The highlands of the Eastern Cordillera of the Andean Mountains are great places for outdoor activities. Here, Milva and I would do ziplining and rapelling for the first time in our lives. The others would watch us having fun and betting on our courage, or lack of it!
We were in Villa de Leiva, a gorgeous colonial town whose population triples or quadruples during summer weekends. It is the playground of wealthy Bogotanos, who get away from the noise and air pollution of Bogotá to enjoy the outdoor activities of the area, in a clean and tranquil environment. We arrived just as they were returning to the city.
Villa de Leiva is near Tunja, the ancient capital of the Muisca's northern confederation, known then as Hunza. While Tunja is a busy commercial centre, Villa de Leiva is a place to relax and contemplate, and draws the large weekend crowds, year-round, summer in particular. The town has a significantly higher percentage of artists and writers than the national average. Moreover, it was constructed primarily for the Spanish nobility, and therefore has many beautiful houses, some of which have been converted into hotels to accommodate the large number of visitors.
Its main square is truly out of proportion to the size of the town. It is even larger than Plaza Bolívar, in Bogotá, or at least it appeared so. It also looked like a square built for military drills, rather than for social functions. In any case, with many shops and outdoor cafés, it was the meeting place for tourists, but it lacked the charm of Plaza Bolívar. There was no old lady, no pigeons, and no young girls with their llamas. It felt a bit sterile in comparison. Furthermore, built on the side of a hill, its pavement sloped downwards from the imposing church that dominated it, making one feel unbalanced, even when sober.
We arrived late in the afternoon and just walked around admiring the old buildings, until we found a charming little place to eat. It was nothing fancy, but the aromas emanating from it pulled us right into it. There was no debate or discord: we went right in. While the late afternoon temperatures were still mild, when the sun sank below the horizon, they dropped precipitously. A bowl of steaming hot soup remedied the situation, quite nicely. If there is one thing Colombians do well, the ajiaco (soup), which has its origins in pre-Columbian times, is it. The bowls that we were served were a meal in itself, which, of course, is what they were meant to be. The size was a surprise to my wife and I, when we first tried ajiaco, but not to our Italian friends.
The following morning we walked to the Pozos Azules, which literally translates to blue wells, but they are more like blue pools or ponds. According to my travel guide it was a distance of about two kilometres, which, even at a leisurely pace should not have taken more than 40 minutes. But, one hour later, we were still looking for the blue pools. Finally, fifteen minutes later, we spotted them at a distance. Our travel companions were not walkers, and I bore the brunt of their discontent. All day long I was chided about the two-kilometre walk, having to hear over and over how much longer Canadian kilometres were. The blue ponds turned out to be smaller than we had imagined, but they rewarded us with splendid colours.
Our next destination was La Periquera waterfalls - another of the major attractions of the area, about 12 km from town, so we hired a van for the six of us. The falls are inside a nature reserve, surrounded by lush greenery. Activities there include: trekking, ziplining, and rappelling, on the side of the falls. The latter was not for the faint of heart. The park entrance was at the top of a steep cliff and it was a long drop down to the falls. There were two ways of getting down: the most common was walking; and for the brave souls, there was ziplining.
Milva and I took the easy way down. Neither of us had ziplined before, so, this was the perfect opportunity to try it. We couldn't pass on it. We saw others do it and it looked like a lot of fun. While the rest of the group slowly made their way down to the grassy plain below, Milva and I put on our harnesses. When we were both ready, I said to her, "Ladies first," to which she replied, "We will make an exception this time." I got attached to the line, I took a big breath, and then I pushed away from the cliff edge: gravity did the rest. In no time I was flying with my arms outstretched, feeling the adrenalin and the rush of air as I moved through it. It was exhilarating! Milva came down after me and, while we were both ready to do it again, we decided to wait for the scaredy-cats and proceed to the waterfalls.
The promotional brochure we had picked up at the information centre that morning made them sound big and torrential, and I suppose that at certain times of the year the latter adjective might even be appropriate. However, when we got there, very little water was running over the falls, which was disappointing to those of us who had come to hear the roar of the mini Niagara Falls, but offered an opportunity to the more adventurous types. Because of that, we once again had two options of descending to the bottom, a fifteen-metre drop. One was to take the trail to the left of the falls; and the other was to go straight down rappelling. Milva and I were ready for it: it was our day for firsts.
There were three waterfalls, the first being the highest, or deepest, depending on where one was standing. It was not a sheer drop to the bottom. The best way of describing it is a terraced drop, effectively breaking it into four smaller waterfalls. I tried imagining what it would look like when the creek feeding it runs like a torrent. There must be water splashing everywhere, possibly obscuring the fact that there are four distinct drops. The other two are further downstream and much shorter.
We were at the top of the first of three waterfalls fitted with the appropriate harness and ready to go. What had been just a 15 m drop earlier had suddenly become an abyss as I stood at the very edge, trying to make my first move. My hands had started to sweat and my heart was beating a lot faster. Milva was standing beside me and I could see that she was also a little unnerved, but was trying to put on a brave face. I remember thinking, "Am I biting off more than what I can chew?" with that thought out of the way, I loosened my tight grip on the rope ever so slightly and pushed off. I didn't get very far. I was too scared of slipping and sliding on the slippery surface. I knew it was an irrational fear: I had to relax. My second attempt went a little better, as did the third and the fourth. Eventually, I got confident of letting go, knowing that I wasn't going to slip too far and hurt myself: finally I was in full control. Soon after I was offering Milva words of encouragement, and in no time we were going down like two pros, almost. When we reached the bottom, we were both wet from the spray of the falls, but thankfully, it was a sunny day and we soon dried up.
Reunited with the others who had been watching the spectacle as they made their way down, albeit with some apprehension when they saw us struggling at the beginning, we proceeded along the path to the second and third waterfall. Unknown to us, they had made bets as to whether we would actually go through with it. Silvio lost big time.
The lower waterfalls were small, but fascinating; and as we walked through the woods, following the well-worn path, we could hear their pleasing and mesmerizing sound. There were some steep descents, however, and Silvio, the heaviest of the group, and the youngest of the three males, didn't realize that the only way back to the van was up the same steep slopes. The way up nearly killed him. He was panting so badly; we were all concerned he was going to have a heart attack. When we reached the top, and we all had a chance to catch our breath, Pino remarked, "Silvio, for a while I thought we were going to have to carry you up."
To which he replied, "Don't be silly, you would have needed a crane to lift me up this slope." We all had a good laugh and were pleased to see that he hadn't lost his sense of humour.
That night, we all slept well!
Thank you for your interest in my story. If you enjoyed reading this chapter, please don't forget to vote. Thank you.
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Traveling in Colombia
Non-Fiction"You must be crazy!" said family and friends when we told them we were going to backpack through Colombia for six weeks. "Colombia is a dangerous country!" they insisted. "You can be robbed and even kidnapped." They continued. But we had done our ho...
