Our Hike to the Valle de Cascadas (Waterfall Valley) - By Maria

This past weekend we hiked to the Valle de Cascadas, which means the Valley of Waterfalls. This was a two day hike. We hiked into the Valle de Cascadas and stayed there one night and then hiked back a different route the next day. 

Starting our hike, before we got muddy

Our guide's name was Nestor and he was really nice. He was born in the mountains in the jungle and has lived there his whole life. He told us his family was indigenous to the area and his ancestors have always lived in the jungle canyon.  

It was supposed to rain a lot, but we were very lucky, and we didn't get rained on at all. It was still super muddy and extremely wet, and we all ended up with soaking shoes. The hike was hard, and lasted about six hours of actual hike time each day, but we took lots of breaks to see different things, to eat, and to swim so we were busy all day. 

Our guide would cut lemons off trees and give them to us to mix with our waters. It made them taste really good. He said that it was good for digestion. We filled our water bottles with the clean water coming out of the mountain, and it was refreshing. 

Me drinking water from the mountain

Squeezing lemons into our water

We hiked in a canyon and passed the river and lots of other streams going into the river. Sometimes we crossed on a bridge, but most of the times we had to just cross on rocks. 

Crossing on a bridge

Crossing a stream on rocks

Before we got to the first waterfall, we saw some monkeys jupming around! They were white footed tamarins. In the whole world, they are only found in this tiny region of Colombia. We didn't get a good a photo. 

In the valley, there were so many waterfalls!

 We hiked to the bottom of the biggest one and ate lunch there. The lunches were wrapped in leaves and tied with a piece of long grass. That was really cool, and there was a lot of food inside of that leaf and it tasted great.

Our lunch wrapped in a leaf: chicken, potatoes, rice,
veggies, hard boiled egg and a sweet plantain. Delicious! 

After the waterfall, we went to a charco in the river. A charco is a swimming hole, or an area blocked off by rocks from the rest of the river, so there isn't any current and it is deeper. 

Sitting on a rock in the river

Then we hiked to our lodging for the night. When we got there, we had some chill time and then we ate dinner, which was delicious. We taught a card game to our guide and a man who worked at the inn. We had a really great view of the waterfall we visited from the inn. It was very relaxing there and I enjoyed the peace of it. 

View of our inn. We had a room with bunkbeds.

The next day we had breakfast and then we started our journey back. We went a different route and for the first hour it was very very steep. We were going nonstop up and it was challenging, but after that it was flat or down and pretty easy. 

Our guide used his machete to cut us walking sticks off dead branches

On the way back, we stopped at a house/store. Because there is nothing around, the houses are also stores and you can buy drinks there. All items are brought in by mules because that is the only way to get there. This house/store was also the location of the school for kids aged 5-11. Older kids have to pay to go to school in town. There were about 25 kids who would have gone to this school, but their teacher quit, so the kids had no where to go. It was so remote that the only way you could get anywhere was by mule. A trip to Carmen de Viboral (the town we had just stayed in) would take two hours on mule, and then two hours by car. There were no ways to get cars where we were. 

This is the store near the school. The court is part of the school.

Soon after we stopped at that house, we visited another charco and this one was really beautiful and there were lots of butterflies flying around. We played with rocks and swam at the bottom of the waterfall. I liked to jump in from the mini cliff. 

Me jumping into the charco

We continued our hike and it took about another hour and a half and we finished! We were muddy and tired. 

Excited to see roads - that meant we were close to the end!

The hike was tiring, but it was very interesting to learn about cultures there.