“Ok Baker Family all together now- right arm straight, back and hold it in tight in your Arse Crack”

Unbelievable, another Lauren Post but before it begins a short Dad prelude- After the horseback ride the girls thought the physical activity stuff was pretty much over.  Andres kept dropping hints that the waterfall was a “ whole new ballgame”.  Upon arrival at the guide house  it seemed innocent enough as we got fitted.  As Andres pointed straight up the mountain to the falls he said that’s where we are walking. Imagine being at the base of Mount Rushmore but at 7000 feet and 85 F.  So the “Bataan 3 hour death march  ” began:

 

As Dad mentioned from the day before, horseback riding was a little out of my comfort zone. I thought I was sore from the hiking, and holding on for dear life to Rosetta (my horse) for 2 hours. Little did I know what “sore” really meant. . . 

We were able to sleep in until 6am, but I thought Christa was going to take out the rooster that started crowing at 4:30am . I’ve become accustomed to 5-6 am wake up calls now. Should make my 8AM Accounting in the Fall a lot more bearable if I stick to this schedule. Nevertheless, we headed Tamesis a little town on the top of a mountain about 3 hour drive from Jardin. We pull up to Rodrigo’s house and got fitted in our harnesses. Christa of course had to complain everyone got a padded harness except her. Poor thing. Mom needed her candy so we drove to a little store to get pure sugar. We walked from the store up to the bottom of the mountain and started our ascent.

We thought the first 30 min was difficult on a trail of all rocks and you had to be careful because some were extremely slippery. But Andres, our guide, assured Mom she was losing lots of weight. About and hour up the trail we stopped at a little gazebo off the trail to practice our repelling skills. Dad with his West Point training had no problems, but the rest of us struggled a little. But Rodrigo believed we passed the first test so we continued up the mountain. Until we reached a small hole from the trail that went into the forest and soon the trail was nonexistent. We were literally crawling using both hands and feet grabbing vines, trees, roots,rocks, or anything that seemed stable.

Right as I thought we reached the waterfall, Rodrigo (who speaks no English) motions me towards the forest and hooks a rope into my harness and about at a 80-90 degree incline starts to climb up. I have no arm muscle so at some parts he literally had to pull me up above the slippery muddy rocks. Once I reached the top, he let down the rope and repeated the process for the rest of the family. Everyone reached the top. I guess that was our second test. After this point there was no return, because you can’t climb down back down that trail.

Dad- Interject. At the top the whole family gave me that sad look like I had just hand delivered them to the Nazi “ Gas Showers”

We reach the top of the waterfall eat some more sugar and next thing I know Mom and Andres are getting hooked into ropes and having to go first down a 100 yards to safety. Mom did great. You could tell she was trying to be strong for me and Christa who were staring above from the rock. Next up Christa and Dad. I’m all alone now on top of a rock where mudslide happen on a weekly basis, scared of heights,  at 8000 ft. looking onto a view I can’t even describe. I was to the point of tears just shaking until I looking over to Christa who was starting to cry as she had to start her repelling. Christa likes direction and plans and with the directions in Spanish I think she freaked out a little.  All I hear from the rock is “No Comprende!”

Rodrigo gave Christa time to breathe and she did great once she made it past the beginning. However at this point I’m crying by myself on top of this mountain not wanting to go down so I take Rodrigo’s walkie talkie that goes down to Andres. I ask him, “Como se dice. . . I don’t want to do this!” He immediately hands the walkie to Mom who is trying to encourage me but I tell her to hand it to Christa, who is still making her way down the waterfall. Mom runs it up to her right when she reached the ground but it was too late. Rodrigo already found me on the walkie turned it off, zipped up my rain jacket and dragged me to the edge and strapped me into the ropes. By the way the only thing separating you from falling straight down this waterfall to your death is your hand which is holding onto the rope under your butt. I told him “no fuerte (strong) and pointed to my arms”- but as Andres said before you use your survival skills. You become strong because you don’t want to die. Great. . .

