I'm dreaming of a wet Christmas

Trip Start Dec 15, 2004
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Trip End Jan 02, 2005


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Flag of Venezuela  ,
Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Over the Christmas weekend we decided to go on a hiking adventure. Around here, most of the non-city land belongs to the native people. To be allowed to hike through or on it, you need to have a guide with you. No little pieces of paper hanging off your pack here. Because we had short notice and it was over the holiday weekend, we had a bit of trouble finding a guide. Manfred had interacted with the main guide in a nearby village a few times so he helped us find someone who was willing to take me, Matt and Heiko (another volunteer from Germany) up to Chearie Caine (CC)(no idea of the spelling on that one, its an Indian word) and then back to Santa Elena. After an hour of literally knocking on doors of the little houses, we found one guy whos kids are grown and gone, who wasnt doing anything else and agreed to drop what he was in the middle of and come right away. Cool!
The walking was fairly easy, but the combination of sun, still air and loads of bugs made it for trying walking. Our first night out was near a waterfall (which I fell into, sigh) and had a great view of CC. During dinner that night (the guide ate with us, some of our food, some that he grabbed on the way out the door) we sang some Christmas carols, in three languages, English, German and Spanish. All to the same tune. It was cool. The next day we hiked the 1000meters to the top of the toophoie (again, guessing on the spelling). Its not as flat as it looks from a distance, but its fun stepping up to the edge and looking down at the birds playing the the wind. That night we got a bit of a rain storm, which would have been fine, except the tent we were borrowing leaked a bit.
The next day we spent 8hrs hiking back to Santa Elena, again getting caught in some downpours. This isn't any Seattle rain, this is full on drenching. It was fun to get out and see the country side, but man that sun can be fierce.
Were back working again, this week trying to replace rotting wooden playground equipment and repainting the metal supports. Its fun work, we hope to complete it before we leave.
This trip is a bit different then the biking ones. For starters we stay in one place, so things don't change that dramatically. We have also been able to develop relationships with some people who live here. Interestingly, except for a man who Manfred employs, all our relationships are with Europeans. Not that its a bad thing, but I was looking forward to getting to know a non-white person.
Hope that you all have a good week. Email is sketchy, a 45min walk, sometimes its closed when we do make it here, so if I dont get back, happy new year!
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