Hello again from San Gil a small town in the eastern range of the Andes which run through Colombia. We´ve had a pretty action packed stay here. On Wednesday I went paragliding which was good fun, extremely peaceful to be floating around above the birds. We would have had some good footage to share with you all had Alison pressed record on the camera when I took off, unfortunately she didn´t get a chance to record my landing as we had a bit of a drop in the wind and had to make a slight detour, landing in a field much to the shock of the local children and four extremely angry dogs. A few scratches and bruises from the landing but the guy who was flying the thing seemed to think it was all pretty normal.

Thursday we got the bus to the neighbouring town of Barichara which is very sleepy, so sleepy that we decided to walk the 10kms to the village of Guane (shares it´s name with the local indigenous people) which was a really beautiful walk through a valley.

Friday we went white water rafting which was really great although a little scary. The guy who was chatting with us before thought it hilarious that we were going on a grade 4-5 route when we hadn´t any experience. There were 4 guides with us two and that was it, Alison didn´t think any of the guides looked big enough and was a little anxious. There was one particular bit which was extraordinary and I don´t really know how we got down it, but we did. However, the next section of rapids we got stuck in a swell with the raft being buffetted back and forth. The skipper shouted ´inside´ as the boat started to lean, as i jumped inside all I saw of Alison was her bum as her head and feet were already in the water. My heart stopped, I stood there staring and waiting for her to come up, meanwhile the 4 guides are screaming at me to get my oar and paddle backwards to get out of the swell, ´but she´s in the water, she might be under the boat, what, how...´ it was then I saw that Alison had popped up under the boat and was floating off downstream, hence the commands to get my oar into action. We caught her up and hauled her back into the raft, she was definitely less bothered by the whole experience than I was, in fact she had truly had the full rafting experience.

Saturday was quiet, having wished Caitlin a happy 1st birthday, we visited the local park where the trees have strange plants growing off them which is a bit spooky and then sheltered from a torrential downpour by watching the Champions League final.

Today we took the short trip to a local waterfall which was really breathtaking as it was possible to get right up under the water and the power of it was immense. So lots of activity and lots of photos going up on flickr for anyone who wants to have a look.

Next stop Villa de Leyva and then Bogota.