san gil (rafting!), villa de leyva

the last day spent in san gil was really a lot of fun! we went rafting down the rio suarez (grade 4) with a bunch of aussies and some kiwis from the hostel we were staying at! rafting is a lot of fun i discovered, the guides were good too so it was a success!
in the afternoon we left to villa de leyva, the route was really scenic, we were stopped and body-checked a couple of times by the police (or army rather). we arrived in villa de leyva when it was already dark, so we discovered what it looks like during the day only today. yesterday we hiked up to the santuario de iguaque, where there is a lagoon that is sacred to the muisca indians, the native inhabitants of this area. the hike was through a forest and then through a "paramo" (open highland), longer than 2 hours each way, and much harder than i thought! but the lagoon and the nature up there were worth it! the paramo has a special vegetation with plants i've never seen before, and we were drinking the water from the lagoon before walking all the way down. once we reached the visitors center at the bottom, it started raining pretty bad! we started talking to two siblings from bogota who were waiting for their friend to come down the mountain, when they suddenly offered us a ride back to villa de leyva! so we got in their car and listened to (american) christian rock all the way back, with them singing along of course! it was really fun, they're happy people, very christian too they said...so they invited us to bogota tonight, they're going to show us around in their car (with christian rock included, i am sure!) before my brother catches his flight back to italy...i have about 10 more days, but by now all the little problems disappeared and the travel bug has caught onto me: i wish i could keep traveling for much, much longer!!! i am already thinking about my next destination...oh, my stomach is also holding up pretty well considering everything, contrarily to my brother's. last night for example we decided to cook "at home" instead of eating out, so we picked some stuff from the supermarket, and i mistakenly grabbed a big jar of ketchup instead of tomato sauce!!! it said "salsa" and it had a picture of tomatoes, how could i know?? so i ended up cooking and eating pasta with ketchup! hehe tonight it's onto bogota for some night tour of the capital city, and then tomorrow i am taking off to medellin, the hometown of higuita (possibly the most entertaining soccer player ever) and the infamous drug cartel! should be fun!