Trail Mix

w/Deb, Sect 1 and 4 on OCSP by twheel22 at Garmin Connect - Details

It was a mixed bag out on the trail today.

Nothing was easy.
It was a gorgeous day.
I struggled the whole way.
We were done before noon.
My knees and arches had enough by mile 7.
We completed all 12 miles.

* * * * * *
It may have actually started yesterday. Jann and I decided to go to a free yoga class at Impel Pilates Studio instead of a 5th day of walking at 6 a.m. This turned out to be a great decision. First of all, I got to stay in bed after Greg's alarm went off. When he had to get up (before me, did I say it was before me?) I was able to sprawl onto his side of the bed with ALL the pillows...for 15 more glorious minutes. After a long leisurely cup of coffee in front of the computer, a load of laundry washed and dried, a shower, and a bowl of oatmeal, I met Jann at the studio. There were 25 people crowded into the small studio for an introductory yoga class. The instructor was elated with the amount of the interest; I hope it continues to be successful for her.

Yoga was wonderful. I learned some tricks that will really help me with my aches and pains caused by the training schedule, poor shoes, and extra weight. The shoes and the weight I will deal with at a later time, but yoga helped NOW. The most surprising part was when, after using one leg stretching and working the muscles, the instructor said,"Line up your hips on the floor and stretch both legs; can you tell which one you have worked?"

I could! It felt 6 inches longer and like a finely tuned ma-chine!

My favorite part was the relaxation period at the end when we were lying on the floor and the instructor said something about finding that one place that wasn't relaxed - that wasn't hard, it is in my lower back and hasn't been relaxed since 1985 - and to breathe into it. She said to exhale away all the tension.

It worked! I felt that spot relax after about 3 breaths. Now, the other side where the piriformis has been kicking it for about 3 years immediately made its presence known:

"Don't be thinking you can make ME go away."

My right piriformis has Little Muscle Syndrome, and it has been loudly making its importance known ever since I decided only hamstrings and quadriceps needed to be stretched.

"Don't THINK I plan to go away quietly in a free yoga class. I. AM. IN. CHARGE. You will pay BIG for me....for BIG ME."


If only I had had a few more minutes, I really think that Little Big Mouth would have had to stuff those words, because I could actually feel SOME of the tension go out of It.

* * * * * * * * * *
Skip ahead past the groceries and more blah blah laundry. I decided not to go into work. Hey, I am a teacher and it is summer. Today I was going to be a believer in the School's Out theory. Actually, my boss, bless his heart said, "Don't come in this afternoon."

So, I sat in my backyard where the SUN was shining and talked to my daughter on Skype...for an hour at least. Well, let's say it was enough to be reddish in places when I came inside. Oops. And then Jann called and we took off for Oil Creek State Park.

So now I am ALMOST getting back to the story of today's run....butterflies flit from subject to subject.

Jann and I had a wonderful walk in the Hundred Acre Wood. We did 6 miles of section 1 of the trail where we saw the hiker's overnight shelters, some water falls, the bent nail? bent rail? bridge, and lots of beautiful lush vegetation. We caught up on news, made future plans; it was a delight.

After washing Miller Farm Rd dirt off my car at 9:30 p.m., watering outside plants, showering, finishing my afternoon smoothie, and packing for today's run, I slid back in between the sheets, packed myself in pillows....before Greg got home. I tried to drift right off to sleep, but my eyes were wired open. Sometimes that happens when I exercise too late, or maybe it was all the fruit sugar in the smoothie. Besides, my iPhone kept vibrating with messages from other OCSP-ers as they made THEIR morning plans. (Why weren't these people asleep? Don't they know it is only 5 hours until we get up and do it all again?)

At 5:00 a.m. I left Greg trawling for bed pillows while I got ready for..what? Hiking? Again so soon? Back up to OCSP, section 1 and this time, the task master (Deb) made me run. Okay, so she didn't make me. In fact she took off, and barely looked back, so I could have turned around and gone home....except she had the keys.

It took me a loooooong time to settle in. My pack wasn't right, my water bottle was too big and sloshy and wouldn't stay in the pack, my hat blocked the light and made it too dark, my bandana wasn't comfortable as a headband, the gnats were in my eyes, my feet hurt, and I had NO ENERGY. Eventually, a nice, long downhill run to Wolfkiel Run Pavilion took care of that.

