Friday, December 18, 2009

Day 7

Today I woke up to a loud noise that sounded like thunder but was very much coming from the ground beneath us. I got up and out of the tent and looked at Volcan Fuego (the one flanking the valley to the right) and she was smoking pretty bad. It turned out that she was erupting and the sound could be heard and felt over 8 miles away. It was nice to watch for a little while and it went off another 3 or 4 times throughout the day. There are alot of people who left yesterday so not it is only Erika and I, Tom, Lucy and Brian from the UK, Max from Maine, Tim and Estrid from Holland and YoYo and his wife who are from Isreal. After everyone got up and ordered breakfast we all just eased ourselves into the day. Erika and I did some laundry in the pila and me, Tom and Brian played ping-pong for a few hours. We heard of a hike around the mountains and decided to try it out. So Erika, me, Tom, Brian and Lucy set out on a small adventure. We started walking through the village and eventually made it into some local corn fields where there were quite a few families working together to harvest what they could before the dry season destroyed their crops. We came to a small Mirador (look out) and took some pictures there and decided to keep going. We went down trail after trail and continually turned back in hopes of finding one that looked like it went somewhere. We eventually found a trail that dropped down the side of the mountain through a coffee farm and eventually led us to a small waterfall. We stayed there for a little while and rested because even though we were only at 6000ft, we were used to only being at sea level, so our lungs were fighting to fill themselves. After we got back from our hike we all ordered lunch and sat around and chatted for a little while. We discussed what to do with the rest of the day and decided that we would try our hand at building a fire in the Mayan Sauna. So Tom and I went down to start gathering wood and preparing the fire. We got it going and before it got too big the whole pyramid of sticks collapsed and the fire went out. By this time Tom had gotten bored and went to practice some yoga leaving me to try and get the thing going. After many failed attempts the fire finally started to grow. The inside of the sauna started to warm and we knew we were on our way to sweating out some of our toxins. After about an hour the fire was finally large enough to maintain itself and the inside of the sauna was getting really hot. The five of us got in and slowly started to heat up. I of course started sweating right away but it took everyone else a few minutes before their bodies began excreting sweat. We stayed in for about an hour and intermixed the heat with quick, cold showers to cool our bodies down. It was a really cool thing to do and we all felt much better. We all showered up and went up to the main area where there were about 10 new people to the lodge. Unfortunately they were all really annoying and very loud. We tolerated them for a little while but after dinner Erika and I decided that it was time for bed. So we went to our tent for our last night at the earthlodge. It was a very sad night.

ENJOYING THE VIEW

FUEGO MID ERUPTION

THIS IS WHITEY. HE HAS A HUGE TUMOR ON HIS LEFT SHOULDER BUT HE'S A CHAMP AND NEVER COMPLAINS

ERIKA GIVING WHITEY SOME LOVE

WALKING THROUGH THE CORN FIELDS

PICTURE ATOP THE MIRADOR

TOM TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHICH WAY WE SHOULD GO

OUR SAUNA

A SUNSET THAT WILL BE MISSED

ME AND TOM WAITING ON DINNER

1 comment:

  1. you guys are truly seeing Gods handiwork and your experiencing His love in action. Praise Him! Wish I could be there. Nice pics

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