Weekend of Waterfalls!

This past weekend I travelled with a few of my friends to a tiny town called Santiago near Cisneros... which is about 90min - 2 hours from Medellín. We were apart of a trip put on by a not-for-profit organization called "Juguemos en el bosque" (we play in the forest), which organizes outdoor and educational trips for underprivledged youth in Medellín.

This past weekend they planned a trip to a finca in the small town of Santiago with a group of young girls from an orphanage in Medellín. We got to interact with girls aged 6-16 and enjoy a beautiful finca weekend.


One of the greatest things about the finca we stayed at, was its location, because it had 2 things... 1) access to natural pools of water and waterfalls... and 2) an old train tunnel you could go through.

So let´s start with #1.Our finca was located on the top of a steep hill, which offered some amazing views of the mountains and the small town below. It also had a natural swimming pool, which is a large hole in the ground that has water flowing into it from the nearby river/waterfalls. The only downside is the water is freezing!! But... the town we were in was REALLY hot, probably more than 30 degrees, so the cold river water was very refreshing to swim in after basking in the sun.


My friends and I were able to climb various rocks to get to various sites of waterfalls. There were 4 in total we visited over the weekend, some bigger than others, and all very beautiful. You could sit on rocks next to and underneath the waterfalls... jump off other rocks into the pool of water below, or just bask on the rocks surrounding the waterfalls and enjoy the heat coming off of them.



My entire weekend was pretty much spent lying in the sun, tanning and swimming under waterfalls. Not a bad life. Have I told you how much I love Colombia ? ;)

And #2 The tunnel. On Sunday, we had the chance to check out this old train tunnel next to our finca. We were able to go through the tunnel on these train like motor car contraptions. You could walk through the tunnels if you want to, but I dont know why you would because
a) it´s PITCH black when you're side
b) the tunnel is extremely long, it took about 10-15 min to travel by our motorized car, so I dont want to know how long it would take to walk it
c) the tunnel was super cold


Once we got on our motorized train thing I couldnt help but laugh, because the whole thing reminded me of Donky Kong. If anyone has played that game, im referring to the part in the game where you ride a cart through a mine... it felt exactly like that but in real life.

Our motorized cars went pretty fast through the tunnel which offered a pretty cold breeze (wasn´t so nice, since i was wearing my bathing suit underneath my tanktop and capris). It was pitch black inside and a little scary since the motorized train thing wasn't the most modern of inventions, and the tracks would make eery screeching noises as we rode along them. All was black except when we were close to the end of the tunnel, and we could literally "see the light at the end of the tunnel" haha.


Once we were on the other side, we hiked through a forest, and arrived at another waterfall site. Where we spent a few hours to enjoy the sun, swim, and of course hang in and around the waterfalls.


Here´s a great group picture infront of the tunnel entrance by our finca to complete the weekend:



Also here's a video of what it was like to go through the tunnel and come out the other end. You can see how dark it was and how fast we were going at one point.