On to section 4.

Section 4 has two back-to-back hills that take you "further up and further in" the Hundred Acre Wood. I wasn't into up or in by that time. But I continued on after Deb waved goodbye and started running. Yes, I ran, but not as much as she did, and hardly ever UP the hill. I stopped to take on energy from waterfalls, mountain laurel, the pine bed under my feet, a hit of Gu, and gallons of water. Well, water after Gu FEELS like gallons when I have to haul it around my mid-section, UP the hills.

I didn't hit my stride until the final downhill where I ran as flat out as wobbly knees and stinging arches can run downhill. By the time I turned onto the pavement (ouch, ooo, ow, owie) and could see the car I was D.O.N.E.

And so, I see, is this entry!

Here's a link to my daughter's blog. Maybe she will inspire me to write...

Blogging

Well, I guess I just lied on a survey. I knew it had been awhile since I had blogged on this particular site...the blog that was supposed to resurrect my angelfire journal...but I was surprised how long it had been! That is a function of the busy-ness of this semester, I suppose.

Interestingly, the survey asked questions about the use of my blog as related to stress in my life, as in do I write when I am under stress and if so, does it alleviate the stress, etc. HA! If the answer to that question is yes, how does one write to alleviate stress if one is stressed because one has to WRITE under a deadline for school/dissertation???

Hopefully, I will be back. I will try this idea of writing to alleviate stress once I have turned in this assignment!

In the news, daughter is back in her adopted home country after a "stressful" trip. Maybe she will write about it here...

The Leak

Pololo has begun a “boot camp” class to prepare him to take the GMAT exam. Normally this boot camp takes place over 3 months…Pololo is doing it in 3 weeks. The professor told him he’s crazy, it’s not possible, but eventually agreed to do it. The first thing the professor did was take away Pololo’s social life of course.

That gives you the background for my story, which took place last Saturday. Pololo was in class for 3 hours that morning, then we were going to go out to lunch and then he would go back to studying for the rest of the day. I was proud of myself for being productive. I cleaned the entire apartment, sorted through a stack of brochures for my own MBA research, and even went to the gym.

I had just enough time left before lunch to gather up all of the bottles we stash under the sink (we take them to the grocery store to recycle. It must be quite annoying for Pololo who has never recycled in his life, but he’s a good sport about it).

Of course I’m in a hurry because I’m still in my sweats and am a mess from cleaning. As I’m rushing to pull out the bottles one catches on the water line and…you guessed it…the water hose starts spraying water all over the kitchen!

With a string of cursing in Spanish and English that I imagine would have been quite amusing to an onlooker, I hurried to put a pan under largest of the leaks and grab some towels from the bathroom. But this temporary fix was obviously not going to last because by the time I grab the towels the pan was already full!

So there I was, on my knees and dripping wet, and realizing that there is nobody I can call to help. Pololo was stressed out and in his class, so I was going to have to find a way to not flood our downstairs-neighbor’s apartment. Humph, well fine then! I found where to turn off the water, or rather slow it down to a drip, drip, just as Pololo called. “Where do you want to meet for lunch?” he says. Ummmmmm…. “Actually,” I respond, “I’d prefer it if you came home first and we go together,” in my sweetest voice. That was shortly followed by some more cursing as I looked around at the mess.

By the time he got back I had managed to tighten the hose to stop the leak and turn the water back on with no spraying water. So all he had to do was chuckle sight of me dripping wet with towels all over the kitchen, and laugh at the mental pictures as I told the story.

I’m happy to report that my fix has held since then, no more leaks all week.

The only thing that was missing for this to be a true sit-com moment is that I did not hit my head on the under-side of the sink. Maybe next time…

Trámites

Well it has been a long day of trámites. Not sure of the exact translation of that but it's the stupid steps/paperwork you have to do for official things, in this case my visa. My current visa expires Nov. 10th, just before I want to go back to the US for Tgiving. So I spent the morning going to the Registro Civil to get one little piece of paper, then to the Policía Internacional to get another piece of paper (which I'm not even sure is the RIGHT piece of paper), then on to Extranjería to sit for 2 hours before I could ask my question. And I didn't like the answer :-P

You see, in trying to be responsible and not lose important paperwork I sent my diploma back with my mom and dad during their visit. I kept a copy here but where I made mistake was not getting it notarized... Sooooo....now mom/dad have to do me yet another favor by finding said diploma and mailing it to me.

