San Cipriano

(A day trip from Cali)


Thanks to Thelma and Carolina (insert jokes here), I not only had a great ride through a rain forest, but also a taste of traveling without wheels. I will admit right upfront: life without Katirga would suck.

Fast forward through the very early get up, walk to the bus terminal, and the bus ride; the driver dropped us off in the middle of nowhere as per our two-word directions: San Cipriano. As we walked toward the shacks on the other side of the road, two young black guys raced each other to reach the, uh, us. They managed to argue, cuss, and tug while simultaneously making us offers and pressuring us to pick one of them as a guide. So we walked down a dirt road as a loud group of five, and found what we were looking for: the railroad tracks.

San Cipriano is tiny village made of shacks, buried deep in a tropical forest near the Pacific coast. It's only connection to the world is through a railway which rarely carries an actual train, so it's people use their own railcars for transportation. The village is cute and the river is nice, but it was really the ride that made our trip worthwhile.







San Cipriano railway terminal.


The village.



Swimming in drinking water. Quite rare these days.

Later, we took a bus to continue to Buenaventura on the coast before returning to Cali. Well, that was a waste of time.