Water from above and below - On the road with photo enthusiasts - Colombia 2025 - 3
2025-02-13 - Water from above and below
It seems I got over the jet lag quite quickly. I only woke up once around 3am and then went back to sleep.
I get up shortly after 6am and walk a bit through the town. The center consists mainly of hotels and restaurants. There's not much going on at the moment, but the Bolivians come at the weekend and then it gets crowded. The streets are paved with oversized cobblestones. When they are wet, as they are now, you have to be careful not to slip. The weather is gray in gray. It continued to rain overnight, but it's supposed to stay dry today.
Breakfast is served from 7.45am and is ok, even if the waiter is a bit overwhelmed. We start at 8:30am. First on the agenda is a waterfall (El Hayal - Cascadas y Cuevas [↗]). We drive there for about an hour, first on a poor country road and later on an off-road track.
At the starting point of the hike, bureaucracy kicks in: everyone has to register on a list - name, passport number, emergency telephone number and preferably also health insurance. Everyone is probably insured here, and the agency wants to know all this. There are big plans for the future. An adventurous suspension bridge is currently being built and there are also plans for what looks like a zipline.
We then head downhill on “jungle paths” accompanied by a local guide. Due to the rain of the last few days, it is muddy, and the stones are slippery. On the other hand, the waterfall has plenty of water. This can be the opposite in February.
Of course, one guide can't handle a whole horde of photographers. On the way, we already have a beautiful view that needs to be captured.
I'm one of the first and we make our way to the cave. You hardly can get lost. Theoretically, you can go into the cave and see bats and the remains of the Indians. I even have a head lamp with me, but the passage is maybe 50 cm high, and I don't feel like crawling through it.
The rest of the group doesn't follow and so we walk back to the intersection and down to the waterfall. However, the spray there is so strong that nobody takes out the camera. The guide knows a way behind the waterfall. But I don't want to get soaking wet and go back up with another one.
The hike took a total of 1.5 hours. One by one, the others start to arrive.
On the way to our next destination, we stop in a larger village to eat vegetarian empanadas in a small café. In the meantime, it is already just after 1pm.
The next off-road track takes us to a river with rapids that we want to photograph. The path along the river is very muddy. Where the river is not too deep, it is better to walk in the water, even if none of us are wearing water sandals or something similar.
Behind the rapids that we want to photograph, we have to climb down a rocky ledge. It is difficult to hold on and the last step is not in sight. I think to myself that we would have to climb up again later. And what I really don't want is to sprain my ankle. So, I stay up there with a few others and look for an interesting perspective.
We should then walk further down the canyon. As we are now told, there is also a trail that leads around the ledge. However, as very dark clouds are gathering, Riko intervenes. We break off and take the same route back to our bus.
As soon as we are on the way back, it starts to rain and so we break off completely and drive back to the hotel. There, the rain turns into a massive thunderstorm. Did I mention that it's the dry season at the moment?
So instead of taking photos, we quickly arrange a photo editing session.
