Wednesday, January 31, 2007

A few scenes from Colombia...

"La mano de Dios" = "The hand of god".
I just had to have a pic of an Englishman stood next to that...even if it wasn't in Argentina.

We went to a town called Mompos, which involved some of the most effort to get there of any town so far. Of course buses, then pick up truck, a boat ride upriver (they boat's engine messed up after 15 mins so we took another 45mins instead of 10 or so), then the most intense motorbike ride yet over a dusty road - the type you'd look for to mountain bike.

The town was full of cool old architecture and worth the visit.

The pic below is another real nice village in a different region. We camped in a cool site; a small field shared with big white rabbits and a sheep.

Above is a scene from that village's main square.

Paragliding was awesome fun. Starting up a hill overlooking farm fields, beyond them a big canyon and on the horizon were a few small table top mountains.



Once set to go I looked down and saw a group of vultures circling way below me but still high above the valley. We were waiting for the right thermals to set off. Then suddenly the vultures caught one and soared way way above us. A few seconds later and I was gliding above everthing!

The photo to the left was snapped up on the Colombian coast in tropical forest. We walked down a stream as the quickest and easiest way to get back to the beach (the path meandered loads).

I'm about to jump a log with a cool line of leaf cutter ants running along it.

That day on a walk to a pre-hispanic settlement up the mountain, I came face-to-face with a snake. Climbing up the boulders I was leaning forward because of the steepness and looking up it was right in front of my nose - luckily just as scared of me as it had started to crawl off...

We also saw bats in daylight, great big bright green iguanas, various coloured crabs and lizards, squirrels and a big rodent called an Agouti as well as the acient settlement hidden among the forest.

That was all a while ago now. We've now been in Venezuela about 3 weeks or so - a country full of fantastic countryside but people who are "generally" a bit daft and/or annoying.