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After our Eco lodge adventure, we made our way on a fast boat through to another major town on the banks of the Amazon called Leticia in Columbia. Upon arriving, after paddling to Immigration in Peru due to the floods, I instantly noticed a difference in the Columbian people. Not just in the crackly sound of their latino/carrabean music but they also had a boldness or forwardness that I hadn't experienced in the rest of south America. Leticia was however a quieter, smaller and nicer version of Iquitos. After 3 days of killing time we took a flight through to Bogota which was a cold, rainy and kind of a confusing city. Confusing because the area we were in- La Candleria- was kind of deserted. It was hard to find good spots to eat and all the bars were tiny little dingy rooms. I am sure on a nice day a trip up the surrounding mountains to a Miradoor would be great and apparently the salt cathedral is nice, but on rainy Thursday with very little going on the area is pretty lifeless.
We quickly departed the greyness of Bogota to head for somewhere a little more warm and San Gil was the spot. It is a small adventure town North of Bogota surrounded by jungle and valleys. Being low season we were some of the very few Gringos in town which meant hanging tough with the Columbians with our non-exsistent Spanish! We learnt that residents of San Gil love to have beers non-stop, Friday to Sunday and the chosen destination for these beers are a local convenience store. We soon found out that the appeal of drinking on plastic chairs, surrounded by tins of tuna and chocolate bars, was that a bottle was going for a rather attractive price of aroudnd 70cents. We also discovered that the market area on a Saturday morning has the best avacados we`ve ever seen, if you can actually get to the vendor through the heards of shoppers, chickens, buses and bus attendants bellowing over each other. Not being able to do White Water Rafting because the river was too high- which was our main reason for going to San Gil- we found plenty of other virtually free activities around town including heading up to a nearby pituresque town lodged in the mountains, a local natural water hole and a hike to a waterfall. Overall it was a relaxing beautiful little spot and would be even better in peak season when rafting is available.
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