San Cipriano

After a few late nights dancing salsa at the feria in Cali I decided to relax a little in rwmote San Cipriano.  I took the 2.5 hour bus to Zaragoza which is a village on the Cali – Buenaventura road. Then I took ‘La Bruja’ (the witch) which is the villagers homemade transportation system that uses the old train tracks. It is a wooden board powered by the motorbike engine and runs along the track. It goes very fast and there’s nothing to hold on to! There are 2 village entrances, one nearer Cali called Zaragoza and another nearer Buenaventura called Cordoba.

At one point a car going the opposite way was speeding towards us onbthe track. I had to get off while the driver took the whole car off to let the other
one pass!

After surviving la bruja I signed into the national park and walked into San Cipriano, a remote afro carribean village in the jungle. It began to rain so I  had lunch which was typical sancocho de pescado (fish soup) and fried fish dinner.

I started to walk to the waterfall trail called ‘sendero de amor ‘ only to be caught in heavy rain. I sheltered in a family restaurant and met 5 year old Darwin who insisted on coming with me on the walk! After

covering my rucksack with a plastic bag I contnued the walk with Darwin wanted tovrace most of the wayand tried to catch fish in the river with his boot!

Little girl watching the rain.

I was the onky tourist to stay in San Cipriano that night. I checked into hotel David in a very basic room for CP15000 and listened to the rain and the jungle noises outside.

The next day I went tubing with Camillo a local guy. You can rent a tube for CP5000 and walk up the river then float down back to the village. The water was crystal clear and the river was shallow with a few small rapids.

Then it was time to head back to Cali to catch the last day of the feria. I went to the Cordoba entrance which was a faster and more beautiful journey. I got the last space next the driver on the bus to Cali and the driver bought me a cheese and bocadillo (guava jelly sweet) to try!