Fear & Heights in Suesca

15th-19th January – We left Bogota after an excellent breakfast of waffles with chocolate and caught the TransMilenio (an excellent form of inter-city transport which links up most of the city) to the North of the city. The bus to Suesca was pretty uneventful apart from the burst tire that slowed us down a little but we arrived in the middle of the afternoon and was dropped off in the central plaza. After some guessing and some abysmal attempts to converse with the locals in our Spanglish we caught a small shuttle bus to Hostel El Vivac.

The hostel was in the middle of a farm full of dogs, surrounded by beautiful countryside. We practically had the place to ourselves which included a kitchen, hammock and apparently a Turkish bath that we never found. We dumped our gear and walked into what looked like the centre of the village which was basically 3 shacks and a small tumble weed rolling past. Most of the locals were drinking along the road side as there wasn´t much else to do so we thought we´d join them with an early cervesa. In the evening we found a small restaurant with several chickens rotating over a BBQ. This turned out to be the only option on the menu so we ordered 2 whole chickens for 10,000 peso´s each which is about 3 pounds 50. The chickens were served with very salty baked potatoes, plantain (fried banana) and came with plastic gloves to eat the chicken with! I guess it saves on cutlery and makes you feel like an animal simultaneously.

Over the next few days we manged to do some mountain biking and hiking, but the highlight was the rock climbing. On the first day we hired a guide who took us to the beginner rocks which were about 50 feet high and were quite challenging in parts. We all managed to conquer them and felt pretty good about ourselves. On the second day with the guide he took us further up the valley to some much tougher (and higher) climbs. The first one was a 90 foot beast called “A Dirty Girl” with very limited foot and hand holds. When I neared the top I was struggling to find any footing and realising how high up I was, froze to the wall for a couple of minutes. The guide kept explaining that you must look at your feet in order to see where to put them but all I could see was the sheer drop below me. We all ended up completing the climb and absailing down including Spicer who fell 3 times but I will never forget the pure fear I felt on that climb. The guide then took us to a climb that included a huge overhang as you reached the top. Myself and Rice almost made it but couldn´t hold ourselves on the overhang and ended up plummeting down a few feet until the harness saved us. We got back to the hostel exhausted, sweaty and incredibly dirty to be greeted by the worst shower ever (freezing cold and barely a trickle) but it had been an excellent day.

Sausca was an excellent place to visit if you like the outdoors, the countryside, feeling safe and drinking lots of rum. Back to Bogota for a day where your sock becomes your wallet before moving onto San Augustine.

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