Rocks & Sucks in Colombia

It’s been a couple of weeks since I got back from Colombia and with starting my lecture tour*, I’ve had time to reflect on our adventures. Rather than write a long-winded summary of our trip, I thought I’d do something different and present the highs, lows and hilarity in a “rocks and sucks” run-down.

What Rocks: Paddling 45km in one day through several stunning gorges

What Sucks: The trailer breaking on the way to the put-in

What Rocks: Surfing big waves in 40 degree sunshine

Lowri surfing on Suarez

What Sucks: Having to inspect your mate’s nether regions for ticks

Tick inspections

What Rocks: Paddling through one of the most impressive multi-day canyons we’ve ever seen

Chicamocha

What Sucks: Having to hike out of said canyon at the take out!

Hot Hike Out

What Rocks: Fiestas in Latin America

What Sucks: Our attempts at Salsa

Salsa

What Rocks: Nailing the line on a big rapid after long deliberation

Niamh Suarez

What Sucks: 8-hour bus journeys while hung over

What Rocks: Going paragliding while your mates are sick

What Sucks: Being sick while your mates go paragliding

What Rocks: Incredible geography & geology


What Sucks: Your 4×4 & trailer sliding 10m sideways back down the hill, next to a large cliff

(OK, we don’t have photos of that dramatic moment)

What Rocks: Huge lumps of meat cooked on an Asado

What Sucks: Spirits that come in cartons

What Rocks: Getting silt beards while paddling the Rio Negro

What Sucks: Big holes & rocks hidden by the black water

(can you see me? I’m in the middle!)

What Rocks: Bar games that involve throwing stones at gun powder!

What Sucks: Spiky, spiny and sticky plants that rip your legs apart


What Rocks: Midnight skinny dipping

What Sucks: Finding the pictures the following morning

(Sorry, they are not going on here!)

What Rocks: Having mules to carry your kayak

What Sucks: Carrying your own fully laden kayak through the jungle

…or through fields, over barbed wire fences, along steep ridges, over huge boulders or down small cliffs…

What Rocks: A bus driver willing to try anything to get your boats on board

What Sucks: Finding that his efforts have ripped a deck, split a kit bag and gauged a boat

What Rocks: Bottom left

What Sucks: Top middle

What Rocks: Unbelievable kindness and instant friendships

What Sucks: Saying goodbye

For the full stories, check out our team blog at kayakcolombia.wordpress.com – or come along to one of our talks!

* Over the next few months I’ll be doing talks about or trip, including some impressive video footage and lots of photos, at various venues across the UK. Full schedule will be released soon, but if you’d like to arrange a talk near you (for a canoe club, group or organisation then please drop me an email on lowri@flowfree.co.uk)

Jungle adventures in full swing

Typical scenery

Myself, Niamh Stack, Dave Hollins and Fran Kohn are two weeks in to our month here in Colombia. We’ve been stunned by how beautiful it is: dramatic moutains covered in thick, lush jungles and huge canyons… a landscape that makes for some very committing sections of river!

Chicamocha canyon

Lowri runs the Box

So far we’ve paddled some amazing white water, including the big volume Suarez that really got the heart racing and the stunning multiday canyon of the Chicamocha. But the big story so far has been how one river that should have taken us 3 hours ended up taking 4 days – including two gruelling hikes out through the jungle in the dark! (read more about this epic on our trip blog)

Mogoticos

Suarez

The new Mamba is treating me very well and fitted all my multi-day gear plus camera gear in the back no worries. And it handles really well both with and without kit. Its really hot here so my Zenith shortie cag is probably my favourite new piece of kit as it doesn’t let water into my boat but also keeps me cool. That said, with all the jungle hiking we’ve been doing I’ve been pretty glad of how sturdy my Gradient boots are too… you can never underestimate the importance of shoes in the jungle ;-)

Enjoying a lunch stop

Big wave surfing
Surfing a big wave on the Suarez in the Mamba

Getting from one place to another has been an adventure in itself as we are hiring 4x4s and trucks of all shapes and sizes for our shuttles and have been squeezing our kayaks into the luggage compartments of buses for transit between regions.

Truck

Mamba in the bus

Boat trolley?

We spent the past 2 days on buses to reach Villavicencio and paddled a really pretty canyon on the Guayariba today. In the next couple of days we’ll be heading out into the hills to paddle a river that requires hiking for 3 hours, but this time we’ll have mules to carry our kayaks! Pretty excited about that!

Until next time, adios!

thumbs up

Colombia-bound

2012 is getting off to an exiting start for myself, Fran Kohn, Dave Hollins and Niamh Stack as we are just about to set off for a month of boating in Colombia.

Packed Bags
Bags packed and ready to go…

I’m taking the new Mamba 8.1 on this trip which I’m really excited about because it seems to handle really well both with lightweight day kit and a full boat for multi-day adventures. We have a long list of rivers we’d like to get done: some of which may involve jungle hikes and sleeping in hammocks or bivis. We can’t wait!

I’ll be updating the Palm blog as often as is possible on these kinds of trips, so stay tuned and I hope to bring you tales and photos from our adventures!

Could you unpin this?

How would you get that out?

Yesterday a small team of us went  on a mission to get this boat out of the Mawddach. It was pretty well wedged!

Two pig-rigs and a snapped rope later (not a Palm line a hasten to add)… we got it! It’s a bit warped and bent, the whole back end was full of rocks and the airbags were shredded – but all things considered I think if faired quite well!

To find out how we did it and see more photos and video, check out the FlowFree blog.

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