I suppose that with a week and a half left, I will try to revive my vigor for this writing project and bring you all up to speed on what is going on around here.
In case you didn't notice, Thanksgiving was last week. Just a PS, I hardly noticed. It is true that we had a lovely dinner with turkey and mashed potatoes and pies and more, but I also got a healthy dose of subjunctive tense Spanish and quantum mechanics in Physical Chemistry! Thursday was great though. After all that was over, we played Farkle and sang Christmas carols in a effort to convince ourselves that it was officially the holiday season! It's hard to remember when your bus leaves at eight the next morning for a weekend at the beach!
But, we did leave the next morning on a 4 hour bus ride to Rocha up on the Atlantic Coast. We had a picnic lunch, settled into our hotel room (which included towels this time!!) and hit the beach almost immediately.
Autumn, Dara, Ben and I walked up and down the beach for a while getting ourselves more wet than we pleased and then finally Ben and I surrendered and went and got our swimsuits on. We didn't want to get all the way in because we knew that we were going horseback riding, but that was a lost cause for sure. We had a great time getting dominated by the waves. I was so proud of Ben because after three weekends of trying to teach him to body surf, he caught a couple of really good waves and rode them all the way in.
After a couple of hours, we went and cleaned up a bit for the horseback ride. We took a bus to a field where there were some random gauchos or cowboys and some horses tied up. There was a silver dapple that was pacing and pawing the ground and I claimed him as mine. As I mounted him (after fighting Ben for the horse) the gaucho made sure that I understood I would have to "drive him with much force" because he had a lot of "speed and will of his own." Sweet!! He was an amazing horse. He always wanted to be at the front of the pack and got really frustrated when I held him back. Once we got onto the beach, we got a nod from the gaucho and took off. Dara, Ben, Wimon's, and my horse exploded with speed and we got to gallop along the waves through the sand for a while! It was amazing! I have never experienced anything quite like it. There was one point where I was galloping and in the very front of the pack and there was nothing but coast ahead of my horse and I. It was an amazing moment that felt hand-tailored for me by God. Like a little reminder, a whisper, "I love you. This moment is for you."
That afternoon it was raining so Abel, Ben and I swam in the indoor pool at our hotel and then fell asleep watching a movie before dinner. We found a little hamburger stand for dinner and then chilled outside and went to the supermarket before heading back.
The next day we went to an Ombu forest project thing. The man that started it started it to preserve the Ombu trees that are apparently rare and fragile. It looked like a fairy tale forest to me. There were some trees that were big enough for our whole group to crawl inside which was exciting. We got there by boat and there was a little dachshund that rode with us and his name was "Poncho" literally "Hot dog" in Spanish. We saw lots of birds and lizards and talked about balance and biodiversity in Spanish!
Then we went to Cabo Polonio (sp?) which is a tiny little beach town that can only be accessed through a 30 minute ride in a 4x4 vehicle through sand dunes! It was really beautiful. We had a great lunch and spent all afternoon on the beach there. The water was so cold it was almost miserable and we worried a bit about hypothermia...we all made it through though!
After another dinner at the hamburger stand, we were all so tired that we hardly made it through a game of Farkle before passing out in our respective rooms. This morning, we all slept in, walked on the beach, played on a playground, and got back on the bus. We got home before six and have been tying up loose ends and preparing for an epic week of school, with finals starting on Wednesday!!!
1 comment:
I miss youuuuu!!!!!!
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