Out of the bubble......... One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.-- Henry Miller

 

The next day we equipped ourselves with flash lights and started off with another couple and a guide. First we had to cross the fast river holding on to a rope. It had rained all night and the river was in a hurry to get to it's destination. We were in a hurry to get to the caves and after climbing for a couple of hours through the dense jungle, we got to crawl into the dark wet adventure of our day. In the semi light we could see and hear the real cave dwellers: the owls. Pretty smelly....the side walls we were holding on while climbing and sliding through knee deep waters were covered in owl shit...oh well....it was too exciting to get disgusted anyways.

In some places we had to jump off the rock into the dark, landing in water we had to trust was deep enough. Some places we slid down water slides - smooth rocks, polished by water in time. What a ride!! A whole hour through narrow channels which were leading around and through deep, shallow waters until we saw the light and heard the owls and climbed down a rope ladder into the Rio Claro across to the other side holding on to the rope again and down the jungle path to our camp. Maybe it wasn't all together enough of an adventure, but some manmade platform along the river suggested we jump off 26+ feet into the rushing river just for a little more thrill. I followed the guide and the other man and jumped................eight meters. I didn't land right, I could feel it. Coming up to the surface I could see the guides concerned face, reaching for my hand  and yelling if I had pain and pulling me to shore. I couldn't really tell what exactly was going on, but my back was in spasms and while I was walking and pretending all is well it just kept getting worse until I felt my stomach in my throat and all I wanted to do was laying down, pretending this didn't happen. Well, I was still walking, I was still alive, so it couldn't have been that bad, right?

Spent the night with lots of Ibuprofen - best medicine is to be back on the bike...the flat valley of the Rio Magdalena was calling and the next day was on.