San Cipiriano

San Cipiriano is tiny village in the middle of the rain forest, on the way between Cali and Buena Ventura. The village is cut off from the rest of the world except for a rail road track, trains no longer run on those tracks, so locals improvised their own vehicles. It used to be hand driven rail carts, but now they are using motorcycle powered carts. The cart consists of a flat wooden floor, with 4 small wheels designed to run on rail tracks. On top of the wooden floor a wooden bench is placed, where the passengers to sit. A motorcycle is attached to one side of the cart, the back wheel of motorcycle runs on the rail, providing the drive and braking. It was fantastic traveling in the open air, on a railroad track, though sometimes the driver was going too fast for my taste; that made me wonder how often these things get derailed.

There is only one track, so when two carts going in opposite direction meets, one of them has to move out of the way to let the other pass. They told us that people coming from San Cipiriano to Cordova, have the right of way, so we had to get down from our cart, carry it off the rails, wait for the other cart to pass, and then put it back on the rails. The carts are not heavy, so that was not too difficult.

Walking down the streets of San Cipiriano, it felt like the most remote place I ever been to. It seemed me and my friend Tom (Thomas), were the only tourists there at the time, in the middle of a population that was mostly black. Later though we met another group of Swiss travelers in the village, and anyway during the weekend this place gets very crowded with local tourists from Cali, so maybe it is not as remote as it seemed in the beginning. As soon as we arrived, it started to rain; they don’t call these places rain forest for nothing. Every afternoon, after everybody comes back from work, a football tournament takes place on the local field, a dirt field that didn’t look too shabby. They played for money, each player places 1000 pesos (30 Euro cents) into the pot. Tom decided to join the game. After some considering, I decided to pass, my rib was still hurting, and I did not bring my shoes with me.

It continued to rain for the whole evening, and we got quite bored, we did not bring any provisions for avoiding boredom, no cards or other game. I did have a book for me, a Spanish book, but I don’t always like to read from it, as I find its language still difficult for my level Spanish. Luckily I had my ipod with me, and I could watch a couple of episodes of Scrubs, and CSI. After a good night sleep, and a good breakfast, we headed for the river. The river water was crystal clear, but a bit cold. We had a good swim, then we went and rented a couple of rubber tires, walked about half an hour up the river. Then we went down the river, floating on the tires. There were some small rapids, nothing too strong, still exciting though. Other stretches were very calm, where one could relax, enjoy the nature around and listen to the sounds of the forest.

After the tire ride, we went to get some lunch. I ordered the local shrimp dish, actually I am still not sure what it was exactly: river lobster? Some kind of river shrimp? Or a combination of both? Anyway it was quite good. Then we went again to the swimming area, where a few families and some of the local kids were hanging out. The kids were climbing the cliff or the trees, and jumping into the river, sometime from a height of 6 or 7 meters. I had my ipod and speakers with me, and put some music on, that attracted the local kids, who surrounded me, and started making musical request.

One of the locals had a sloth, I don't know if he is keeping a pit, or just caught it that day. It was first time that I see a sloth from this close, I could even touch it. It has a small head, rough long fur, except for one patch of short soft colorful fur on it's back. In each hand it had three long claws. A very cute and an aggressive animal. Anyway I did not have camera to document any of this, which was a shame; there were some good pictures to take there. Neither Tom had a camera; his got stolen in Guatemala.