After a 15 hour busride from Quito in Equador we pass the south
Colombian border. We obtain a tourist visa for three months and a nice stamp in our passport. We continue traveling to a place called Pasto. Here they celerbrate
Carnaval. My first day in Colombia was one of party and dancing
unfortunately I ended up in the back of a police van, due to a small
incident (in)directly caused by a strong liquer called Aquardiente, which the friendly Colombians like to offer you (non-stop) and I drank
to much of. Luckly my friend knew the Colombian ways and paid around 20
pound to the police and we were on free foot again followed by the
biggest hangover in my personal history.
Welcome to Colombia!!!!
In Pasto I met up with two American kayakers and we paddled rivers in the
south of Colombia also known as the wild west of Colombia, where still a
big part of the land get ruled by the Fark and paramilitairen. But the
friendly Colombians and the police are very well informed about the
safety in the different areas, so its not very dificult to find out were to go, and
were not!
David, Mark Hentze and me did a first kayak
descent of the lower Rio Caqueta near a place called Macoa in the province of Putumayo. We gathered
information about this river by looking at google earth maps and talking
to locals, but had no idea what to expect. Since this was the main
river for transportation of essential liquids for the cocaine laps
further south, we expected a class III. Although we
got informed by locals that in the past some of the smugglers didnt survive the trip
and drowned.
The rivers drops 240 m drops in around 50 km, the locals advised us to
run the river in one day and not to sleep in the gorge since the area is
on the border of Fark teratory. So the next day we started at 7.00 at a
place called the bridge of Caqueta. After a 30 minute paddle a local
farmer insisted that we should go back because we all would drown. We
continued paddling and the brown river floated in a beautifull big gorge
with pretty waterfalls dropping in from the sides. The first big rapid
surprised us: it was big!!! a long bouldergarden, followed by numerous
big class IV plus rapids. This pool drop style river was amazing and we
were enjoying beeing in the gorge and experiencing this great trip. Most
rapids were runnable but we realized early on we wouldnt make the 50 km
in one day.
After paddling for 6 hour a big tribotairy got in we encountered a class V rapid which in the end the whole river disapaired under 3 gigant
boulders. During the portage we saw a green army tent and we decided to
cross the river and portage on the other side just and tried not get
seen, better safe than sorry. Eventually the portage took us around 3
hours and we continued for and hour more or so. It was getting dark in
less than an hour so we found a beach, which was only reachable by kayak
inbetween 2 big rapids and made a campfire, eat some food and got the
emergency blankets out. It was a warm night and sleeping in this canyon
was a great experience although sligtly uncomfortable sleeping on a
drybag as matteress and a stone functioning as pillow.
The next day we did another 30 km and the rapids got easyer towards the
end and the gorge started to open up. By now the river was extremely
wide and we were floating towards our take out, a place called Puerto
Limon. We got welcomed by friendly kids and locals and drank a few beers
enjoying the streetlife of Puerto Limon and eventually found a little
truck which brought us back to Mocoa.
What a stunning run, the best
kayak trip in my life!!!
With just one more conclusion; those
young Colombians who smoggled the liquids in 5 galls cans must have been
totally crazy!!!