Also the other good things about repelling according to Rodrigo were emotional physical and social. Emotionally “we overcome our fears.” Physically “we release the bad toxins” and Socially “we build teamwork”

I told Rodrigo I needed more time to release toxins but I don’t think that translated, because when I wasn’t going all of a sudden my rope got pulled my him and I fell just enough to where I couldn’t climb back up and I had only one way down. I am extremely uncoordinated so I kept slamming into the rocks ( I now have bruises everywhere). Rodrigo put a camera in my face every time I was about to cry, so I was forced to smile. I taught Rodrigo many new American words on the way down but none are appropriate for a family blog. I made it down safe and alive. Rodrigo pulled the rope down but it got stuck on a rock high up on the waterfall. So of course he sends his helper man Andres, not our guide, to climb up the water fall with no rope! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And a few moments later Mom was already hauling ass off the mountain. Literally she fell 3 times. She thinks she bruised her tailbone on a rock. But nothing was stopping that woman from getting off that mountain. Christa, Dad, and I couldn’t even keep up.

We made it back into the town and Andres, our guide, left us to get the car from the candy store and we continued to walk through a school yard and walk the back way with Rodrigo. One of my favorite parts of the walk. A little girl from the park came up and hugged Rodrigo. He spun her around and later we found out it was his niece. Then as you looked up the hill it looked like elementary or middle school kids were learning salsa dances on the basketball courts. Tamesis runs at a totally different pace than Savannah or Columbia. Everyone knows everyone and things are just a lot slower. No one is rushing, no traffic, and only people walking from store to store or house to house to say hello to friends. If Mom knew Spanish, I think she would have known half the town before we left. Christa

and I even got some digits before we left too. Friendly people.

We ate dinner at a little place on their main square called TinTin. Great food. Mom was so tired she didn’t care there was chicken heart, liver, and cow stomach in her soup. Exhausted and sore we loaded up in the truck and like little rag dolls in the back we bounced around. Andres is a great driver, but I think 90% of Colombian driving is dumb luck. On this road going down there are hidden speed bumps, random parts of the road that turn the dirt that weren’t paved or taken out by a mud slide. Not to mention huge 18 wheeler speeding around sharp blind corners right at you! I personally have a fear of 18 wheelers so I was wide awake during the first 2.5 hours of the trip down despite the days activities. Kids on bikes hold on to the back trucks to go up and down the mountain that was different. In the dark, to the right was a cliff, to the left 18 wheeler after 18 wheeler came flying by… Definitely the most interesting drive I have ever done. Lets just say if this was a Baker RV adventure, we wouldn’t have made it. So thank you Andres for keeping us alive!!! 

Lauren went to go take shower so I’ll finish up. Even though our lunch/dinner was at 4:30pm we were too tired to even consider going to the Park to get something to eat as planned. With our two days of muddy and wet clothes in hand, we crawled into the Estelar Blue lobby like a bunch of refugees. We were all psyched about the opportunity to sleep in past 6 since we cancelled the pending paragliding expedition. However we were so conditioned that we woke up at 7am anyways. Dad paid extra to get us a bigger taxi to take us to the airport so we don’t have to carry the luggage in our lap for the 3rd time to the airport. Surprise! It doesn’t even fit then. Well, it was worth a shot anyways.

You think you know airport security until you have flown out of Medellin. We thought the worst security would be in U.S. Customs coming from Colombia, but that was not the case. Thank goodness we got there as early as we did. We were the first in line for security when they finally decided to let people through. One at a time they ask you- “any liquids? any electronics”?, etc.”, then they look in your bag, next they send your bag through the scanner and you through the scanner. Even if you don’t set the metal detector off, you still get the manual metal detector wand inspection. After you and your bag make it through, your bag is completely taken apart. (I would just like to mention that I managed to carry a bottle of pepper spray onto each and every plane this trip). So you patiently pack everything back into your bag and think you are in the clear as you head for the immigration desk, but wait, we still have the manual pat down. So we waste an hour or so in the terminal before boarding our flight, when of course mom gets called to the back for a thorough inspection of Big Red (our biggest duffel). She said ladies were back there screaming and crying due to the process but she just relaxed and let them go to town on our stuff. So finally we board the plane and I wish I were joking, but they made us repeat all the security steps first mentioned. They had a mini security paddock set up at the gate. more pat downs, more bag dissections. When we were sitting in our seats, watching everyone board, this one lady with burst blood vessels in her eyes walked down the aisle crying, “I hate this country, I’ll NEVER come back to this country” and continued until the plane took off. The rest of the plane laughed saying she was crazy and that we all had a fabulous time and all of us can’t wait to come back.

 

Super job by Andres of LandVentureTravel  Highly recommend him.

A true professional and  a blast to travel with!!