Today we were up a little before 05:00, so just before sunrise. Even though we were on the ground-level rather than up in the canopy, we could tell it was cloudier, and there was some intermittent rain as well. We got packed for our return journey to Bogotá later today. We had breakfast a little earlier today, at 06:30. Two women sat down next to us, and we couldn’t place the accent, as it seemed vaguely German (but not), perhaps Dutch (we don’t know enough to know), but also somehow different. It turns out they were visiting from South Africa, and were speaking Afrikaans. They were visiting a lot of the same places as us in Colombia, and given our schedule and their schedule, we wondered if we’d overlap somewhere later in our respective trips.
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As we walked the raised walkway between the dining room and the lounge/bar, there was a puppy assistant that was on the ground below us, showing us the way. At the lounge we paid our bill, then chatted briefly with the manager. We gave her some ideas on how to potentially better utilize the canopy tower, such as using it as a coffee spot on the mornings where there are no guests. In our opinion, that is the best use of the canopy tower, as it isn’t the most practical for actually staying in, but is perfect on sunny mornings to watch the forest come to life. When we got our passports back, we noticed they were warped a little bit from all the humidity; we decided we’d need to flatten them out when we got to our hotel in Bogotá.
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We took a boat with Vladimir to Cafuche again this morning. Technically it was two parts - we took the boat to the shoreline, and then took a 5-10 minute ride in a 4x4 to Cafuche. For whatever reason, we didn’t have a separate national park guide with us today, just the two of us and Vladimir. Also, the office at Cafuche didn’t have anybody when we walked through today, so conceivably we could’ve had insect repellent and suntan lotion with us (we did not). Vladimir told us that a lot of the roads in the area were constructed in the 1980s and 1990s during the height of the drug war, and so we have FARC to thank for the roads near Caño Cristales, and also for the preservation of the native rainforest.
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We walked through a rolling field (which had been a coca leaf growing area) for a bit, and Vladimir showed us the shape of the Jacaranda flowers looking like a bird. We also saw a couple real birds, some papagayos and also canaries. Vladimir helped Justin identify a Golden tree we’d seen everywhere- Vochysia. We decided to see if it would be a good candidate for Pahoa. After walking through the field for a bit we arrived at Maria’s house. Maria has lived in this house for decades, and actually named many of the parts of the river and the National Park, as almost no one else was around or visited for a good chunk of her life.
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Today’s route was Los Pailones. It took us to the eastern part of the park (we’d gone west the day before), through some native rainforest. In the jungle there were lots of Socrateas (stilt-root palms) and also quite a few butterflies. The same river was flowing through the area we were walking today, but because of all the shade from the trees in the forest, the plants in the river were green instead of pink or burgundy. There was an area of the river called the Green Carpet in an area called Los Estrechos (The Narrows).
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There were quite a few deep depressions in the river here, as we can only assume the narrowness of the river leads to more whirlpools and thus more holes over the millenia. In the bottom of these holes were some fascinating rocks, as they’d obviously gotten stuck at the bottom of the pit and couldn’t get out, and each rock was vastly different from the one next to it. Somewhere around here we turned around and walked back towards Maria’s house, stopping briefly to chat and exchange contact information with Vladimir. Because we hadn’t gone in the water this morning, we were a bit ahead of schedule, so Vladimir mentioned we could go visit Los Ochos again, where we’d finished our sightseeing the day before.
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It was perhaps even more gorgeous this morning, as the sun was to the east instead of the west, so the waterfalls were frontlit. There was a tiny area with a “beach” that apparently hosted the President many years ago for some sort of a speech or public appearance. We were slightly downstream from where we were yesterday, below the waterfalls instead of above them. Here the holes were massive, and we could easily make out the underground tunnels connecting many of the holes. Vladimir showed Justin around for some good photo vantage points. The river was low enough that they could find enough rocks to step on to traverse the river and take pictures from the other (north) side. We hung out for maybe 15 minutes, then went back the same way that we had yesterday afternoon.