I should have known better i guess.

Brazil - My bit of sun in the middle of winter

Well I am coming down off of my vacation high and getting back into the real world…sigh. But what a vacation it was! I would like to suggest that everyone take a vacation sometime without knowing where exactly you are going…and stop by an absolutely deserted beach sometime, there’s a strange sensation of solitude with your thoughts that no other place I have been offers.

Anyway, some of you have already heard parts of this story, but here it is. The pictures are in a separate email.

Pololo and I left our apartment at 4am on Friday (July 3rd) and a mere 30 hours later we arrived to our destination: Jericoacoara, Brasil.

Time-out
Background information for those who need it: My crazy friend RA (just kidding, Laur!) somehow ended up in a lost little town on the northern coast of Brasil a few years ago. There she met Brazilian, and stayed with him and his family. Last September RA and Brazilian got married in FL but none of Brazilian’s family was able to come. Sooooo, this year they had another ceremony in Brazilian’s town. Smiles, Pololo and I were all lucky enough to go to both weddings.

Time-in
So anyway, Pololo and I flew from Santiago to Sao Paulo where we had a 5 hour layover, Sao Paulo to Recife where we didn’t even get off the plane, and then Recife to Fortaleza where a friend of Brazilian’s family, Rosy, was going to pick us up at the airport. I have to recognize that when we landed in Fortaleza until we got to Jeri was the most out-of-my-element I have felt in a long time. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I wasn’t uneasy really, but I did notice that I didn’t know what Rosy looked like, and though I had her phone number, we don’t speak the same language, nor did we speak the same language as the car rental people, nor did we know how to get to Jeri without Rosy. J But we DID find Rosy and went with her and her husband and stayed in their home Friday night.

In the airport Rosy’s husband asked about our trip and was sympathetic to hear that we had woken up at 3:30am that morning. He said with a wink and a smile that we would be getting up at 5am the next morning, to which I of course laughed. Turns out he wasn’t kidding! We did have to get up by 5 to be on the road by 6 so that we could get to Jijoca (the last town before Jericoacoara) before the tide came in and we wouldn’t be able to cross.

Days seem to start much earlier in Brasil. Because they are close to the equator there, they do not change time for daylight savings. The sun rises around 5am and sets a little before 6pm everyday, and they plan their days accordingly. So, at 6am Pololo and I got into our little rented Chevy and braved the crazy Brazilian traffic, in pursuit of Rosy and her husband.

Brasil has to be the most difficult place to drive for a foreigner! Not only are the drivers aggressive, something that I’m used to from Mexico City, but there are crazy motorcyclists, bicyclists and walkers all going whichever way they want to on the roads in towns. Poor Pololo had to drive the whole time because I can’t drive a standard (how embarrassing) and on top of all that, the car didn’t even have power steering!

Once we got on the two-lane highway though, it was a bit easier, you just have to avoid the surprise, and surprisingly large, pot holes, that appear out of nowhere. Rosy’s husband (or as we called him, el tio loco) is definitely a morning person, in sharp contrast to his wife. From our car we could see el tio loco dancing enthusiastically and serenading a grumpy and half-asleep Rosy.

Anyway, in Jijoca we hired a guide who got into our little Chevy with us and drove it the rest of the way to Jericoacoara. We got stuck once in the dry, soft sand, but by letting almost all of the air out of the tires, driving on the floor mats from the car and with 5 people (including 2 guys who stopped on their way by to help) pushing we were able to get out fairly easily. We drove ON the beach, hence the part about getting there before the tide comes in, and in about an hour we were in Jericoacoara.

Getting to Jeri might not be easy, but once you are there you cannot not relax! It is immediate upon getting out of the car. There are no roads, partly because the town is in a national park, partly because it is all sand dunes which move and make paving next to impossible, and partly because it’s just a small town! You walk around in your bathing suit (cover-up optional) and flip flops if you want (otherwise go barefoot, the streets are all sand so who cares?).

