(no subject)
I got out of my saggy, double bed at 4 Saturday morning. usually, at daybreak, little brown finches tap at my window with their beaks. perhaps they see their reflection and are trying to reach another bird. My homestay mother says they come to this window every year at this time. On this day though, it was too early for my little friends. I sat at my desk beside the dark window. A mirror leaned diagonally on the desktop, propped against the wall. I braided my hair. I grabed my giant bottle of water and stuffed an extra sweater and a loaf of banana bread in my pack sack. I was going to hike up a dormant volcano. I didn't feel tired at all.
The sky was a misty dim blue when we piled out of our taxi's at the base of Santa Maria. A guy with crazy curly hair named Irish sat for a bit on a concrete slab with his wife, drinking yogurt out of a plastic container.(He says people call him "Irish" because they can't pronounce his real name-- Dave). Micheal and Amelia were from Minnesota. She had a gentle face. He was blond and short and spoke loudly with a good sense of humour. Crystal and Brian were younger than me but also married. They had just finished living in Taiwan for a year and a half. Our guide, Manuel, spoke hardly any English. He wore a collared white shirt and dress shoes. He told me later on that he was actually going to law school.
The hike started with tall yellow grass up a steep curving, rocky path. Then, we headed through thick, tall, BC-style trees. We climbed over boulders and lifted up our legs to pull ourselves over roots. The path got so steep that we had to lean our bodies into the incline. It's a three hour steep climb. first dirt and roots, pushing trees, then slides of loose dirt, jumping over a big crack in the earth, then slick mud, where half of my energy went into not falling down the side, and then, gray rocks the size of car tires. I finally pulled myself up one boulder, up to a thin green bush, and saw a cow's head the size of my torso. It was attached to a cow.
There were about 10 of them on the top, bony and covered with so many burrs it looked like they had some kind of parasite. There was also a circle of inidgenous people who had layed a bunch of flowers on the rocks beside them. Most were wearing tradinal Guatemalan fabrics with horizontal lines of thin gray and green and blue and whisps of white running through the linnen. The women's long skirts were heavily pleated they made big bunches around their waists that made their stomachs look big. One woman wore an american flag drapped around her head.
We sat along to peak and watched the cloudes swirl and then disappear below us. We could see the peaks and dips and cracks of other mountains. fog rolled in like thick cotton and covered us. We stumbled through the rocks, beside the cows, trying to get out bearings. People were chanting something in the distance. We walked up to a ring of people, holding hands, repeatng some sort of song over and over. Manuel said ...
more later
The sky was a misty dim blue when we piled out of our taxi's at the base of Santa Maria. A guy with crazy curly hair named Irish sat for a bit on a concrete slab with his wife, drinking yogurt out of a plastic container.(He says people call him "Irish" because they can't pronounce his real name-- Dave). Micheal and Amelia were from Minnesota. She had a gentle face. He was blond and short and spoke loudly with a good sense of humour. Crystal and Brian were younger than me but also married. They had just finished living in Taiwan for a year and a half. Our guide, Manuel, spoke hardly any English. He wore a collared white shirt and dress shoes. He told me later on that he was actually going to law school.
The hike started with tall yellow grass up a steep curving, rocky path. Then, we headed through thick, tall, BC-style trees. We climbed over boulders and lifted up our legs to pull ourselves over roots. The path got so steep that we had to lean our bodies into the incline. It's a three hour steep climb. first dirt and roots, pushing trees, then slides of loose dirt, jumping over a big crack in the earth, then slick mud, where half of my energy went into not falling down the side, and then, gray rocks the size of car tires. I finally pulled myself up one boulder, up to a thin green bush, and saw a cow's head the size of my torso. It was attached to a cow.
There were about 10 of them on the top, bony and covered with so many burrs it looked like they had some kind of parasite. There was also a circle of inidgenous people who had layed a bunch of flowers on the rocks beside them. Most were wearing tradinal Guatemalan fabrics with horizontal lines of thin gray and green and blue and whisps of white running through the linnen. The women's long skirts were heavily pleated they made big bunches around their waists that made their stomachs look big. One woman wore an american flag drapped around her head.
We sat along to peak and watched the cloudes swirl and then disappear below us. We could see the peaks and dips and cracks of other mountains. fog rolled in like thick cotton and covered us. We stumbled through the rocks, beside the cows, trying to get out bearings. People were chanting something in the distance. We walked up to a ring of people, holding hands, repeatng some sort of song over and over. Manuel said ...
more later