Los Fallarones National Park day 7 - Thursday

The Pance River has its beginning high in the Los Fallarones, in the rainfall that falls as the clouds carrying the warm moist air from the Pacific Ocean rise in a valiant attempt to cross the 3,000 meter escarpments. Most days the clouds fail to cross the peaks and the Gods celebrate by playing boules in the sky. The crash of the God’s balls send thunder rolling across the sky and lightning lights up the peaks. The clouds give up their quest and spectacularly dump their contents onto the mountain top and depending on the precise point of release, the precipitation fills the rivers flowing west back to the Pacific Ocean, or they feed the Pance and Cali rivers that tumble eastward down the hillsides towards Cali.

The Pance River is a key component in the Los Fallarones nature reserve. Nature trails have been established along the banks of the river and venturing a little distance into the forest and this is where we spent our day. We walked the trails, watched and listened to the birds and the butterflies, marveled at the industriousness of giant red ants as they carried pieces of green grass and yellow and purple blossoms across the path into the tunnel that led to ant nest, watched for but did not see and mammalian wild life and listened to the comforting sounds of the river bubbling and gurgling its way across the rocks in the river bed.

We bathed tired feet in the icy cold waters of the river and sat on the bank and listened to the soothing water, then ate a late lunch at the Ecological Park in an outdoor restaurant constructed from Guadua – a local cousin of the bamboo, but with stems that have a larger diameter and are obviously much stronger than bamboo. The food, as usual, was tasty and filling so we sat a lot longer and enjoyed the beautiful day, the gorgeous surroundings and each others company.