San Gil and Barichara

Our time in Bogota was coming to an end and with Angie and her friend Yury we wanted to spend the last weekend together in San Gil. San Gil is known as the adventure capital of Colombia. There e.g.. Wildwasserrafting, one scan Klettern, paragliding and hiking.
Friday evening 23:30 clock we got on the night bus. Here we already anticipated almost arctic temperatures, not to say, it was just freezing cold. The bus drivers here are the air conditioning systems always so low, that most passengers are boarding even with winter jacket and woolly hat. We arrived well chilled the next morning at 6:00 Clock in San Gil, and put us in the guest house Sam’s Mansion first for a while on the ear, because we could not really sleep well on the bus. Seppel we went not so well, he had quite a headache, probably because of the air conditioning in the bus. Therefore, he remained in bed. We three girls have had breakfast and then went by bus to barichara. This is a very nice little city and is therefore often used as a backdrop for Colombian films and series. Narrow streets with cobblestones pull up a hill. Left and right are small white painted houses with green or blue wooden doors and shutters. There are no glass windows but only shutters. In barichara everything was very still and quiet and it seemed as if time has stood still here. We wandered through the streets and had beautiful views of the city and mountains. The terracotta tile roofs have I particularly liked and also the dome of the old church, which could be seen from almost everywhere. After we had looked at the cozy place, we took a hike on the Camino Real. It was built by indigenous people for a German. The way out of huge cobbled stones pulled downhill and uphill through the arid landscape. Unfortunately, it was quite hazy and the mountains were not so good to see. An hour should take the hike up to the village Guane, but after 1,5 hours it was still not in sight and there was not a lot of time to sunset. So we went further and finally after 2 hours we saw the village. The last bus back to barichara was unfortunately already gone and a taxi quite expensive. Wir fragten deshalb eine Reisegruppe und durften in ihrem großen Reisebus direkt bis San Gil mitfahren 🙂
Seppel it was thankfully a little better and the next day we were able to make a trip to all four Chicamocha National Park. We drove first to the bus and then a cable car high on a mountain. From there we had a beautiful view of the Chicamocha Canyon and the surrounding mountains. The scenery was also very dry and there were many cacti.
In the region around San Gil there is a particularly exotic delicacy: “Culonas ants”. The huge dark brown leaf-cutter ants are eaten fried or roasted and throughout. Of course we also tried the ants. Ant season is but in August and therefore our ants have had a somewhat old aftertaste. Otherwise they are like salty chips.
Back in San Gil we have together had a typical Colombian dinner with lots of meat. After that, Angie and Yury had to say goodbye to us, because for both it went back to Bogota. We had one more day in San Gil before it went to the Caribbean coast. San Gil, incidentally, very steep streets, I think even steeper than “the steepest street in the world” in Neuseeland.