Because of the time change from Tenerife to Colombia, we woke up without an alarm a little after 02:00.  This wasn’t the worst thing, since we had to meet downstairs at 04:00.  We’d found out only three days prior that we were going to need an extra flight this morning to get from Bogotá to La Macarena.  This was probably around the tenth flight change since we’d first booked our trip.  We think this trip had more flight changes than all of our other trips combined.  Today, instead of flying direct to La Macarena, we needed to fly to Villavicencio first.  We asked our travel agent (Stephanie from Yampu) about the most recent flight change “what’s our other option, not go?”  She badgered the hotel (who was the one to set up, and then change, the charter flight), and they agreed to give us their best room for our first night for our trouble.

We met Julio and Eduardo just before 04:00.  There was no traffic this morning, and the drive took only about 10 minutes.  We were at a much smaller terminal of the airport, far away from the towering glass of the International terminal we’d arrived at today.  We were in something that looked more like a two story office building.  To our disappointment, but not really to our surprise, the Satena Airlines representative told us our bags were too big.  The problem was that they were full of batteries and chargers and whatnot.  So Justin put his laptop in Crystal’s tote, and also had his bag tagged for gate checking, rather than regular checking.

We were at the departure lounge at 04:15.  It was fairly busy for how early it was - lots of flights were listed on the boards.  Ours was third, so we watched what transpired with the first two to get an idea of what we’d need to do.  After getting past the gate, we walked down a perpendicular corridor for a while until we got on a bus.  Once on the bus, we seemingly circumnavigated the entire airport.  We passed dozens of planes, and realized on the Avianca planes that Avianca is a part of Star Alliance.  Had we known that, we would have tried to book more of our flights on Avianca than the other providers.

The sun was up before 06:00, so very much the opposite of Tenerife where the sun rises and sets late.  Justin gate checked his backpack at the back of the plane where we boarded, and then we walked all the way forward to the front row.  The plane was a turboprop, and only half-full.  We took off right around 06:30.  There were really lush hills and valleys on the flight southeast to Villavicencio.  We landed right at 07:00, and quickly got our backpacks.  Thereafter we met some representative (we presume from the charter flight or our hotel) and then walked a block or two to an office where they weighed out bags (and us).  

There were seemingly five of us going to La Macarena - two women from California and one woman from Houston.  We aren’t sure, but the woman from Houston might have been on our flight from Bogotá.  We went back into the airport, quickly went through security, and then sat around for a bit, not entirely sure what was going on.  Around 07:45 someone grabbed the five of us and took us to a small plane.  Justin was in the co-pilot seat yet again.  We tried to remember all of the times he’d previously sat up front, and could remember Canada, Mexico, Fiji, Namibia, Tanzania to name a few.

On the flight there was a ton of greenery, including lots of what looked like oil palm orchards.  We guessed it was “better” here than in Borneo.  As we flew south, it was flat on the left (east) and there were foothills on the right (west).  The pilot pointed out a couple things to us, including a nice waterfall and also Caño Cristales itself.  [In real-life we couldn’t make out any of the colors, but looking at the photos after-the-fact, there is a noticeable pink-red hue in part of the river.]

After landing, the two of us were met by different folks than the other three passengers - so apparently we wouldn’t be traveling with them.  Our guide was named Vladimir.  We went across the small town to a small office where we watched a couple of videos about what not to do in the park - no insect repellent, no sunscreen the two main things.  The plants in the river, which give the river its color, are sensitive to the chemicals in both of them.  After watching the videos and having Vladimir show us on a map where we’d be going the next couple of days, we went over to another office where we changed into what we’d wear on our trek.  As he was leaving the changing room, Justin hit his head pretty good on the bathroom door.  It was a bit like what happened in Bolivia back in 2010.  

After a bit of wound treatment, we were on our way on a boat upstream to Caño Cristalitos.  The boat seats were scorching hot, and we were worried we were going to have burns on the back of our thighs.  On the way upriver (the Guayabero River), we saw lots of turtles, hoatzins, iguanas, herons, and vultures, among other wildlife.  It was a nice sunny day, but very hot (35 Celsius, 95 Fahrenheit) with about 90% humidity.  It was cooler on the river itself, as the speed of the boat created a bit of a wind-effect.

