Working offshore with #tidewater in Venezuela, a Captain (who, curiosly, is the great great great grandson of Pocahontas) used to tell me people from USA tells this joke: What is the difference between people from the north and people from the south start a story? people from the north says “Once upon time…” and people from the south says “you won’t believe this shit!!”
So, for the people from my city, its surroundings and a bunch of cities of South America, this story could be unreal. Here it is...You won't believe this s***.
A couple from the US was looking for #thinstodoinmedellin and called me to rent SUP gear to go to #guatape lake to paddle next to #piedradelpeñol
, so I went up to their hotel to meet them and deliver the equipment.
Once there, I explained to them the 5 places (different lakes around #medellin) I usually go to with my students and clients, how to get this places etc. When I finished, she asked me about what animals should they be looking out for on the route. I said birds, herons and fish.
Then she said: "That's it?" when she said that I thought: come on girl, this is Los Andes, the big rivers and places with animals are so far away from here or…… may be she wants to know about which birds exactly or fish names...I wanted the earth to swallow me, I was so embarrassed, maybe my spot wasn’t good enough for them, so I responded to her: well, yes.
Her answer impressed me and confused me: "SO COOL!!!"
So, I tried to understand and asked what was that she had in mind or that if there was any animal she was afraid of. They looked at me and said in chorus: "¡CROCODILES!"
They started to tell me some stories of when they go to paddle on the #everglades because they live nearby; some times they have to hit them with the paddle to make them move.
Once, he was in a very tight canal and was imposible to turn back. He was stock with 3.5m crocodile, which is as big as the board, diving under him for 45 minutes until it let him alone. I interrupted him when he was telling me this and said: "If that happened to me I swear I cry".
Also, he told me about dangers on the beach like Sharks, Bull Sharks and Barracudas, which happened at the shore as much as in open sea. I was shocked because all that would never happened in our beaches like #cartagena and #santamarta in #colombia
It was very interesting to learn about the dangers they are exposed to in La Florida, but, not here. This was the scariest story I heard about paddling , and definitely they will back here for SUP.