In Jeri we stayed in Brazilian’s family’s pousada (small hotel) with the rest of the gang. The hotel was great because all room doors opened to an open-air patio with hammocks, where we spent a lot of time shooting the breeze. It was so funny with the mix of languages! There were some English-only speakers, some Portuguese-only speakers, some Spanish/English speakers, some Portuguese/English speakers, and a handful who spoke all three! At any given point you could hear some strange Spanlishese being spoken. Even Brazilian is starting to have trouble remembering to switch languages. When his mom dropped a dish with a loud crash one evening, Brazilian responded with “are you alright, mama?” But the best example by far was that DURING THE CEREMONY, Brazilian responded to the preacher speaking the vows by saying, “yes” hahahaha!

The wedding
RA, the true wedding person that she is, went to the beach with us girls after I arrived while Brazilian’s family frantically prepared for the wedding. The family cooked all the food, which was excellent! RA’s only commitment was that she had to be back to the house by 3 so Brazilian’s sisters could start getting her all primped and proper. She did show up on time this time though (for the Sarasota wedding the bride didn’t show up to the church until 5 minutes before the ceremony!).

The wedding was beautiful, on a small cliff over the beach with the sun setting over the ocean in the background. It was timed perfectly too. As soon as they said their vows the sun disappeared over the horizon. It was a destination wedding that many would have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for, it just so happens that Brazilian’s family LIVES in this “destination.”

After the wedding we all walked down the beach to the reception, where the Brazilian men tried desperately to teach us non-brazilian women how to dance Forro, a dance typical to northern brazil. We laughed a lot and twirled around like crazy girls trying to follow these guys’ moves, and basically provided a lot of entertainment for the locals ;-)

In Jericoacoara
After the wedding we still all had a few days in Jeri to enjoy. We road buggies over the dunes, rafts and beaches, all the while watching the strange skies which would pour rain, but only in a very small section of the beach. Driving toward it you can literally see where it is raining and where it is not.

Another great thing about Jeri is that you can sit on the dunes to watch the sunset over the ocean. It seems like about half the town treks up the dune every night to watch this spectacle.

Oh, and we also rode horses. Now, I am by NO MEANS an expert at horseback riding. I think I have ridden 2 times in my entire life. But I have learned that tourism horses are very calm, even bored. Smiles and RA’s friend Rebecca were a bit nervous about riding and so they asked for “very calm” horses. Well, the ‘very calm’ of the very calm horses means that they are slooooooooooow! We had planned to ride the horses to see a sand dune that is taking over the palm trees and then to a rock we had visited earlier that day, but we didn’t have time to do both. It worked out well though, because from where we were at sunset we could see that it was POURING at the other place where we had originally planned to watch the sunset.

Anyway, with Brazilian and RA as our cowboy guides, we rode the horses to a sand dune that is taking over the palms. It is pretty neat because these tall palm trees’ heads are barely sticking out of the sand!

Off on our own
Wednesday morning Smiles and Rebecca headed back to Fortaleza and then on to the US. :-( Pololo and I left around 11am to go…uh…east. We knew we had to be in Fortaleza on Sunday for our flight, but other than that our only plan was to travel the beaches between Jeri and Fortaleza, stopping and going when we wanted.

My goal, as many of you know, was to sit on the beach with a book in one hand and a caipirnha in the other. I’m pleased to report that I achieved it…many times over.

Our first stop was Ilha do Guajirú, an up and coming destination that is great for windsurfing. (No we didn’t go wind surfing). A very nice travel agency in Jeri had told us about the place and showed us a few pictures. They told us that it was up-and-coming, we just didn’t realize how far up it still has to come! Actually, it was a very nice beach. It’s neat because you stay right on the beach about where it says “Praia de Barra” on the map attached, so that as you look to the ocean you see the island across from you. We paid a fisherman to take us over tot hat island, then walked across it to the other side that overlooks the ocean. There is nothing as solitary (not necessarily in a bad way) as sitting on an empty beach like that!

