Thursday, January 15, 2009

New Friends

(PICTURE: Hannah, in her famous sideways pose, standing in the "bat cave.")

Although our three day jungle "trek" was a lot of fun, it was also quite falsely advertised. On the first day we were supposed to go to a "Bat Cave." We went to the cave, which was pretty cool, but there were definitely no bats.

On the first night we were supposed to stay in an ethnic village. However where we stayed strangely had no villagers. The next day was our big trekking day and I think we only actually walked for about three hours. This to me was the big disappointment of the trip. For a "trekking" trip there was a big absense of "trekking." Overall I would say we hiked no more than 8 miles in three days. I was hoping to hike at least 8 miles a day.

Despite the lack of exercise we still saw a couple gorgeous waterfalls and more importantly made a bunch of new friends. Hannah and I met a really nice couple from France named Pascal and Raki. We met a great kid from California named Riley who was taking a year off from college. And lastly, we met Cathal and Lucy, a really cool couple from Ireland. Here's some pictures of our new friends:

(PICTURE: The Irish couple with some puppies)

(PICTURE: Pascal and Raki. This is really a video. They were frozen with fear)

(PICTURE: Riley is in the back left. Hannah has a lot more pictures of him on her camera. I guess I'm not as interested in taking pictures of single dudes as she is...)

Oh, and we had a pretty good tour guide too. Although like most of the trip, he was falsely advertised. He didn't exactly speak English. However, he spoke the universal language: MAGIC. He taught us a handful of sweet magic tricks. All I need is a string and I can blow your mind!


(PICTURE: Our tour guide/traveling magician.)