Someone came to pick up the frog. They sent us a pic so we would know lil’ dude is ok.

Quite the interesting morning. I opened my suitcase this morning to find a stowaway. I messaged our guides and apparently he is a tree frog. I can’t believe he survived three flights in the cargo hold plus all the stuff in between. He must be in a bad way but he was so fast that right after I was able to snap this pic (to ensure he was not one of the frogs whose skin is poisonous) he pulled a runner and is now somewhere in our room. We were told to leave out some water and the staff would try to trap him. He is not indigenous to this area so they have to figure out what to do about him.
Needless to say, he gave me quite a scare. I’m sure anyone not already awake when he hopped out from under a pile of clothes was awake after my screaming.

UPDATE: The hotel has him in a container with some water and leaves and stuff. Someone from the authorities is coming to pick him up. Hopefully they will get him back where he belongs or at least to a zoo or something with an environment where he can be happy.

Also – all along the way everyone at the hotel has been apologizing for “the inconvenience”. I’m like – I brought a live animal into your hotel, why are YOU apologizing???? Daniel tells me “Apologizing for everything is the Colombian way.”

Travel day today. Boat ride to teeny-tiny plane to small plane to big plane.

Out room in Medellin has a giant tub. At the foot of the beds…

This is Luz. Her family owns this beautiful cacao farm near the hotel. She showed us how chocolate is made!

At this stage, they told us that cacao is a great exfoliator. They were not wrong. It also smells amazing!

At the hotel, they made us hot chocolate with the cacao we made on the farm (ok, Luz really did the making. I was pretty hopeless).

I really like how so many trail-heads here have a furry welcoming committee.

Daniel with a pretty hitchhiker.

These petroglyphs are over 10,000 years old. They’re not sure exactly who put them here. They go well into the water, which indicates they were there before the river was.

These punk-rock looking birds are all over the area. They call them “stinky turkeys”. Not sure why…

Sunset serenade. This is Jaime. He is a self-taught musician from this beautiful place. He writes and sings songs about the parks and other areas. This song is the “anthem” of La Macerena.

This plant is on the 5 mil peso note. Really USA, we need to do better.

Our rewards for a full day of hiking.

These monkeys come around the hotel at dawn and dusk. One tried to pee on me. Like – full-on no mistake, I kept jumping out of the way and it would jump over where I was standing and pee/poo some more. Lil’ dude had good aim, too! I barely got out of the way in time and had to run into the dining building. I think they find it funny. (Which, ok – if you’re not the one getting peed on, it pretty much is).

So – in the park is Caño Cristales, which you may have seen in the last scene of the movie Encanto

The colors in the river come from a plant that can only be found in this place. It is different colors based on the season, the location, the amount of sunlight it gets, etc. It can be green, yellow, red, purplish, or brown, making

it the river of many colors.