They are selling the land off now for development, but currently there are only 5 buildings…one of which was closed because of a bees’ nest. In the entire little development there was only one other guest! Sitting around playing cribbage (which I lost, again…I’m starting to regret teaching him that game) we said it was kind of like being stranded on a desert island…but with caipirinhas!

Anyway, after one night in Ilha do Guajirú we moved on to Fleixeras. Out of all of the towns we visited on our own, this was probably my favorite. It had a cute little church in the center whose walls were more like decorative fences made of bricks. Driving in along the beach we saw a hotel with a bar on the beach, the hotel was full but we spent the entire next day in their lounge chairs on the beach. Our hotel was also nice. We of course didn’t have a reservation so we settled for a room with no AC, just a fan, the first night. But what a view!

But Pololo got very bit up by the mosquitos because we slept with our windows open. The next night we switched to a room with AC that didn’t cool the room at all, no fan and no view, but still with lots of mosquitos. Live and learn!

Then we moved on to Cumbuco, our final stop before the airport. We were actually having trouble finding a hotel there that didn’t look pricey and right on the beach. Finally we just stopped at one to find out what the prices were so we would have a reference. Walking in we noticed a pool by the beach and lounge chairs and umbrellas on the beach…”This is not going to be cheap,” we thought. As it turned out, there was a promotion for half off!

We had been staying in good hotels (clean etc.) but the closer we got to Fortaleza, the more ‘international’ they became. In Fleixeras we finally had a shower curtain, and in Cumbuco they had key card locks! I almost laughed out loud when I saw them, but refrained myself as I didn’t think the bellboy would understand.

And so we spent our last day at a nice hotel in the lounge chairs between the pool and the beach, or in the pool at the bar…And Sunday morning we packed up and headed back to Fortaleza (where the GPS was useful for the first time) and then onto Santiago, ending another wonderful trip!

A New Computer

My new computer allows me to use window live writer from the dock to update my blog.  Perhaps when I am done writing chapter 1-3 of my dissertation I will have some time to write in it!

I am also playing around with FaceBook which allowed me to find some friends I had lost in cyberworld.  One of them is a teacher in another state with whom I corresponded while I taught second grade. Our classes exchanged pen pal letters.  I got so that I looked forward to her long and rich letters and waited to hear about her family, summer jobs, and teaching.  I am so glad to be back in touch with her.

Which reminds me that I have been OUT of touch with Maz.  She sent me two beautiful framed photos of birds from her back yard and I intended to call her up to thank her.  But that just hasn’t happened…I keep forgetting to get her number…so I am going to have to sheepishly email her and confess. 

I absolutely love the photos.  One of them is a “Rosy” as my mom calls them and the other is of an oriole sipping from an orange.  That one goes in my office since our school mascot is an oriole.  Wait until you see it hanging there, Bright Eyes!

Waiting to hear all about my daughter’s trip to Brazil.  Perhaps she will update here as well.  But for now I am going back to work.

Chapter One….

Blog business

I realized in adding Rhea that two members didn't have posting privileges, only reading privileges. Sorry about that; I am a terrible hostess! I reinvited them so they are free to click on new post and blather away like the rest of us! ;)

I also haven't updated my mileage on the map and I will be forgetting it if I don't hurry up and do that. Later... I'm off to work for now, where Iris is already hard at it, I am sure.

Venting

I need to complain a bit, those not up for listening to me whine will have to skip this entry :-P

Next week I’m traveling to a mining show as a representative of not 1 but 4 companies. I have never worked with these clients before, nor have I worked much in the industry. However I have to suck it up and represent these 4 very different mining companies to at least 4 potential Chilean counterparts, per company (i.e. 16 meetings in total) in one day.

That’s not the bad part. It makes me nervous, but it is part of my job, will be a good learning experience and talking point in the future, not to mention that it will help me make contacts for the next time I have to do something like this.

Now, we would have liked to bring companies down to represent themselves, but 6 months ago when we looked for hotels there simply were none. The show is in a small town and the hotels book up about a year in advance. So the second-best-thing was that Danny and I go as their representatives (each with 4 clients). We were to leave on the first flight in the morning, work the show all day, and come back on the last flight in the evening. That kind of stuff actually appeals to me in some ways, believe it or not. You run on adrenaline all day, get an amazing amount accomplished, then get a day to relax and reap your rewards.

