San Gil - Part 2

Thursday in San Gil was a big day for us.  We went 20 minutes down the road to the town of Paramo.  There, we were going to go caving in La Cueva del Indio.  We were outfitted with headlamps and a flotation vest and began our descent into the cave.

Once in the cave, we adjusted both our eyes and steps; our eyes to the low light and our steps to the slippery rocks.  We learned about los murcielagos (bats) that live in the cave.  They feed on fruit and insects.  As we ambled through the cave, sometimes needing to use our hands for balance, we sometimes put our hands in slimy bat guano.  Fortunately, the cave also had fresh water inside where we could rinse our hands.  We had to wade through waist deep water at times, and it was surprisingly not scary.

 The walk through the cave took about an hour and a half.  It culminated with a 5 meter jump off a little platform into a pool below.  Without our headlamps, it would have been pitch black.  We all did the jump except Linnea.  Dempsey make the jump twice!  When we exited the cave, we were on the other side of the little town and we walked back to our start point in our wet clothes.

Happy to be back in the light of day!

As we came out of the cave we realized that the cloud cover had burned off and it became obvious that it would be a perfect day for parapente (Spanish for paragliding). We got to have a quick lunch before we hopped into a van for the drive up to the top of a mountain so we could ride the wind and thermals into the sky.  The kids got to go first to take advantage of the lighter winds that happen earlier in the afternoon. Once the wind picked up a little, the bigger people got to have a go. 

Linnea getting ready to take off!

Dempsey's turn!

Flying together!

In this picture you can see the grassy take off and landing area.

We had to wait until late in the afternoon for the winds to pick up again so Eric could take his turn.  Our plan was to take the bus a short ride to the town of Barichara where we were going to stay for 2 nights.  Eric didn't land until about 5:00, which meant that getting back to San Gil, picking up out stuff from the hotel, then figuring out the bus schedule was going to be a pain.  Fortunately, we had met a Colombian family that was also vacationing in San Gil.  We had spent the day together in the caves and parapet.  The offered to give us a ride to Barichara and we gladly accepted!  We had dinner together before they took us to our hotel.