What a Day...

So this weekend I went on a tech excursion. My whole group gathered up in a van and drove out 2 hours east of Ita to a one year volunteer's site near Lo Comena (translated as The Hive). We arrived Friday afternoon and did some work in one of his obliging farmer's field. It was an impresive site up on a mountain surrounded by a valley and tons of forrest.

The host volunteer is super guapo. Guapo in mexican spanish means good looking. But here it is meant as hard working. The volunteer built his own 1 room house, made his own squat latrine and works about 1 hectacre of land. He rulz. For the night, I stayed with one of his neighbors. They put me up in a shanty created of a bunch of 1 x 4 s and a grass roof. I kept thinking some crazy monster of the campo was going to come get me, but fortunately there were just tons of moths. Since there was no light in my room, I got to lie on a mattress (luckily i brought my sleeping bag) and listen to some scary cemetary movie from the other house in spanish. Unfortunately I understood it, and was scared shitless. I kept hearing the weirdest of noises and I didn't bring my flashlight! All I had was a little light on my keychain that I ran the battery out as I stayed up all night trying to pinpoint where the chupacabra was hiding.

The next day we did some more work in the fields buiding A-Frame contour devices and marking swales in a sugarcane field. Next we ate some lunch, pushed our van out of the mud, and went on our way to here -

Salto Cristal Falls

It took us 30 min just to get there, because we had to CLIMB DOWN A ROCK WALL 100 FT. I'm not kidding. After the decent, we trekked up a fast moving river just to get to the falls. It was nuts. I was not a happy Cassie. UNTIL I beheld this sight. We jumped in and jumped off those rocks right next to the waterfall. It was amazing. I never really felt like I was in a totally different country until I started swimming in this lagoon at the base of a waterfall. It was nuts.

The ascent was not nuts. In fact, I did not like climbing up to get out after I had spent most of my energy getting down and swimming around a lagoon. Today, I am crazy sore, but glad I was able to go.

Next week, I will be finding out where my 2 year site will be. I'm really nervous. And a little scared.

Thanks to everyone who has been writing me. I will write a blog about intitial thoughts and realities like Caffx mentioned next week. I've been writing about in my journal so I'll bring it and take notes this week.

Until next time....