July 2, 2007

We left the hotel at 8:30 for our "leisurely walk" along the canyon. Leisurely my behind! The beginning was OK, but as we got going it started to get really difficult. Half of the group was hardcore mountain goating along, the other half was lagging behind and I was sort of in the middle by myself. Hiking alone is not fun because there's no one to talk to, but you can take a break whenever you want. The scenery was fantastic and the colors were amazingly beautiful. The mountains were pink, red, gree, yellow, etc. They didn't look like they could possibly be real.

Once we finally climbed the hill to the school in San Isidro, I felt pretty darned good about myself. The school was interesting because everything is multi-age because they have 2 classrooms and 5 teachers. This is poverty (you'll see it in some of the adobe houses with sheet metal roofs held on by rocks).

A few of us took a small siesta on the playground then went to lunch in what was similar to dining in someone's garage, but the food was decent...and CHEAP. ($2 US each).

We began our descent and I kept up with group #1 (the hard core mountain goats) until the last 30 minutes when everything started going uphill again. Bre stayed with me and we went slowly up and enjoyed the scenery. Once we reached the hotel, we all showered, drank wine and played cards until dinner. It was then that we found out that our walk was 14 KM round trip!

We taught Miriam and Mauricio how to play BS, but we had to do it in Spanish, so it became "caca de vaca."


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