In the months since I discussed Andres’ pathology reports with his mom, he’s started chemotherapy.. I met and lost a charming, attractive man named Danny. The days have marched on.. and Finally, it was the end of May – and time for the long awaited, anticipated trip to Santander to celebrate Andres’ mom’s birthday. It was a three day hiking tour with Explorando Ando, a local travel / tourism group that specializes in hiking/ walking trips.

The bus picked me up from calle 170 at midnight along with two other members of the hiking group. We were the last people to be picked up as the bus passed through Bogota. Then we headed out on the highway. At 4:30 am, we stopped in the town of Barbosa to switch to a smaller, traditional “Chiva” bus.

(It was an amazing trip – filled with friendly and fun people, breath-takingly beautiful scenery and lots of activity, but my favorite part was riding on top of the Chiva!!)

Once we got to Florian, we had a hearty breakfast before heading out on our first hike – to the first waterfall.. We had to hike through the finca of a local man, but for a small fee – he was happy to have our group pass through. He had oranges, water and free standing bathrooms for us to use.

The waterfalls were really spectacular. There is no way to really describe it otherwise… They were so immense, photos just don’t capture it. It’s an incredible sensation; looking up at this enormous waterfall and realizing just how tiny and insignificant we are in the scale of things.

(Click on the photos to see the whole image)

Sometimes feeling tiny isn’t a bad thing – it was the first time in a long time that I didn’t think about all the things that having been going on this last year.. (Long time readers know that it’s been a bumpy road this last year). This trip was the first time that I didn’t cry for a couple of days.. That I didn’t wake up with that sad heavy feeling in my chest.. I needed that.. And more importantly, I think my traveling companions, especially, Flor – needed that – to be able to get away from Bogota, and away from the sadness that envelopes us..

The second day of the hike is when we went to the the biggest of the waterfalls.

The last and final day – was the day we went to two different waterfalls, where we were able to swim, and play under the falls.

One of the really nice thing was that even though we were just a group of five (Maria Eugenia, Natalia, Flor, Amanda and I), it felt like one big class trip.. Everyone there was excited, with friendly attitudes and an adeventurous spirit.. Some people were younger than me, some people were older.. People in their 20’s and in their 70’s. The hikes were long enough and difficult enough to be challenging without being too difficult for the average person. I felt sore for a couple days after the trip – but it was the good kind of sore..

I don’t get to see Natalia nearly enough – she lives in Madrid, which is a city outside of Bogota…But she’s always good for some fun.. She’s the one who packed Coronitas, which are little baby cans of Corona beer to celebrate our climb on the biggest hike of the trip..

That was kind of a crazy day – because it started out a little drizzly, which felt good.. But as we were climbing back up to return, the fog rolled in and it was complete. Just after we reached the summit, the fog pretty much obliterated any kind of landscape. (The people trailing behind us were completely invisible to us in the dense fog.)

Now if only I could do this every week…

Thanks to the folks in the group for editing and sharing this video with me..