Blogs from San Gil, Colombia, South America

From Minca we took our first night bus to San Gil, the adventure capital of Colombia. The curvy, bumpy roads don't allow for decent sleep so we were a bit too dazed to do anything adventurous the first day. Instead we walked through the botanical gardens and ate ice cream in the lovely central park. San Gil is a medium sized city which has retained its charm while growing as a centre for adventure tourism. Among the many things on offer, Phil aimed to convince Becky to do white water rafting, parasailing and bungee jumping. The rafting and parasailing had to be done in the morning and since we only had a few days, once they were booked there was no deliberating. The rafting was on class 2/3 rapids down the Rio Fonce with a fun ... read more

Leaning backwards, Chris slowly walked himself over the edge of the cliff. P could barely look over the ledge. Finding his footing and feeling confident, he took a few more steps backwards and began his descent. Then came the water - a tap operated waterfall sending litres of water per minute over the cliff. Chris immediately lost his footing as the rock became slippery and swung outwards and then sideways crashing into the wall then becoming entangled in a tree branch. Thankfully this wasn't another near death experience like we had on the Great Wall. Dangerous yes. But luckily we were on a tour of extreme activities with a very proficient guide who only spoke Spanish. We guess thats a good and bad thing. San Gil is the hub of extreme activities in Colombia and many ... read more

I got to San Gil last night after a nice bus journey through the mountains. This is the place for adventure sports and today I went paragliding. It was incredible flying with the birds over Chicamocha Canyon, the views were amazing as you will see in the pictures. The videos are too bug to upload on this internet connection but I will get them up soon if I can.... read more

We have now decided to avoid night buses where we can as the roads are really windy and the seat space really cramped, so we took the day bus from Bogotá to San Gil. This also gave me the opportunity to enjoy the views along the way. San Gil is the adventure capital of Colombia with a population of about 50,000. The city itself is not particularly pretty and doesn't have many sites of interest outside their amazing adventure sports. When we arrived at the hostel we were given a booklet outlining all the different activities on offer. We signed up for the combination caving and rappelling with our guide Diego who pretty much only spoke Spanish. We began with caving and visited La Cueva Antigua (the old cave), it has many rock formations as well ... read more

Our Arrival Our bus from Bogota dropped us off at the terminal up the hill and over the river from the town at 3:20pm. We walked down the hill and left across the bridge which is calle 12 and took the first right down carrera 11 which is where a lot of the hotels are next to the river. It took 20mins to walk there along the side of the road. There wasn't much of a path. Where We Stayed Hotel San Carlos - Carrera 11 and calle 12. COP$20,000 for a double room with TV, fan and shared bathroom. COP$30,000 for a private bath. Towels and soap provided. Cold water showers. Internet works on both levels. What We Did Walked up to the cross on the other side of the river for views of the ... read more