San Cipriano

Our next adventure was a trip to the village of San Cipriano in the rainforest west of the city of Cali. There is no road into the village, so to reach it you have to get onto a bench balanced on top of a wooden crate on wheels, perched on a railway track and get pulled along by a motorbike. It was really good fun but quite scary when you go over bridges. Oh, and trains do actually use the track as well, so if one comes along you have to just quickly jump off the line!

On the way in there was a tropical storm and we got soaked to the skin, as did EVERYTHING in our rucksacks and my phone which is now semi-broken. The rain didn't stop all day so we decided to leave the following morning and not do the tubing which was a bit of a shame. However, the hostel we stayed in had mice and dirty sheets so we were quite glad to leave. But that meant spending the next two days walking around with stinking bags of wet clothes. Nice. Here's a couple of videos of the rail-bike thing...

Yesterday we were in a town in the coffe growing region called Salento and we decided to go horse riding. I was so scared beforehand that I nearly threw up. There were eight people in our group and most of them had ridden before. The horses were actually quite small (as you'll see from Lydia's pictures) but when I got up onto mine I freaked out and nearly started crying. So the lovely guide held the rope of my horse the whole way round.

I hated the first fifteen minutes, but after a while I got used to it and really liked it. We rode for about three hours through the countryside and the views of the coffee plantations and surrounding mountains were amazing. Lydia's horse was quite excitable and wanted to gallop nearly all the way round and eat everything in sight so she suffering from some bruised ribs today. I'm walking oddly from gripping the horse so tight from fear and Cand is in a fair amount of pain too.

We got the overnight bus to Bogota last night and arrived at 5am so we're pretty tired. Going to stay here another day and then head up to San Gil for some white-water rafting.

Ciao xx

Day -9: The Final Countdown

So, the job has been given up (temporarily), the flat has been vacated and London is now Jandice-less. I've been back in the motherland of Manchester for nearly a week now, being force fed cakes, cheese and far too many carbs, but I my as well make the most of it!

In between wiping Victoria sponge crumbs from my mouth and consuming a whole slab of brie, I don't seem to have got much sorted out. It's a little scary. But, I'm sure it'll all come together in the end.

Anyway, this is my first blog post. I'll be updating it with regular Jandice progress reports and pictures - so start following please. I think you can just click on the link to the left to see the pictures on my Flickr account!? Still getting to grips with this blog business.

It still hasn't really sunk in that in 10 days time I'll be in Peru. Shit, better get that Spanish book out...

Adios!