And God said...let the Redskins travel into the hellhole that is Veteren´s stadium, and let them fall behind early, and then let them begin their comeback to victory, and let clinton portis run almost 150 yards over the best ranked rush defense, and let chris cooley gain over a hundred receiving yards, and let Randel El throw a touchdown, and let the Redskins go 4-1 for the first five games and send Philly to what may become another 8-8 season...
And it was done....and it was good.
I´m beginning to seriously question whether my proximity to my favorite football teams is actually a bad thing...as whenever I go out of the country, my teams do exceptionally well...
Anyways, back to the rainforest.
So on day 3 of our trip, we wake up for breakfast, and then put on our galoshes and start what our guide says will be a 3-4 hour hike into the jungle. During this hike, we hear more stories about different types of plants, wade through streams and rivers, and, oh yeah, we climb over a couple waterfalls...that´s right, climbing giant waterfalls using only a rope, and getting hella soaked in the process. The ridiculous part is that we ran into another hiking group, whose guide climbed up the hardest waterfall in shorts and flipflops. This hike was one of the longest I´ve ever been on, and I´m pretty sure we ended up completing it in more like 5 hours. Halfway through it, after CLIMBING THE WATERFALLS, we came upon another one that fell into a pool, and there we were able to shower, relax for a little bit, and take what is the single-most badass picture of me in existence (I SWEAR pictures are coming soon....for now you´re just going to have to trust me...this picture will make you gasp in awe), before climbing straight up the side of a mountain. At some point in our trek, Enrique, our guide, decides to take his own path instead of the path that most tours take. And by "path", I mean "where the hell is he taking us I think we´re going to die in the jungle"...seriously, apparently in the Amazon there is no level ground...we were either going straight up or straight down for well over an hour and a half. And Enrique, like the good guide/shaman that he is, was constantly farther away than the majority of our group could see. However, at one point he waited for us to catch up and grabbed a vine that was hanging down from a tree and swung out a good twenty feet over a hill that dropped another good 100 feet...and then allowed all of us to do it as well...pretty sweet. Finally, nearing the end of our hike, he got very serious, showed us some pawprints, said that there had been a panther that had passed by the night before, and then told us that we all needed to hurry up because it was very likely that it would be coming back in a couple hours to hunt. Ha....fun times in the amazon....
After our hike was over, we ate a meal consisting of an entire fried fish, head and all, and then relaxed in the swinging-cloth-like-beds-that-rhyme-with-shamrocks for an hour before saying goodbye to Enrique and heading back to our taxis. At this point I was a little bummed because I felt that nothing could compare to the absolutely relaxing atmosphere that the first camp had had.
BOY was I wrong...
We made the drive to Shangrila, and on our way there our taxi driver said that it had one of the most beautiful views he´d ever seen. So I began to get a little more excited about this place. When we arrived, we had another small walk down this hill to get to our place for the next 3 nights, and upon turning a corner, we were greeted with the sight of a massive resort-style lodge. This place was beautiful. It was on the side of a mountain, so it had a massive drop down to the Napo River below, and looking out from our cabins were miles and miles of rainforest, trees as far as the eyes could see, and mountains in the distance. I am not exaggerating by saying it was probably the most beautiful landscape I´ve ever seen. AND, more importantly, the resort had a BAR!!!! Since we had gotten there right before dinner, we ate, went to the bar to play capitalism and kings, and then went to bed.
Next part of the story coming soon...I need to prepare for my first day of class, wish me luck...my vacation is over...
September! Week 3
15 years ago
2 comments:
Bryce, I would like to point out that your obsession with hammocks (proper spelling, do they not have dictionaries in Ecuador) is a bit startling, but also more importantly, according to Wikipedia, The ultimate end for the 33-year old stadium (Veterans Stadium) came with a record-setting (62 seconds) implosion on March 21, 2004. Which in my opinion, obviously was not fast enough. The Eagles now play at the equal as hellacious Lincoln Financial Field, where the Redskins were victors 23-17 yesterday. HAIL TO THE REDSKINS!
P.S. I'm starting to come around on Campbell and Zorn
Yeah, so I didn´t actually read your post because it´s a little long-winded...god...but I did surbscribe to your blog on my iGoogle page so I promise I will read soon. Hope Machala is treating you well. Ambato is growing on me and I love my classes, so life is good. Ferriado this Friday!!
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