safe. The guides were very knowledgeable, had a lot of safety equipment, and 4 safety kayaks patrolling the boats. The tour was fun, we got through all the big waves, mid way through the tour we stopped for lunch and played games. The tour was almost done, there was only 1 more set of waves to go through. The guide started jokingly scaring us, and almost getting off the boat as saying that he can't go through with this. But then he got very serious and told us to listen carefully to all the instructions, and repeated it a few times. FULL ATTENTION!!, POSITION, FORWARD, INSIDE, LISTEN, FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS !! Okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk .... everybody started to worry a little bit, it's the last set of waves grade 5+. Ok, here we go !!! Everything is alright, passing through them just fine, and then 1 big wave, crash, our boat spins out of control .... IIIINSIIIIDDDDDDEEEEEEEEE !!!! (the safest position on the boat, for the boat to be the most stable and safest for the riders, with us holding the safety rope on the sides). We can see the wave coming, and we're going towards it sideways (not a good position), SMASH ... OH SHIT, OH SHIT, OH SHIT !!! the boat is flipping, we've all underwater. I was under the boat right away, getting carried away with it, unable to get out, thrown from left to right, it hurts to hold the rope, the hand gets torn out of it, but I kept on holding. What to do?? trying to get out in all the directions, can't think, can't focus, can't breath. For a second I remembered the safely instructions that said that if you under the boat, just chose one direction the stick with it. Trying to remain calm, I push myself out by the rope with all the strength that I have left and 15 seconds later I'm outside, able to breath again, and moving forward with an incredible speed with the water. The guide got on top of the boat ... SWIM TO THE RIGHT, SWIM TO THE RIGHT !!!!!!! No way, I'm not getting away from the boat. It's keeping me up, and I'm holding the safety rope, so I stuck with it. They flipped the boat back, and I was the first one in. We rescued a few people, and 2 were brought back by the safety kayaks. Man what an experience. It was extremely scary!!! But overall it was fun, and we would definitely do it again!

pix at http://picasaweb.google.com/ed4330/Santander#