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We got back to the riverbank around 11:00, and took a short boat ride downstream back into town. We went to some other hotel (Hotel Punto Verde) for a quick cleanup. We were out the door by 11:40. In the common area of the hotel we saw the two women from California yet again - they were also getting ready to leave. We walked a minute or two through town to a nearby restaurant for lunch. There was a squash soup with ají chiles that was very tasty, and the ají was muy picante. We talked with Vladimir about Türkiye, as he was also planning a trip there in 2025. We thought it would be pretty humorous if we crossed paths there, halfway around the world. Also at the restaurant was another couple from La Manigua. We’d seen them 2-3 times, usually with their son, but he’d departed a day prior.
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We assumed both of them, as well as the women from Los Angeles, would be on our flight with us. We wondered if the plane was bigger, or whether some of the six of us were actually on different flights. We got to the airport a little before 12:30, and had to pay an airport departure tax, about €6 total. We sat under the lone ceiling fan, but it wasn’t doing much. The six of us were in fact on the same plane…unfortunately. It was like a sauna when we got in. Five of us handled it like adults. But then there was the lady from London, who must’ve asked about the AC at least a half dozen times before we took off, more bitchy each time. Her husband had sat up front next to the pilot, and we wondered if he was just trying to get away from her. We found out the other women were from Guatemala originally, but now lived in Bakersfield. Once airborne, the plane got progressively cooler over about 20-30 minutes and we stopped sweating profusely. The high clouds helped as well - we had clouded mountains on the left, and a flat tropical plain on the right.
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We spent the flight catching up on the trip log and listening to music (mainly to drown out whatever Karen was talking about). It was even more cloudy and then rainy as we approached the airport in Bogotá. It seemed like we were in a different place, and we were - a private airfield in the north of town. There was a bit of chaos after we deplaned. There was only one car waiting for anyone, and it was for the two women. We weren’t too concerned, and just messaged our agency. Karen was flustered and pissed, however. The driver for the two Americans was trying to help, but perhaps unintentionally complicating things. We waited maybe 5-10 minutes, sent a screenshot of our location to our travel agency, and then went on our way. As we left, Karen was on the phone - we felt for whoever was on the other end of the call.
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It started raining substantially harder just after we got in the car. There was tons of traffic heading south into town, even though it was a Saturday. Pretty soon it was pouring rain and one of the lanes of the road was basically a river. Thankfully the rain let up about halfway through - there was no evidence it had even rained in this area to the south. We saw lots of cool graffiti as we got close to downtown. We passed through downtown and then into the historical neighborhood of La Candelaria, where many of the tourist sites as well as our hotel (Hotel de la Opera) were located. We arrived around 16:00 and checked in. On the form we had to fill out, we had to list where we were coming from and where we were headed, and the person at the desk had never heard of Inírida, so we took that as a sign it wasn’t much-touristed.
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Once inside our room, we charged everything and hung up musty clothes everywhere we could. At around 17:15 we went out to do a little local exploration. We walked around Plaza Bolivar, which was just a couple blocks south from our hotel, by the big cathedral (Santuario Nuestra Señora del Carmen) a couple blocks west from our hotel, and past a bunch of museums just east of our hotel, before eventually ending at an ATM in a mini-mart. The thieves at the bank refused to not let us refuse for them to “help us” with the exchange rate, but we had no idea where else to get money in the area, so just one of us got money.
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We walked back to the hotel and arrived a little after 18:00. We changed into nicer (for us) clothes and dropped off some stuff in the room. Thankfully the restaurant had sent us a WhatsApp message today informing us of various things, including the dress code - no shorts. So we put on long pants and dark colors. Then we took an Uber over to La Sala de Laura, which we’d read about a few weeks prior on the World’s 50 Best Bars (it was on the 51-100 list). The restaurant downstairs was more famous for food, and the upstairs was more famous for drinks, but both had paired drinks and food. We were sitting at the bar, where we could just order whatever we wanted a la carte, basically like tapas. Best as we can recall, here is what we ordered:
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Juan Pablo and Santiago were the bartenders, and we did 90% of our communication in Spanish. Everything we ate and drank was very interesting, although some we liked more than others, especially the spicy mezcal drink. In hindsight, the food might have been better than the drinks. We took an Uber straight back to the hotel, with Justin chatting with the driver nearly the entire time (he can’t remember about what), and once back in the room we went straight to sleep.
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