La Tigra 3

On Saturday, Katie and I had to be at our bus stop at 7:30 to be picked up by our private bus to go to La Tigra, a national park. Katie forgot her sweater so we had to quickly go back to her house after she had already come to mine. We ended up getting to the stop at 7:26, which I thought meant we were on time, however we waited and waited. Eventually we got a call from Blanca, one of our coordinators. She asked if we were on the bus. When we told her we were still waiting for it, but she told us that the bus was already back at the university. There had somehow been a mix up with our bus driver and he was early to pick people up, so we had missed the bus. I did not want to walk to the school because I had two bags. Luckily Blanca told us that the bus would make another swing around the city to hopefully get everyone this time. Once on the bus, we had an hour drive to La Tigra. We got off the bus and put our things in a truck that was waiting for us. A Spanish speaking German man, who the coordinators know, took our things up the mountain to our “hotel.” We were left to walk, or really hike up the mountain to our hotel. We started on our way and became tired quickly. Because of the altitude it was harder to breath. My group had gone up about a mile, when the man in his truck came back down to offer our group a ride the rest of the way, which was a little more than a mile more. We of course accepted, but felt a little bad when we passed everyone else still hiking. I am glad we still did it because later that day we had to walk two hours to a waterfall. Blanca had told us we were just going to take a nice walk to a waterfall. It did not take long for all of us to figure out we were lied to. Most of the way was uphill on small paths through the forest. The waterfall was beautiful, but I am not sure it was worth all the work. The way back was easier, because it was mostly downhill. We spent the rest of the day relaxing. That night we had “sharing time” where we were able to speak in English and tell the group a little about ourselves. Because this weekend was about getting to know each other we were allowed to speak English for most of the weekend. We had asked the staff before if we could have a campfire after our meeting. During the meeting we heard the rain and just assumed that we were not going to have it. Afterwards we went outside and saw the fire. I was amazed that they started a fire in the rain. Some of the guys in our group made the workers smores, which were new to them. Me and my friend Alex ended up talking to one of the employees at this place. It was really interesting to hear his story. His name is Melvin. He is eight-teen and is from the city on the other side of the mountain. He went to school until sixth grade and then had to start working to help his family. He works for fifteen days and then goes home to see his family for three days. He would love to learn English but does not have the time or money to go to school. His life is all about earning money for his family who is very poor. He was very interested in our lives too.

On Sunday we got up at 7:45 to get ready for breakfast. We supposedly had hot water, but no one could figure how to get the heater to work. While I was taking my cold shower, the heater, which is a part of the shower head, began to spark. I still had conditioner in my hair, so I did not know what to do. I hurried up and got out a little scared. I am not sure what we did, but we broke the shower. Oops. After breakfast we walked to the German man’s house on the mountain. There him and his wife make jam using the fruit found on the mountain. I bought some for my family here, and some for my family in the States. We left La Tigra and went to a popular tourist town, Valle de Angeles. We did not have much time there but I was able to buy some cute things. We returned home. I was able to take a shower, eat dinner, and got to bed early. Monday, I had class at 8:30. It was a grammar day; nothing particularly exciting. We did have a panel of students who told us a little about their lives and the school. Katie and I returned home early and used the phone and internet at the place near our houses. I wish there was more to tell about the day, but it was pretty regular.