The two main attractions for me in Guatape is the giant rock La Piedra del Peñol and paragliding. I did paraglide once in Argentina, it was so much fun I remembered, and it was, out of my surprise, not that scary. But a-ha, do I have a lesson to be learned soon?! So, Paraglide Guatape told me to text them when I am in town so they can check the weather condition and confirm whether we can take off. After I dropped my bag, and a quick soda, I texted them. I was going to have lunch frist, but they said the weather was really good right now, you should do it immediately. So, I said yeah. We agreed the time to meet, they would pick me up at the town gas station. I described myself to him, “Asian, blue t-shirt, and with black/white cap”. So, a little after 1pm, there he is, he had a rough look, but he spoke very English, apparently he used to live in CA. I jumped on his very beaten car, here we go again, is that for real? I was trying to put on my seat belt. He said, “Seat belt? You don’t need it, this is COLOMBIA!” and laugh! Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into today?!
We talked about his experience in paragliding, how long he has been back to Colombia, the weather, what I plan to do in town..etc. We got to the paragliding location. The cliff where we take off is overlooking a beautiful valley, it was breathtaking to say the least. At this point, I was still very excited. There is another guy I forgot his name, he is actually the pilot whom I would go tandem paragliding with. They started preparing me, basically put me on this strap system, I was wearing this backpack things that will ultimately turn into a chair-ish thing I can sit on in the air. It did not take 3 mins for them to prepare and ready to go. Been there done that, I thought. What do I know!? The takeoff procedure was still somewhat familiar: I need to run with them initially, the paraglide get up in the air and that will pull us up as well. What I was not prepared for is that I actually had to hold the go pro camera myself this time. So, I only left with one hand to hold the side strap for security. And the chair is also much smaller than I remember, I felt like I was sitting at the edge the whole time.
It was a lot scarier than my Argentina’s experience, I have to say. I was holding the strap so tight that I started to feel the nerve on my hand. There were a few moments I have to just keep looking straight so I do not look down to the valley, otherwise I would get vertigo or I peed my pants, I hold it out for the whole 10-15 mins of flight, it may sound short but actually it felt very long when you are in the air. It was a mixture of excitement, thrill, scare, peaceful, awe and everything in between. If there were people underneath, they probably would feel some dropping coming from me. When I saw the videos, I still could not believe I have just done that. They took me back to town, I thanked Andres and my pilot. I had a marvelous time!
After grabbing something to eat in the main plaza, exchanged some money with a very bad exchange rate. But I needed cash, since the taxi and paragliding cleared most of my cash. I finally checked in my Airbnb, it looked really nice, right by the lake, two levels, 2 beds and 2.5 baths, I could split myself in half and there would still have a half bathroom left over. My critique of this Airbnb apartment, street noisy is very high in the evening, so it is not as relaxing as one hoped for. That view though was indeed a killer view. Think when I am drinking coffee on the balcony looking down in the morning.
It was 4-ish in the afternoon only, the rain just lift up and the sky was clearing up, blue, soft sun light. I did not want to call off the day yet, so I ended up heading back outside. I took a tuc tuc, the 3-wheel motorbike to the giant rock, La Piedra del Peñol. The tuc tuc experience was fine, be ready to shake all your lunch and afternoon snacks up inside, there are lots of uneven roads to the rock. What interesting about this rock is that, there is a staircase zip zap all the way up to the top, there are total of 650 steps up, and 650 steps down. In totally, I walked 1300 steps up and return. By 250 steps, I started slowed down, by 450 steps, I started breathing heavily, at 600 steps, I needed to beg myself to finish it. Again, the whole time I needed to avoid leaning too close to the edge, otherwise I may get vertigo. The view on the top was out of this world, especially the sun light at the time, the cloud was clearing after rain. I stayed at the top for a good 20 mins, but then I started to think, I better headed back down before dark, especially where the tuc tuc dropped me off is the back entrance, it was a lot quieter, I was not even sure if there will be any tuc tuc or taxi left to take me back to town, otherwise I may have to hike back. Going down was much faster, I walked back down to the back entrance, and luckily, there happened to have a tuc tuc waiting, so I just jumped on that and went back to Guatape.
I basically have done all my planned activities in this town in one day. But I still have one more day in Guatape. I have two options, I can stay in and do absolutely nothing, or I can go to San Rafael, it was recommended to me by Andres (the paragliding guy), I would need to take a bus to this small town about 45 mins away, and take a bus back. I was told that San Rafael is surrounded by a lot of waterfalls and can often see monkeys running around. Will decide in the morning, it will be depending on the weather really. The rain seemed to be on and off so far, I got soaking after dinner and when I was walking back to the airbnb, luckily I was wearing a raincoat. Temperature is very nice, almost cool, that is why I had the raincoat on. I prefer this temperature over Cartagena heat any day.
This is one crazy day, so many things happened and I do not want to forget any of them. All other photos from Day 7 are here.
