June 6, 2018 – June 8, 2018

The main highway from the city of Bucaramanga to the capital city of Bogota is a two lane highway that winds itself through the foothills and mountains of the Cordillera Occidental, part of the Andean Mountains. Because of the large rigs, the steep curving roads and the complete lack of passing lanes, short distances take a surprisingly long time to drive. Our route for the day was only 77 kilometres but took us approximately 2.5 hours to drive.

We arrived at our camp spot for the night, Cabanas Campestres, which consisted of a couple of cabins above the family’s home and a nice flat spot for us and our camper. The views were incredible.

The next morning the owner of the property accompanied us on the first portion of a walking trail and then, after explaining in Spanish were the trail went (ummm…okay, I think I understand), returned home, waving over her shoulder as she wished us a good day.  We were able to hike to a spot high above our camping site where we could view canyon to our left and canyon to our right. We were considerably higher than the built up view point in the nearby national park and we quickly decided that there was no need to pay to visit the official park after seeing the views from this private location.

Our camping spot for the night.

The views went on forever.

You could see walking trails all up and down the canyon, still used by people to go from village to village, to tend their crops or by children to get to school.

In the distance in this picture is a parasailer. Piper was fascinated and watched the parachute for several minutes.  She was probably thinking that it was the biggest bird she has ever seen!

Turn up the volume for Derek’s narration….