However Danny decided that the first flight was too early, as he would have to get out of bed by 5, and wanted to take the next one. Arnold, (the boss-man) is smart enough to check the flights before approving this, and realized that the second flight would cause us to miss half the day in the show once you factored in taxi times. So Arnold wants us to fly up the night before and stay... Remember that I told you that there were no hotels available 6 months ago? There still aren’t. Luckily our parent company has an apartment there for their workers that have to travel there often…but it’s occupied. Long story made slightly shorter: we’ll be staying in that apartment with the guy currently living there, plus Danny and I, and perhaps the other guy’s family!

Again, this is back-story, not even the reason I need to complain ;-)

ANYWAY, so here I am, nervous about the show, trying to find companies whose booths I need to visit on behalf of companies a, b, c and d, already with too little time to do it because we leave on Tuesday, when the second-in-charge calls an emergency meeting. (The office boss is in London for a few weeks, so her backup is in charge). One of the missions that Office Boss contracted comes in 2 weeks and we are apparently in danger of breaching the contract because we don’t have enough meetings. Now, before these companies signed up our office did market overviews for them and told a few of them that they had very little potential in chile. I guess they decided to come anyway though, and our office is supposed to schedule 20 meetings, over 3 days, on behalf of each company. If we get any less than 10 for any company we are in breach of contract and thus the office doesn’t get paid.

In all honesty, this happens fairly often. Office Boss has the habit of offering and guaranteeing too much and we often barely scrape out enough meetings (and they are so-so meetings, not good quality) to get by. So, as usual we all sat down and brainstormed about what other types of companies we could contact, and to see if any of us had contacts within those companies. I, of course, didn’t have any contacts. Soooo… instead of making 1 or 2 useful phone calls to established contacts, I have spent my ENTIRE day calling companies for this mission, updating information etc. I HATE COLD CALLING!

I’m not very good at it either. And you know what? That’s ok because I’m not supposed to be cold calling companies. I’m an International Market Analyst, not an administrative assistant. I already hated having to cold call the companies to make my own agenda for the show next week, now I haven’t even been able to do that because I’m cold calling for the lasñkdfjñalsfjk mission!



On the upside, I have gotten up early every day this week to study. Go me. But I have discovered the flaw in my plan: I now get up 2 hours earlier that Flaco, which means I go to bed at least a half an hour before him. Which means that by the time he gets home we get just a couple of hours to visit and take care of all the bills and other annoying stuff (like cleaning). And on most weeks at least one of us has a few after-office things to do, and the other is asleep before we get home. Since he is my only social release here, not having him to talk to in the evenings is a big drawback.

Oh, and that makes it only too easy to reason as to why I don’t need to go to the gym tonight :-P. Because it would mean: I got up at 6am this morning and left while he was still sleeping. Long day. I get home, change and go to the gym until 9:30. Once I’m done at the gym I’ll see flaco while we make dinner, eat and clean up. And then I’m going to sleep asap.

Ah well, that’s a problem to solve another day. At least I’ve studied for 4 hours this week, that’s probably equal to the entire past 4 months!

Thanks for letting me vent ;-)

*sigh

Day Three from the Southern Hemisphere

Trip to the desert, continued...

On Day 3 we pulled out all the stops. The preparation actually started the night before when we had to trick ourselves to go to bed early. Turns out it wasn’t that difficult. The day’s activities had us hungry earlier, and the lack of electricity meant an extreme darkness set in and a calm we never hear in Santiago.

On day 3 we got up at 3am to go see the Geysers del Tatio. The tours leave this early so that you can get to the geysers just before sunrise because that’s when you see the best contrast between the steam and the freezing air outside. Literally freezing! It was -14°C (6.8°F) when we arrived! We were dressed in many layers as we walked among the steaming geysers. The first place we stopped had been left completely natural so you could walk right up to the geysers at your own risk. After about a half an hour freezing are butts off there, the guide made hard boiled eggs, coffee and hot chocolate (which I loved and am still craving!) by putting all of these things directly in the geysers. Then we drove a little further to see some more geysers. The locals had built paths and walls around these geysers and even made a large enough hot spring that we could get into.

