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Published: April 14th 2007
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Valle de Apoala
A cave that we didn´t go into Except for Monday and Tuesday when I was frantically finishing some essays that were due on Wednesday, it was a pretty fun week. We took salsa dance lessons in the afternoons, and Tuesday and Thursday we didn’t have anthropology class because our poor professor is still recovering from typhoid fever.
Thursday we finished up salsa lessons. The professor was an amazing dancer, and we had lots of fun but not surprisingly, I am still horrible at it. However, we are hoping to show off some of what we learned at a salsa club sometime in the near future…
Friday we took an excursion to the Valle de Apoala (Valley of Apoala), a town of about 150 people in the mountains of the Mixteca Alta (Meesh-teck-ah All-tah). It was a long, uncomfortable van ride. About 2/3 of the road wasn’t paved, so it felt like a 2 hour long earthquake. However, it was worth it. First, our guide walked us up to a large, dark creepy cave complete with water, stalagmites, and lots of bats. Before we left we had the option of climbing up to the top of a steep part of the cave where there were hundreds
of bats…I stayed behind with our professor (I’m not a fan of bats). Since only the guide and one other person had flashlights, the prof and I were standing alone in the dark. All of sudden the professor screamed- it scared me to death so I jumped and screamed a little too, then realized it was because a bat had flown down next to us. She yelled to the others (in Spanish) that a bat had flown down next to her and asked for someone shine some light down by us. Everyone started laughing hysterically- how ironic that the two people who stayed behind to avoid the bats were the ones to get attacked by one…Needless to say I was pretty happy when we finally left the cave even though it was really cool. We then hiked through a canyon where we saw some interesting rock formations and vegetation. After walking back into town we were ready for the highlight of the trip- swimming in a pool of water by a waterfall. We were all ready to go in our swimsuits, but none of us had any idea how much work it was going to be to get there. We
had a long, difficult, steep, rocky, tiring hike down, but were delighted to see the beautiful waterfalls and the peaceful pool of water to swim in. However, we quickly discovered that the water was freezing cold, and only a few slightly crazy people actually had the guts to go swimming. I made it to my waist and decided that I preferred not to turn blue and go numb, yet we all still had fun. During the hike back up I thought I was going to die. I am not really in shape to begin with, plus we were at an extremely high altitude, so it was very difficult to breathe and my thighs were burning. It seemed like it took forever, but fortunately with a few short rests and a lot of water I eventually made it to the top alive. Exhausted, we then endured the bumpy 3-hour van ride back to Oaxaca where we were all happy to get cleaned up and rest.
This morning I woke up and my thighs are reeeally sore. It feels like I did a thousand squats and climbed a thousand stairs, but all the hiking was probably equivalent to that. I will
probably go home with thighs of steel…Jaja.
Anyway, everything is still going well although next week is going to be crazy. I have to finish up 4 more days of community service at the school since they’ve been on vacation, plus I still have intercambio, plus we have an exam, plus we start back up with Spanish class, plus we have to get ready for our week in Chiapas. Yikes! Being busy makes the time fly by, which I’m not sure if it is good or bad, as I will be extremely sad to leave Oaxaca but very excited to see my friends and family. Only 5 more weeks!
Besitos,
Janna
P.S. First, I apologize for my last blog and any other blogs with lots of typos. Sometimes I write my blogs really fast when I’m really tired, and don’t take the time to proofread them. Secondly, there are a lot more amazing pictures from our excursion on others people’s cameras, including pictures with me, which I plan to get from them and upload later.
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