Rio Pance

Colombia has more holidays than almost any other country. Last Friday, May 1^st, was Labor Day. We decided to take advantage of the holiday by going to a cabin on a river about forty five minutes from Cali.

We all packed our backpacks and headed downstairs (we live on the 4^th floor) to catch the bus. We debated taking a taxi ($9) or the bus ($3). Eventually the bus backers prevailed and we waited on a shady street corner for it to arrive. After 15 minutes the bus came. We got on and were somewhat disappointed to have to stand, except Anna who got a seat. She and Barb were in the front part of the bus and Ian and Joel and Steve were in the back.

At first this was OK but somewhat uncomfortable until more and more people started squeezing onto the bus. The Pance river where we were all headed is THE place to go and cool off on holidays, and there was a literal flood of people squeezing onto our bus until there was absolutely no way to get another body in and still shut the door. The guys in the back of the bus (Steve Ian and Joel) were starting to get nervous as we were doing a kind of horizontal twister game and couldn't even see each other. Miraculously a kind man gave us his seat and we managed to fit Steve, Joel, and all three backpacks into it.

Eventually we arrived at the Pance river and saw people swimming, picnicking, and sitting on big round rocks in the fairly shallow rushing river. The river cuts through the lush green mountains and reminds us somewhat of the Smokey Mountains. We checked into our "cabin" which was really a little concrete row-house inside the water park complex. It cost $28 for five of us to stay at the cabin and have unlimited access to the water park, the thatched huts, play areas, and game room (actually that cost a total of $1 extra for all five of us). The only criticism we had was that they only ran water down the big slides a couple of hours a day in order to save on water (wouldn't the water recirculate anyway?).

Although our visit to the Pance river was a nice change of pace, it also made us appreciate getting back to our own cozy liitle nook in Cali.