Now, how many times in your life do you get to go swimming at 4,500 meters in a natural hot spring when it’s lower than freezing outside? You gotta do it, right? At least that’s what I told Flaco. He fell for it too! So there we are, in the freezing cold, trying to strip down as fast as possible (which is not easy because of all the layers) so we can get into what we are told is hot water…it’s not. It’s luke warm water…ah well… So how many times do you get to go swimming at 4,500 meters in a natural WARM spring when it’s below freezing outside? The really hard part of course comes when you have to get out. Somehow I was elected to get out first because I “know how to change under a towel by myself” and Flaco doesn’t. (did I mention that there are no changing rooms or privacy of any sort?)

The good thing is that after you’ve shocked your body by climbing out of the water into the below freezing air, you don’t need more than a sweatshirt and pants to keep warm. Forget the parka, gloves, scarf and other inner layers you had on before! After that we all piled on the bus to head back to San Pedro. We stopped along the way at a small village and again along the side of the road to take a picture of the view.

But our day did not end here, I assure you!

After lunch in San Pedro we got on bikes to head to the Lagunas Cejar. Yes, ladies and gentleman, bicycles. Please remember that it has been many years since I have been on one, but then again the old saying “it’s just like riding a bike” has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it?? As it would turn out, that saying does not seem to account for the butt-bicycle seat factor. Flaco and I were worried about our legs getting tired, having trouble breathing at the high altitudes, and general body exhaustion due to our largely sedentary lifestyles, but none of those things were problematic. I did feel like I was getting a leg cramp at one point, but my muscles were never tired or anything. The butt was a different story. It was a 17km trip each way (34km total or just over 21 miles).

The scenery was of course beautiful, the road was a different story. We were just riding through the desert so it was EXTREMELY bumpy (extremely in this sentence is pronounced with the same enthusiasm as my grandmother’s “ENORMOUS”) and when it wasn’t bumpy you were trying to ride through 6-12 inches of very fine sand. Now someone who is experienced (with recent experience that is) at riding a bike would spend most of the trip standing up and pedaling. I, however, did not have that option. It was difficult enough to muscle-steer the bike through the bumps and sand that I couldn’t stand up.

So I sat.
On the tiny bicycle seat.
For 17 kilometers.
Of very bumpy roads.

Actually, on the way to the lagoons it wasn’t that bad (you know, with a fresh butt and all). The lagoons are very pretty. Part of their lure is that it isn’t logical that they are there. Nobody can explain why the water came up from so deep to form them. And the water of course is very salty so even I could float! Your feet literally pop out of the water. Now I know why Grandma Sandy finds it so relaxing to float in the water!

Unfortunately there are extreme temperature differences in the water in the lagoons. Theoretically the top of the water is very cold and the bottom (where your feet float if you push them down) is hot because that’s where the hot springs are coming out. In practice however I found it to be largely variable. Your right hand may be very hot and your left, freezing. And for some reason there are currents, so the hot and cold places are constantly changing.

Our guide brought a bottle of tap water so that we could rinse the salt off our arms before we left. The problem is that when you swim in salt water, salt tends to get in places that salt should not go. And then you have to get back on a bike with a tiny bicycle seat and ride for another 17km over very bumpy roads! Ah!

Needless to say, the ride back was not pleasant. My behind was already battered from the ride in when I got on the bike to go back. Every single bump was like some sort of Chinese torture. At the beginning we could talk about unrelated things to help occupy our minds, but by mid-journey that did not help and by the end there was nothing to do. It was pitch black by the time we got into town and after turning in our bikes we went to the room.

As soon as the door shut I broke down into tears, “my poor butt!” Ufff…live and learn: getting back on the bike is easy, it’s the bumps that screw ya!

We planned to have a nice dinner at Adobe that night with a nice bottle of wine since it was our last night in San Pedro. Well, after getting up at 3am to go up to 4,500 meters then coming back down and riding 34 kilometers to the lagoons, we were a bit tired. We went to the nice restaurant, ordered the nice food and the nice wine and immediately regretted it. We both sat in relative silence as we waited for a food, both daydreaming about crawling into bed (laying on sides or stomachs of course to avoid more damage to the buttocks) and going to sleep.

But the food was good and the wine was excellent and crawling into bed was even better!