Archives for July 2009

Flying above the ground at 400m, I asked my tandem partner “you do this every day all day?” “Si, senora,” he replied. Sometimes work isn’t so bad after all.

After our adventures on the river and our hike along camino real we decided it was time to take things up a notch. Literally. So we signed up to go on a tandem paragliding adventure. Unlike the United States, there are almost never release forms to be signed when doing extreme or adventure sports in other countries. While at first it seemed odd, I have never felt unsafe. That is until Alex, my tandem partner asked me if I wanted to do “acro”. Unsure as to what “acro” was and heading Danny’s advice never to say yes without completely understanding I replied. “Yo no se, que es la significa de acro?” “Vueltas,” he replied. (turns). “Oh, ok. Entiendo,” I said, signifying that I understood him. Lost in my translation of course was the fact that I had not yet agreed to do “acro”. As we began to climb higher above the ground he quickly jerked the sail to the right and we began to spin. And by spin I mean circle at fast speeds high above the ground loosing altitude with every spin.

As Danny told me later, everyone on the ground could hear me scream from 400m up. It was insanely fun though and when my turn was over I thanked Alex profusely for the “acro” and the time in the air.

Many of you may not realize what a Tour de France fan Danny is. Working from home the last few years he was able to watch each stage live. Now that we’re pretty much limited to watching via the Internet, our 40km bike trip to the Juan Casi Cascada became our own mini Tour de Colombia. Riding for what seemed like hours along the Rio Fonce we finally reached the waterfall in the heat of mid-day and of course splashed right in. I think the picture of Danny sums up the temperature of the water. It really was that cold. Somewhat refreshed, but mostly frozen we headed back towards San Gil. Signs along the highway warned “Peligro Mulas en la via.” Having quickly forgotten the lesson of the day before, that my Spanish isn’t nearly fluent enough, I decided Mulas was mules (turns out it actually is mules!). Needless to say, not five minute later we came across a lone mule loaded with sugar cane walking down the road. Mulas! I exclaimed to a bewildered Danny. With not a single other human soul in site, the mule proceeded down the road, even crossing sides of the street to avoid traffic. Amazed, we continued on our way passing several more lone mules along the road. Turns out there are Mulas en la via!