Our guide's brother turned up with a boat
Nothing about that afternoon was on the itinerary. It's the part of Colombia we still talk about three years later.
The hour that was not booked
The afternoon was supposed to be a walk and a late lunch. The guide made one phone call, and his brother arrived with a boat that was not on any list we had approved. We went anyway.
Three years later, that is the part of Colombia we tell people about. Not the square, not the dinner that was actually booked. The hour that a specialist was willing to let happen because he knew the person holding the tiller.
Nothing about the boat was improvised in the careless sense. It was improvised by someone who already knew the water, the hour, and the brother. That is a different kind of change to the plan.
Off the page
We still write itineraries. We also leave room for the person on the ground to throw one hour of them out. That only works if we trust who is making the call. In Colombia, we do, which is why the boat was a story and not a problem.
The rest of the trip was exactly what we had asked for. The part we still talk about is the part nobody could have put in the first draft, because it depended on a phone call and a person we had already decided to trust.
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