San Cipriano - jungle mototrains of the Choco

Last Monday the kids had a holiday, and Eric headed off with the kids to a famous place that we had heard a whole lot about - San Cipriano.  It is famous for the locals using the old railroad track with wooden carts and motorcycles, called brujitas.  It turned out to be that and a whole lot more.  

First we had to get over there, and It is a long and curvy road to Buenaventura, that got the best of us last time we tried, but we made it in time. Jumped off the side of the highway and hiked down to the town, where there was some endearing mix of total disorganization and the services being organized into cooperatives, with tickets, etc.  

We got our ticket and jumped on the bruita, a set of crude wooden benches to which a motorcycle is bolted on.  We had a real cool driver, "JP" who was all ready to go.  But then we had to wait a whole long time because there was lots of traffic coming down the track and its all managed by radios at each end to only have traffic moving in one direction at a time, ( its like a 15-20 minute trip)  So we were told that because of a local funeral there was lots of extra traffic on the track and everything was getting disorganized.  

We also got to see what happened when the radio relay system doesn't work.  A brujita coming the other way with a whole load of visitors had to get off the track, lift the cart and the moto off the track, and sit on the sidelines while we went by.

The part that I hadn't quite figured out before we got there, is that they are basically taking you to a remote Afro-Pacific village, in the jungle, where there are a set of trails to different waterfalls and swimming holes along a beautiful and clean river.  There were even tubes to rent for us to go down some small rapids in.  It was a lovely place, and with 2 kids tired and rain coming, we did less exploring than I would have liked, but had a nice time on the river. And we have already learned from other weekends, people here love to go out to the river with their whole family, and while away a warm afternoon wading and sitting in a cool river.  

On the way out we took the train a different direction uphill to a different terminus.  This was the town of Zaragosa.  Along the way there was spectacular jungle scenery, and a creepy tunnel, and views out to the river. In the river  bank I kept seeing huge earth movers behind piles of gravel and I wondered what kind of environmental disaster there was. Later after I got home I figured out that Zaragosa was an epicenter of a recent wave of environmentally harmful gold mining.  Such a contrast from the pristine jungle and swimming holes.  

and here is the video of the journey