Day 3 – The Trek
Today we awoke at 5am. It was drizzling outside our camp with water trickling off the edges of the metallic roof. We had hung our clothes to dry last night after washing them in the river. Since it is so hot, we expected them to be dry by morning. Unfortunately, the were all really wet.
Anxiously I repacked my pack, concerned about my dry clothes coming in contact with my wet clothes and my electronics. Realizing it would be futile as my pack was just a small day pack with limited compartments, I decided to wear my wet clothes. After all, the would only get wet again from the drizzling or dry in the heat of the Colombian day.
Well that’s mostly what happened until I started sweating. We had a full day of hiking with a lot of ascents. Although it had stopped drizzling by the time we started our hiking at 6:15, sunrise, the day heated up and so did we, as we hiked the ups, the downs, and the Colombian flats. In Colombia, the term Colombian flats is a misnomer. As our guide would say, there is no flat land in Colombia, just small ups and downs, where small is relative to the previous or forthcoming ups or downs.
The day was uneventful. Lots of hiking, lots of fruit, a lunch stop and a swim in the river, lots more hiking and eventual stop at camp Paradiso. This camp like the others we stopped at had a swimming spot too. We all partook. As we had been getting higher and higher the water was getting colder and colder. This didn’t matter after the long hot sweaty day. The day ended as usual: shower, dinner and sleep.
