Colombia's adventure sports capital — Class V rafting on the Rio Fonce, the canyon paragliding launch, and colonial cobblestones an hour from Barichara
San Gil is a small city on the Rio Fonce in the Santander department of Colombia — at 1,114m in the Chicamocha river system, 98km north of Bucaramanga, surrounded by the dramatic canyons of the eastern cordillera of the Colombian Andes. San Gil has become Colombia's primary adventure sports destination: Class V white water rafting on the Rio Fonce (the Chicamocha tributary that runs through the city), paragliding from the canyon rim above the city (the San Gil-Ruitoque paragliding corridor is one of the most reliable thermal generators in Colombia, with flight times of 1-3 hours), caving in t…
San Gil was founded in 1689 as a Spanish colonial settlement on the Fonce River, serving as a waystation between Bogota and the gold and silver mining region of Bucaramanga and the Chicamocha canyon area. The 1781 Comunero Revolution — the most significant pre-independence uprising in New Granada — began near San Gil and Socorro (the rebel leader Jose Antonio Galan was from the area), making the Santander region the intellectual heartland of Colombian independence sentiment. The revolutionary tradition continued: the Liberal and Conservative conflicts of the 19th century were fought with part…