Zipping along

We had a late start at 9 when we left for a twisty 2.45 hour drive to the Chicamocha canyon reputed to be one of the largest in the world.

The views as the headed along the rim were stunning though a bit hazy.
Once there we headed into the National park. Some of us paid £1 to get a small open bus to the mirador. The more energetic walked as the temperature was only 28 degrees. We had an hour up there. I spotted a zip wire that ended up near the cable car place we were to meet up. Carmel, Val and I decided to do it. (About £8). As I was being strapped in a noticed it said maximum age was 55. Even Carmel was more than that. We had signed the waiver and paid the money by then. The scary part was standing on a wobbly metal step while the guy strapped me in as there was a big drop below. I was across before I knew it, with the guy at the receiving platform indicating I should brake. I didn’t time it quite right so bumped into the red inflated bag. Only 2 of the other women didn’t follow us. None of the men did it. Their excuse was they were taking our bags down for us.

We then got in the queue for the cable car which I think was the longest I’ve been on as it took 30 minutes to decent to the canyon floor (1500 metres down and 1700m up the other side. At the top we ate in a square where there were lots of cafes. I had veggie spaghetti, a bright orange concoction with some hard peas and bits of pepper. Mr C had the rice version.

Meanwhile the bus had driven all the way to pick us up. We stopped at a coffee farm for a cup of nice arabica coffee - they export mainly to Japan and Europe. Most of good Colombian coffee is exported and here we get what they call tinto. Not much arabica goes to USA as they don’t need good coffee for Nescafé and Starbucks which use Ragusta, according to Andres.

Back on the bus and it was a 2 hour drive to the airport. We have to fly back to Bogota and change for a flight to Armenia where we’ll be based on a hacienda for 3 nights. Suddenly we were rushing on arrival at the airport and just got to the gate as boarding started. Apparently we were now going in an earlier plane. We’d been scheduled to arrive at the hacienda around midnight after a bus journey but now it might be that we are either on an earlier flight or we have a long wait in Bogota. We have hopes!

These were unfulfilled. We returned from the runway as there was a problem. (The announcements are all made in Spanish). After half an hour it appeared to be fixed but by then we’d lost our slot in Bogota. An hour later we were still waiting. Eventually arrived at 11.30pm.