We woke up this morning at 6:30 in typical boot camp fashion. We dressed in our dry fit gear in preparation for the day of hiking we had ahead of us, then sat down to a delicious breakfast of gallo pinto, watermelon, huevos with some veggie in them, tortillas, and natilla. We decided it was a good mix everything on your palate together meal. It was so so good. I also had 3 cups of coffee. I am not even fighting this addiction anymore.
Yesterday on the ride up we stopped at a supermercado to stock up on snacks for the week, and stock up we did. I got JIF (our bff) and nuts and dried fruit. Ann bought dinner rolls. Question mark? So this morning I got to tap into the stash to bring along on our hike to the lagoon. They also had packed lunches made up for us. Yay food!
We were on the trail by 8, and stopped for our first mini-lecture of the day at 8:02. A piece of trail that should have taken one hour took us almost three hours. And we had only just begun. We stopped for a snack break as the "geomorphers" whipped out their GPS's and discusses the land formation we were at. Cool... Then we started up again.
For some reason that is beyond me, we were advised to wear rubber boots today. The thing about wearing rubber boots on a day hike is that IT SUCKS! It was cool for that first hour or so before the blisters started forming and before my back started to scream at me from lack of arch support. But after that point I was cursing my precious botas, wishing unspeakable things upon them. I envied Abby and Cayman, the rebels who did not wear their rubber boots against all of Fabricio's insistence that they would need them.
I guess we did end up needing them about four hours or so into our journey. Around the time that we stepped off the path and started hacking our way through the rain forest. Our guide Paolo, a dead ringer for Charlie Chaplin, whipped out his machete and did some serious work on the rain forest. Except he left about a million 8-inch stumps of palm trunk in his wake-- the perfect size for either tripping on or being impaled by depending on how you stepped/ fell on them. I probably tripped over a good 50% of them, just scarcely avoiding impalement. Falling ended up being the the of the day. When we left actual trail in favor of untouched forest, we also left behind walkable terrain. We were climbing uphill in straight-up mud. Fabricio kept telling us not to grab onto trees if we fell because the tree might have some nasty hairs that would be itchy. F that! I would rather have some stupid itchy hairs than to slip down off the side of the mountain and fall to my death (which really wasn't such an unfeasible series of events as it turns out). We had no First Aid kit with us, either. Fabricio and Scott found this hilarious, which pissed Cayman off. My personal favorite part was when we were scaling wet cliff face with nothing to grab hold of if we did happen to misstep or if a boulder came loose beneath our feet and we began to fall towards the stream full of jagged boulders. Good times. At the end of that lovely stretch, we were swarmed by the nastiest little flying creatures. Since normal human beings don't hike where we were hiking, the nasty things were just feasting away on the rare treat of human flesh. They especially loved Tia's white tee. At some point between the wet cliff face and during our slip n' slide mud adventures, Fabricio told us that we were only a mile away from the lagoon that we were headed to and that this last mile was flat and easy. Then he and Carlos set off in a full sprint, leaving the rest of us knee-deep in mud falling all over ourselves. We managed to schlep our way out of the rain forest only to find that we had one last cliff-face to climb straight up. Fabricio said "one last kilometer," so we sucked it up. Yeah right we were about to sit out one last kilometer after hiking five hours in pursuit of this elusive lagoon.
So we haul it up this cliff face in a feeble attempt to make sure we could make it home before dark. We ditched the K/Carlas because they were the weakest links. At the top of the cliff, we found ourselves up to our shoulders in grasses, and up to our ankles in puddles of muddy water.
At this point, I am under the impression that we are headed towards the greatest lagoon in the world. A lagoon full of an elixir of life, or at least a lagoon with healing powers to heal my blisters. In retrospect, any lagoon at all would have been satisfactory. That's right: after almost six hours, two and a half miles of trail (or lack thereof), 700 meters up into the sky, and a few more "one more kilometers" from Fabricio, we could go no further. The lagoon's beach had flooded in the torrential downpour from a few weeks back and Charlie Chaplin shrugged his shoulders, pocketed his machete, and told us to turn around cause this was the end of the line. I was ready for Ashton Kutcher to pop out from the grasses and tell us that we just got punked. I couldn't decide if I wanted to laugh or cry. Scott started to cheer, "Woo! We made it!" and I just lost it. I was dying laughing. All 6 of us were in absolute hysterics. Hypoxia had most definitely started to set in at this point. There is no doubt in my mind.
Abby, Tia, Ann, and I all really had to pee. I have never been a pee-in-the-woods kind of girl, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Plus we really wanted to stick it to the stupid lagoon. So Tia-ita taught me her techniques then sent me on my way. I will spare you the details, but just know that I shall no longer be inhibited by the lack of this great life skill. Go me.
Fabricio had offered to have Charlie Chaplin hack down enough swampy grassland for us to sit and eat lunch, but that option just barely lost out to backtracking to actual solid ground. Weird. So we sat amongst nasty bugs on nasty rocks and talked a whole lot of smack over our lunches. Our trash talking climaxed somewhere between "I LOVE LAGOONS!" and "Hey, when do we get to see the lagoon?" Then Fabricio gave us a talk about how he was once bothered by stupid hikes but it shaped his character so we should be grateful.. then everyone went quiet.
After eating, I took off mis botas to inspect the damage. My socks were sopping wet, which I knew was a bad sign. So I peeled them off and uncovered two feet full of raw blisters. The backs of my heels are nothing but blister, putting all the rest to shame. Ma, whatever "moleskin" you packed me is freaking ghetto. That crap fell off in a second and roamed about my wet socks the rest of the journey home.
The hike back took literally half the time it took us to get to the lack of lagoon. It definitely helped that every other step taken was a slip. It also helped that Hypoxia had taken enough oxygen out of our brains to put us in a state of delerium. We were all just cracking jokes non-stop. Group favorites were Lara Croft: Lagoon Raider (Ann) and survival of the fittest jokes. Yeah, we were making jokes pertaining to our coursework. We do that now. We also made a game of making different noises every time we fell. We ran out of noises fast. Although Cayman probably made a really great one when she stepped off the trail right onto canopy--rather, through canopy. Fabricio caught her by the arms and lifted her back onto the trail. Ridiculous. I just so wish that Deany Weany had experienced today with us. I can only imagine the things he would have had to say if he had been with us. Oh Deany, we miss you.
We were trying to outrun the setting sun so as to avoid navigating the rain forest in the pitch black. We failed. I was right by Fabricio, though, so I wasn't too worried. I called him a show-off with all of his leaps and sprints through the forest, and it made him self-conscious. He kept saying, "It's not my fault- I grew up here" after that. Sweet Fabricio. He also was soliciting us to join his secret nerd society. He said he needed fresh blood and that we were great prospects. We are, aren't we? Yikes.
So nine and half hours later we made it back to campus. In total seriousness, I feel so incredibly hardcore after today and feel that I have made my passage into womanhood. Okay so I can't even be serious when I start a sentence with in total serious. Don't judge me. The point is I freaking rule.
We had another round of mix everything on your plate gloriousness for dinner. It's really all just a blur because of my current state of exhaustion. Beyond exhaustion. We decided to take a rain check on both tonight's night hike and tomorrow morning's 5:30 am bird watching. Gracias a Dios. Tomorrow we will be hiking up Rincon de la Vieja, an active volcano. This will be a shorter but more intense hike. Ah! Boot camp will be the death of me, I swear it.
peace love and lagoons