The first part of our walk today was straight uphill, first through some forest canopy but then in the sun as we got further away from the river and the plants got shorter and shorter.  We stopped about halfway up to check out some rock art that was thousands of years old.  At the top, where the topography flattened out, we stopped to eat lunch.  This was our first meal since the airplane, so we were both quite hungry.  We also made sure to chug quite a bit of water.

As we walked across the flat part, Vladimir mentioned that we were walking over some of the western-most parts of the Guiana Shield, some of the oldest rock on the planet, close to 2 billion (with a B) years old.  As one can imagine, if rock has lasted that long, it is quite solid, and thus very few plants can grow in the rock.  Vellozia macarenensis, a relatively short plant with white flowers and nearly horizontal roots that creep on top of the rock, is one of the few plants that thrives.  There were also several varieties of melastoma, one of our least favorite weeds in Hawaii.  Seeing how the plants can grow on nearly solid rock, it makes sense that they do so well growing on top of lava rock in Pahoa.

There were a handful of wet areas, and Vladimir mentioned there were natural springs around, many caused by the roots of Mauritia palms that - over time - created cracks in the rock that allowed underground water to escape upwards.  We saw a white-tailed deer, but it ran off almost immediately after it saw us.  Not long thereafter we arrived at the colorful river, with plenty of pinkish-reddish plants in the river.  We kept walking along the riverbank until we got to a natural pool, where Vladimir told us we could go in if we wanted.  Justin went in, and Crystal sat in the shade and relaxed.  The water was not nearly as cold as Justin had hoped.  He stayed in the pool for 20-30 minutes or so, then dried out before we started walking again.

Along the walk we talked about Mauritia palms, and Vladimir was fairly surprised that we had some in our garden.  There were groves every so often, always right where the water was.  It would have been pretty easy for early indigenous people to find freshwater springs - all they had to do was look for the Mauritias.  [Of course, they probably had to watch out for sabertooth tigers, so there’s that.]  We descended a different route than we climbed, and at the bottom there was a huge grove of palms, we think Attalea maripa.  Also at the bottom we saw some capuchins in the trees.  There was a small village near the river, and a friendly black dog kept smelling Justin’s shoes, perhaps smelling Cerdito on them.

Around 16:00 we got back in the boat, went upstream a bit more, and arrived at our lodge, La Manigua Lodge.  The first thing they did was ask us about their various rooms, and where we wanted to stay, but we knew nothing about any of their rooms.  [Did we mention we were hot and cranky?]  We ended up in their Canopy Room, about 30 meters (100 feet) up in the rainforest, above the treetops.  After about 12-15 sets of stairs, we arrived at the lower level of the room, which had a lounge-type area with water and stuff for coffee, and also a toilet and outdoor shower.  Upstairs was a room with a bed, two end-tables, and pretty much nothing else.  It was thankfully completely enclosed by mosquito screens.

The idea of the Canopy Room was nice, but in practice it was problematic.  First of all, we needed to climb up close to 100 stairs every time we came and went, which as a practical matter we stayed in the room.  Second, the bathroom being on a different floor than the bed presented some logistical difficulties, especially because after dark we didn’t want to turn on any lights to attract bugs, and also because the stairs were too uncomfortable to walk on barefoot.  The outdoor rain shower was actually a bit too powerful, and getting out of the way Justin hit his head again (on one of the stairs going up to the bedroom).

Once we were clean, we watched the sunset, which admittedly was far superior from the Canopy Room than it would’ve been from anywhere else at the lodge.  Crystal took a nap right after sunset, but only after she watched videos of Pig dressed up as a spider for Halloween.  While she had cell service, Justin for some reason did not.  So eventually he went down to the bar area where there was WiFi, and Crystal said she’d meet for dinner at 19:00 if she was awake.  Justin went to dinner right at 19:00, but Crystal didn’t join him.  He ate quickly, stayed awake just long enough to eat, and then climbed the 100 steps in the dark (not completely, as the stairwell was lit) to get back to the top to crash.