I Went Swimming in a Waterfall

Well, I’m back from Banos. I really like that town, it’s very quiet and pretty. Beautiful mountains. I posted some pictures from my bike ride to the waterfall, it was so gorgeous. And the ride was so much easier this time. Either I’ve gotten into better shape (doubtful) or the last time I just had difficulty because of the altitude. This time around we went a little further, to a waterfall where we could swim. It was so pretty, and we all just jumped into this pool at the base of a little waterfall and had a good time. There were some random guys taking pictures of us, which was kind of funny. I’d never swam in a waterfall before, and I’d definitely recommend it. We went to the hot springs after our day of physical activity, and they were so HOT this time! Almost too much to bear. The nice thing was that it was pretty deserted, so there was plenty of space. Apparently everyone else was smarter than we were and didn’t want to scald themselves. It did feel really nice to just relax in hot water though. On Sunday a few of us went rafting. It was a pretty easy river, not too challenging. It was mostly floating down the river and getting pushed in occasionally by our fun loving guide. There was a convoy of four rafts, and we played games with each other. At one point we kidnapped a girl from another raft. Pretty silly. We jumped off some big rocks into the river too, crazy! It was beautiful on the river, definitely a great day. Our raft’s team name was Giardia, cause we were pretty sure that’s what we were going to get from taking in some of the river water. We didn’t get back to the hostal until late afternoon, then grabbed some food and headed home. Did have time to check out a really cool little market right behind the hostal, the food looked so good, but there was no time to do anything but buy a few bananas. Sad day.

I was supposed to be going to a public clinic near here called Cochabamba today for rotations, but the doc is sick or on vacation or something, so I’m headed back to La Maternidad today and tomorrow. Third times the charm! It’s kind of a bummer, cause I was only going to get four days at Cochabamba (since we’re leaving for the jungle Thursday night), and now I’ll only get 2. Grr. But hopefully there’ll still be time to do my interviewing.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for today. It was a great weekend, a good group bonding experience, and now I suppose it’s back to work. Only 3 weeks left of rotations, time has flown by!

New Word of the Day: casco (helmet)