El Araque - Rovira

El Araque is a loverly gorge that has amazing waterfall's and an easy rock-climbing area.

Rock formations are usually the result of weathering and erosion sculpting the existing rock. A gorge is most often carved landscape by the erosive activity of a river over geologic timescales. Usually a river or stream and erosion carve.

Magma that has risen from deep within the earth and cools into these shapes

I am not exactly sure how the rocks were formed, as this is in part of the central mountain range of the Colombian Andes (That a volcano belt. See: Wikipedia- Volcanic belt & Andean Volcanic belt) the nearest active volcano is only 60 old k's north away "Volcán Nevado del Tolima" and can also be viewed from Buena vista on a clear day, another 15 k's south from here.

Another waterfall and beautiful rock formation

El Araque gorge reminds me of The Alcantara Gorge in Sicily (Several thousand years ago, the river bed was blocked by a lava flow from Mount Etna. As the lava was cooled much more quickly by the water than it would have done otherwise, it crystallised in the form of columns. Over the next millennia, the river naturally eroded a channel through these columns, resulting in impressive gorges and ravines)

Motor Taxi

This was an amazing find and day out. I spent Easter Friday with my Colombian family/friends we had a large fish lunch and the afternoon spent down the river. The 9 of us and a dog all in the motor taxi! This part of Colombia their ant many foreign tourists and its always fun to live and spend time with a large local family, living the way they do.

Stream location: Vda. Martinez, Off the main road to Rovira from Ibague. The river is a distributor in to the Río Coello