Chicamocha

The drive South from the Caribbean Coast is long and hot – down a decent road that is stock full of trucks.  This slows down the pace somewhat. Once you hit the mountains themselves the number of trucks reduces slightly but the road becomes slower. It took us almost 2 days driving to reach Chicamocha National Park which is a large canyon with a cable car stretching from one side to the other.

At one end of the car park at Chicamocha is a police building so we asked them if it was ok to stay the night here.  Thankfully they were happy for us to do so as we were still 40km from San Gil and with the windy mountain road and truck traffic this was probably at least an hour long drive in the dark. As it turns out this was a good place to stay and it was a cool night (our first for what seems like a long time).

The park itself was quite entertaining (although expensive) with great views and a monument to the Revolution at its centre (The Monumento a la Santandereanidad). The cable car was fairly interesting as it takes you right down to the bottom of the Canyon and back up the cliffs at the other side of the Canyon but the ride back is fairly dull as you’ve done it before.  You can of course walk down to the bottom on a steep goat trail but this did not take our fancy !