At a camp in La Vega

Sept 18 and 19
The Aposento Alto Iglesias own a camp in a resort town called Villa de Leyva about 3 hours from Bogotá. It's only used 5 or 6 times a year because of the distance and cost to travel there. David found out about a camp for sale about 1 hour from Bogotá, so he took the whole family there to see it. The caretaker and his family live in the main house. Their names are Jhon Freddy and Marcella, and they have 3 kids, 2 girls ages 6 and 4 and a little boy age 2. The camp is owned by "Word of Life", but they have not put money into it and it needs some TLC. They pay this family peanuts to maintain the camp. I felt so rich and American after seeing how they lived. A sparse refrigerator, no washer/dryer that I could see, no oven, no hot water for dishes.

The campground was beautiful, nestled in the mountains with little farms hugging the hills. Directly across the valley was a small platano farm, it was so pretty with these big purple balls hanging down out of the palm-tree looking trees. The kids had a blast. They had a very tame horse that all the kids got to ride. They have some pretty wild cows and usually lasso one to milk it. Davey got to lasso one the last time he was there and milk it.

David had been telling me about the waterfall on the property (picture does not do it justice), and we really wanted to see it. It was 11am on the day we were going to leave, and we realized we needed to see it 'now or never'. So, we grabbed bathing suits, giant jug of water as it was really hot, and some snacks and were off. Marcella stayed home with her 2 year old son, so there were 3 adults and 7 kids under age 7! David had told me it was a 30 minute hike, so I figured it would take us 45-60. We set off across a cow pasture and then down a very steep hill. Julia stepped right in a big cow patty first thing and was howling at her green tennis shoes. So I cleaned them up with leaves as best as I could and ended up with green fingernails. It was a little scary with Georgy in the backpack pulling my hair so hard my head was forced to look up! Finally we made it down alongside the river and the real adventure began. We had to cross the river several times. This meant David and John Freddy had to take several trips across to help the kids and me/George across. Davey and their oldest daughter Geraldine didn't need much help. Davey took off his shoes first thing, and she had on galoshes, and away they went. We stopped when we were almost there and had cookies and some water, then made it the rest of the way. It is a beautiful waterfall, about 20 feet high. Everyone swam, except Julia, who finally got her nerve up to get her toes wet when we were ready to leave. At the very end David held George and I got to go under the waterfall....it took my breath away, it was chilly water and pounding very hard, but it felt wonderful to wipe away the cow foo-foo and sweat. Just as were starting the very long process of getting shoes put back on, it started to rain, a cold, pelting rain. George laughed for about 2 seconds then started whimpering. The little 4-year old girl was also crying. David and Jhon Freddy found a ledge to stick the kids up under but they were all pretty cold, so when the rain let up a little, we took off again. By now the kids were tired and David was carrying one and Jhon Freddy one or two, and me George and sometimes one other. Everything was slippery and dangerous. Finally we made it back to the steep path up away from the river to the cow pasture. At this point Jhon Freddy was carrying his daughter and Lydia. Lydia was crying because she wanted to walk. So I translated her request into Spanish (they didn't speak any English), and he said "y llegamos mañana", and we'll arrive tomorrow, which wasn't far from the truth. We made it back up but not the cleanest, it had gotten pretty muddy in the rain. Thankfully David had driven the car down to the cow pasture as there is a steep long driveway that I think would've pushed everyone over the edge if we had to walk it. It was around 3 or 3:30 when we got back! What an adventure...4 hours hiking! Our plan was to have lunch there and then leave, but we didn't want to travel after dark (6pm), and we thought that might be cutting it close, so we threw everything in the car and took off. I think we'll wait a few years before we try any more waterfall hikes!