Rio Claro, The Ol´ Rio Clare, The Ol´ Rio, The Ol´ Man

Getting to Rio Claro isn't as clear as the river itself. There is no actual bus there. Rather, you have to get a ticket for a bus on the way to Bogota and then hop off on the side of the road before the bridge over Rio Claro. For a person who speaks Spanish, this might be a simple arrangement to make, but for us it is always a mix of confusion and doubt as to whether we are on the right bus and if we will be told when to get off or have to guess for ourselves. Luckily, after three hours of our bus weaving through endless green Andean mountains through tiny towns and past military checkpoints, the bus assistant guy waved back to us to get up and jump off the bus. It felt like we were being left in the middle of nowhere.

We followed a sign for the Rio Claro Refuge down a dirt road for about half a mile and came to the river, calmly winding its way through the humid jungle. Thanks to its white marble bed, the river is known for its clarity. There must have been recent rains though, because it was more of an opaque brown than clear, but beautiful nonetheless.

Sitting directly on the bank of the river was the Refuge, a big two story covered bamboo structure, with open walls and a Swiss Family Robinson vibe about it. We checked into a “private room”, and our stay included three meals for about $23. Our room had some simple and dreadfully uncomfortable beds and was basically an open balcony facing the river about twenty feet away. It wasn't excruciatingly hot, but the humidity had us sweating profusely all the same.



With a couple hours of daylight left, we hiked up the river along well-defined trails built by the refuge. An amazing variety of strange plants, bugs, and butterflies with six inch wingspans in a rainbow of colors densely packed the jungle as we moved along the cliffside path. We came to a spectacular cave under one of the cliffs, with huge stalactites hanging precariously from the ceiling.





Occasionally the trail would open up to a riverside beach with the exposed white marble bed smoothed and curved by the river flowing against it for so long. The massive walls of the canyon fired straight up from the opposite side of the river, decorated with vines and ferns. Besides a couple of kids out catching butterflies, we had the whole place to ourselves. Paradise.



The combination of encroaching darkness and seeing one too many big, fuzzy, black and orange deadly millipedes convinced us to turn around and head back to the home fort. We had a decent dinner, the same formula of soup, meat, rice, potatoes, and a salad that we always get, and hung out for a bit. We were in bed by 8pm. It was pretty hard to fall asleep due to the heat and the comfort level of the mattresses being the equivalent of a stack of notebook paper.

We woke up the next morning, had breakfast, and hiked back up the river the same way we had before. It was a different world in the morning sun, with the jungle illuminated much brighter that the previous afternoon. The river had also lived up to its name overnight, and now flowed crystal clear. We took another set of pictures in the better light, checking out the same sights as the previous day. At around 10:30am, we settled in on our favorite beach spot, opposite a waterfall coming out of a cave in the side of a giant cliff. There wasn't a soul around. We swam in the river, which was a little swift at that spot but dead calm thirty feet downriver. A rope net went up the waterfall, and Russ was able to swim across the river and climb up to the cave, which opened into a large, dark, spooky cavern. We sat in the river and skipped rocks for a couple hours, watching neon blue and yellow butterflies flutter by and talking about how glad we were to be in this private paradise so far from the daily grind of home.



Returning to Medellin was even more informal than leaving; we hiked back up the road and found some army guys who told us a bus would come along eventually. Sure enough, about 45 minutes later this random, rotten little bus came along, stopped quickly to let us on, and sluggishly delivered us back to the northern terminal of Medellin.